The wind was high and cold and they clung to the side of the mountain as they descended, lest they be blown away. It was slow, hard going and every time Rayya glanced back, she felt a surge of relief that Carolinne was still there.
The wind lessened as they made it past the snow line and the sight of growing things slowly returned. The two of them walked side by side in a silence for a time, listening to the calls of living things and basking in the feel of grass under their feet.
Carolinne was standing up straighter than she had before and there was a new bounce in her step. The bags under her eyes weren't quite so pronounced as they had been and her hair was smoothed back into a knot at the nape of her neck that showed no signs of unraveling. As she looked down the path ahead, there was what might have been the ghost of a smile on her lips.
Rayya was far more relieved than she'd ever let on. The Greybeards' tests seemed to have given her new purpose. She knew enough from personal experience that one is lost while going through hardship without one.
"So…about that story." she said, turning to her with a mischievous glint in her grey eyes.
"Ah." Rayya chuckled nervously. "You remembered."
"A Pouvoir never forgets."
"Let's see, then…"
She stuck her thumbs in her belt loops and thought about it for a moment. The vivid images of monsters and heroes, of vengeful gods and clever tricksters upon whose stories she grew up on sprang to mind. She had loved them unabashedly as a child, had hung on to Iya's every word, had writhed in anticipation whenever she'd complained of her old bones and decided to go to bed before getting to the end of the story.
But in recent years, that had all seemed so pale in comparison to the workings of reality. She had begun to think and dream of her home with the same vibrancy as her childhood fantasies. The words so long kept in itched to be said. It was decided.
"What do you say to…a real story? A thing that happened to those who are still alive."
"Fine by me."
Carolinne nodded enthusiastically, her cloak blowing in the wind as they walked.
"Let me tell you about my home town…"
*.*.*
I remember so little of what it was like.
Has it been so long since you've laid eyes on it?
Years. Over a decade now. But it's not that version that I have difficulty recalling. What I mean is…how it was before the war.
Oh. I'm sorry.
Why? The war was everywhere.
Well…every petty lord of High Rock sent members of his household to join the Emperor's forces. And a great many of them never returned. But…the fighting never reached our shores. I grew up with stories of it from old soldiers and a general malaise about the state of the world, but nothing more.
Ah. Lucky you.
Oh, so that's where I've misplaced all my luck. Been looking for that.
…I should let you go on.
Yes.
*.*.*
I grew up in the city of Taneth. It's a port city, overlooking Khefrem Bay, on a delta bounded by two rivers. Agriculture flourishes there and fishermen sail the bay. Their catch is among the freshest you can get.
It's also the second-largest trading post between Cyrodiil and Hammerfell and just beginning to grow fat off the profits of its position once again. But those are things that you can learn from any guidebook.
No…the things I miss are what the city was. It was light and color and music and the scent of the sea mingled with spices from the marketplace. It was prim, pastel-colored houses set up against the shoreline. It was mansions rising up above the more modest quarters and casting their shadows over everyone. It was laundry in brilliant colors blowing on the sea breeze and flowers that spilled out of every windowbox you passed by in the rainy season.
I was a child when Taneth fell and all memories I have of it in the before-times are through a child's eyes. I am not entirely sure how much of it is true or how many of the gaps were filled in with imagination and longing during my exile. But I will tell you what I know to be accurate without question.
My baba was an importer of luxury goods. At one time or another he serviced every noble house in the city. Lancah, Maeiz, Suda, Ope - I set foot, at the very least, in the entrance halls of each of them. He took me along for the most expensive sales. A good businessman knows that a sweet little girl in a charming but not-too-expensive frock can do wonders for the coffers of an establishment.
The business was to become mine when he retired. It was only right that I should see how it was run first-hand. The whole of my early education took place within its walls. I learned my numbers through inventory, my languages through interactions with foreign customers, my letters, through the catalogs of rare and strange items sent from faraway lands for our perusal.
When I grew tired of my studies, I would find much to entertain me there. In every nook was an oddity, a queer and beautiful item to turn over in my hands until I might guess its purpose. I saw tapestries from Skyrim, silks from Akavir, gladiatorial action figures from the arena in Imperial City. Once, I found a small chest sealed with iron. Resting on a velvet pillow within was a stone so deeply purple that it was nearly black. I thought I heard a voice calling from it. I was so startled that I dropped the chest and ran from the room. When I went looking for it later, I could find it nowhere.
But enough about that. Baba himself was…an interesting man, to say the least. He had a friendly face that he put on for his most valued clients. He could talk politics, art and philosophy as well and as amiably as the next man. But in private, he was solemn and dour. It was known within the family that he fell into his line of business more by accident than by any other force, though it was never something that was spoken aloud.
It was told to me once, when I was very young, that in his youth he once had dreams of becoming Hel Ansei - that is, a Sword Saint, a warrior trained in the ways of the founder of our nation - before they were ended by an untimely injury. He walked with a limp all the days of my life and leaned on a mahogany cane when there was no one about to see him.
But still, in the early morning, if I peered out the window at the right time, I could see him doing katas in the courtyard. He seemed happiest then - in his own little world, before the city had woken up and sunlight carried away all mysteries.
Mama was a spectacular gardener. Her crowning achievement was the giant blue agave that she had nursed from a seed while she was recovering from giving birth to me. It dominated our little courtyard, consuming an entire corner and rising above the walls. She trimmed it back when it got too wild and the bare space below it formed an excellent patch of shade for reading.
Iya was my father's elder wife. She was old when she married him, older still when I was a girl. I thought of her as my grandmother and I was her msichana - "little girl." She was born an Alik'r nomad and trained as a wise woman of her tribe. City life was not so easy for her, I think. She struggled with Cyrodiilian manners and ways of speaking. Every night at supper she despaired of the city lights being too bright to see the stars. When she was not making potions and poultices from the herbs of Mama's garden, she was painting watercolors of her old life - the dun-colored tents of her childhood, the fire of an Alik'r sunset, the smiles of those she had once known under glittering golden nose rings and hoods with intricate beadwork.
My half-brother was her only child. I saw so little of him. The gap in our ages was immense. When I was an infant, he was already a man. He was always away at the college, studying rhetoric and ethics. It was his dream to become a statesman or perhaps advisor to the king someday. Sometimes he'd bring his friends home and they'd spend long hours drinking and arguing politics in the courtyard. I liked to listen, though I understood nothing of what was said.
However, like all young men in Taneth - and every surrounding city for that matter - he was drafted into the city's defense corps, in preparation for the coming invasion. For a time, his studies were deferred, as he spent all his waking hours in drills and training. He'd come home with exhaustion in his bones and a sigh on his breath. He'd lean his spear against the door frame, pat me on the head and go straight to bed.
I was too young to understand what any of it meant. My world was not yet the world of Tamriel. It was a world of curious corners, loud vendors, whirling street performers, burning sun and soothing shadows.
As a child, I had dreams of becoming a dancer, though my parents did not consider it the most upstanding profession for a young woman of the upper middle class. But I danced to music that none could hear but me. I twirled in the courtyard before dinner, stomping my feet to the beat of what I'd heard during the day and marveling at the whirl of my skirt.
Those were the things that mattered to me as the Great War dragged to a halt in faraway places and Hammerfell refused to kneel to the stipulations of the White-Gold Concordant. All those little joys and sorrows that utterly consume a growing child's psyche - it was all I knew.
How could I have known?
*.*.*
They had passed by Whiterun two hours ago without stopping. Rayya had suggested that they spend the night there instead of another night camping out, but Carolinne was infused with impatient energy. She wanted to cover as much ground as humanly possible until they made it to Morthal. Her quest would not let her rest until it was done.
Rayya was quietly glad of her unflagging drive and how it propelled them both thus far, though her body still ached for a proper bed.
When the sun was low on the horizon, they scouted out a suitable patch of ground for the tent. Carolinne got to work setting it up and Rayya set out on an errand to locate enough firewood in the immediate area.
It was not a part of Whiterun Hold that contained a great many trees. She frowned as she waded through the tall grasses, finding not a single fallen branch or crumbling log. Just when she was thinking that that she might have to resort to braiding grass for kindling, she found a sizable stand of dry scrubs by the side of the road. Relieved at the thought of not having to exert extra effort, she bent down and began pulling them free from the dusty earth.
The chill Skyrim wind howled in her ears and nipped at her nose. Her stomach growled in anticipation of a warm meal. She paused to tie her headscarf just a bit tighter when it threatened to blow away.
By the time she heard the approach of the visitors over the sound of the wind, it was far too late.
Two men with dusky skin and desert garb stood before her. Well-used scimitars, their scabbards dinged with dents and dust, rested on their belts. Their hands trailed over the pommels, though their faces were friendly.
"Greetings, sister!" the younger of the two shouted over the wind, "How fares it?"
"As well as can be expected." she answered, rising to her feet and cradling her growing bundle of kindling like a child she was meant to protect.
There was something strange in his manner. His politeness, forced, his smile underlaid with anxiety. He studied her with the same gaze that an alchemist uses on an unknown reagent. The tension between them felt as though it could snap like a thread at any moment.
She kept her stance relaxed and her face, neutral. And took comfort in the weight of the twin weapons on her belt.
"So…" he went on, conversationally, flashing an uneasy grin. "What brings you to this corner of Skyrim?"
"My own business, if you please."
"Ah. My apologies, sister. I did not mean to pry."
She stole a glance at the campsite behind her. Carolinne had frozen where she was, midway through anchoring a corner of the tent to the ground. She was watching intently from afar, her body poised to spring at the first sign of trouble.
"If I may…" the older man said, speaking up at last, his voice a low growl as hoary as his beard.
He took a step forward, his toe entering the zone she deemed as her personal space.
"…might you remove your scarf for one moment?"
Her blood froze in her veins and her eyes narrowed.
"And why would that be, brother?" she snapped back, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
He blushed deeply and took an ashamed step back.
"Please forgive me. We are warriors of the Alik'r, in the employ of a man named Kematu, who was himself hired to seek out the traitor that betrayed the city of Taneth. The woman in question has a scar, like this."
He traced his fingers in the pattern - two lines running diagonally across the cheek, one trailing down from his lip.
"There has been new evidence brought to light that she fled to Skyrim, though from there our trail has run cold. We must check the face of every Redguard woman we meet. Please, if you have nothing to hide, you will find no trouble from us."
She fingered her scarf, a great many feelings rising in her chest at the mention of home, none of them able to be sorted through in this short moment of time.
"Very well." she sighed, setting down her kindling and rising to her feet again.
With deft fingers she undid the knot and her hair flew free, the ebony braids gleaming in the orange light, the beads strung through them clacking against the back of her breastplate.
They peered at her smooth face, frowning.
The older man bowed curtly.
"We apologize for rudeness on our part. We mean you no disrespect. Stars guide you, sister."
"And Tu'whacca keep you." she intoned, her throat getting tight as they carried on down the road.
When their backs were turned, she called out after them.
"I come from Taneth myself. My family suffers still from the betrayal. Do you know the name of the traitor?"
"Iman" the younger of the two called out over his shoulder. "of House Suda. If you should find a woman matching her description, then please…we're to bring her back to Hammerfell for trial. Ask for the Swindler's Den if you need to find us."
When they had gone round the bend in the road and vanished among the tall grasses, she bent to the ground and began pulling scrub with twice the force she had before.
*.*.*
"Who were they?" Carolinne asked, stirring her pottage absentmindedly.
She lifted a spoonful to her mouth and blew on it. It steamed, still too hot.
Rayya shook her head, smiling and watched her own lumpy spoonful of pottage drip back into her bowl with a splash.
"Ghosts, I suppose. They were the last men I expected to meet out here, that's for"-
The wind suddenly kicked up, nearly ripping the tent out of the ground. Carolinne set her bowl down and lunged to save it, grabbing a stray rope moments before it would have undone half of her hard work. Rayya took it from her, tied a sturdy line hitch knot and tested the strength of it one last time before she dared to let go. The rest of the knots needed some tightening, but they were miles better than what she'd been tying before.
"Yes." she chuckled as she settled down by the fire again and glanced up at the sparks spiraling to meet the stars. "Ghosts."