Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks.
The four of us still upright sat at Red's table. She was sleeping lightly, but her pulse was still weak and irregular. Blue was reluctant to leave her side.
"Let's just explore this place, figure out where we are and if there's a way out," Aela suggested.
"And if there isn't one?" Lydia snapped.
"Then Ieago heals the fire mage until she can make one." Aela said.
"Any idea where we are Ghent?" I asked. Speaking aloud was going to be done in a painful rasp for the next several days.
"We're near the Elder Scroll," he said.
"If you take a minute, you can feel the tremor it causes in the weave of the manna around us. It's like a torch in the dark." Red whispered dreamily.
I could only vaguely sense what they were talking about. Aela and Lydia shook their heads.
"Red, if you try to walk, your wounds will open, but are you up to being carried again?" I asked.
"If I must," she sighed. She sat up slightly and wrapped her arms around Blue's neck.
As we walked deeper into the Dwarven library, it occurred to me that even though he nearly got all of us killed; I was proud of Ghent's bravery. I never wanted him to do something so foolish again, but in that moment I was glad to know Ghent would be willing to do so much for others.
The very next chamber held what we were seeking. It looked like a brass sphere some hundred feet across embedded in the floor. The domed ceiling above us scattered the light falling in from a tiny hole in the ceiling and dispersed it through several crystal lenses.
"Lydia, Aela," I whispered, "We've all said it before, we all want to say it now, and I can't remember whose turn it is; so on three. One, two, three. . ."
"You don't see that every day," we said in perfect unison.
"So what do we need to do here?" I asked Blue. I was standing on a small balcony overlooking the top of the sphere. Before me was a set of six pedestals. I had placed Septimus's blank lexicon in the rightmost one. The room-filling contraption had come to life in response.
"This is more complex than the one Morgan and I found at Mzulft," he mused. "The goal is to use the controls up there to focus the lenses on a receptor," he pointed to a large green piece of glass set in the top of the huge brassy sphere. "This one in the floor here. Just press the buttons and see how the machine responds."
It took me a while to get the lenses hanging from the ceiling to focus properly on the dome beneath them, but eventually the lexicon before me began to glow brightly. From the spherical floor arose a large, egg-shaped, green stone held in a golden apparatus. The whole shimmered in the bright sunlight of the world above. The egg split in two and there it was, looking like any other official document sealed and preserved against time. My fingers tingled with its contained power. I felt the presence of the destiny it held for me, conceived by the gods themselves as Anu and Padomay fought. My mind told me that the Elder Scroll was indestructible, but I still hesitated to lift the ancient document. I felt a lack of ceremony press on me, as if the Scroll resented being treated this way.
The moment I look the Scroll in my hands a hidden door opened for us. We took the lift it concealed up, pushed open an unlocked metal-framed gate, and stepped out onto the free air of Skyrim. We were on a small level spot in the Anthor mountains looking south to Lake Yorgrim. A thread of smoke rose from an inn not three miles away. All that work, miles of travel in the dangerous ruins, and nearly our deaths. There was an unlocked elevator directly to the Scroll's resting place. I gave into temptation and fantasized about murdering a senile old man.
I got my bearings and saw the pass to Winterhold was not far.
"Blue, Red, head to down to that inn. You should be able to hire a carriage to Whiterun there. You'll be welcome at Jorrvaskr and Breezehome. I'm going north with Aela and Lydia to finish our business with Septimus," I told them.
Red was aghast, "What the fuck? You're done with us so you just send us away?"
I sighed, "Morgan, have you ever taken a hit like that before?" I asked gently.
"No."
I thought that might be the case, "Then understand that the only things keeping you together right now are a few cheap spells and healing potions that are mostly vinegar and yeast. Every cut and puncture is just waiting for an excuse to pop open. The best treatment is a few weeks of light work. Also, you haven't had a night's sleep yet, but when you do you are going to have nightmares about this. You're going to need to be around people who care about you and who know what you've been through. I know it's humiliating to be sent away, but trust me, it's for the best. I'll need you and Blue in good shape before long."
At last I turned away as the pair disappeared under around the pass.
"When were you first hit Ieago?" Aela asked.
I shrugged and scratched at an old scar on my chest. "I was seventeen; clearing goblins from an Aylied ruin near Kvatch. The arrow went through my right lung. Aeric and Jesten were the ones to drag me out. I coughed up blood for a month afterward. What about you?"
"Mauled by a bear while hunting with my father."
I turned to Lydia, "What about you Lydia?"
She just looked sad, "Please don't make me talk about it," she whispered.
In that silence we marched north again.
It was on a bright morning that my friends and I reached the Throat of the World. The wind was brisk and blowing hard out of the east, smelling of coming rain. The Elder Scroll tingled with life in my hands. An ancient Nord's sword thumped on my thigh, a 'borrowed' offering I took from a roadside shrine. Revenant was beyond my skill to repair. The little I could see of its insides without taking it apart looked like a lump of coal.
Paarthurnax was waiting. His tattered wings were half spread and twitching with excitement.
The old dragon was exultant, "You have it! The Kel - the Elder Scroll! Tiid kreh... qalos. Time shudders at its touch. There is no question. You are doom-driven. Kogaan Akatosh. The very bones of the earth are at your disposal. Go then. Fulfill your destiny. Take the Scroll to the Time-Wound. Do not delay! Alduin will be coming. He cannot miss the signs."
I stepped into that swirling flaw in creation and opened the Elder Scroll. I looked briefly on the runes written there before they burned into my sight. One grain at a time, the Scroll swept me away in a powerful current. I was cast out again in the red-tinted past in the same place I had departed. There I beheld the first of Paarthurnax's students: Gormlaith, Hakon, and Felldir. They fought valiantly in that last battle, not wanting to use the Scroll. But they failed, they knew it, and I heard Dragonrend used.
Like grains of sand the tide swept me away again, depositing me when I had come from. The day had darkened and the beating of wings on a growing storm could be heard. Looking up I saw him, the great black that would destroy my world.
"Bahloki nahkip sillsiejoor. My belly is full of the souls of your fellow mortals, Dovahkiin," Alduin taunted me from on high. "Die now and await your fate in Sovngarde!"
The formless roar of the World-Eater was a word of power in its own right; one that brought a rain of ash and flame in its wake. Fire fell from the sky, driving Lydia and Aela from the peak and I into the well of the word-wall. Without Paarthurnax, all would have been lost in that moment. The old teacher swept down upon Alduin. If time shuddered at the touch of the Elder Scroll, then all of creation shattered from the collision of the two brothers.
"Lost funt!" Paarthurnax yelled at his former overlord. "You are too late brother! Dovahkiin! Use Dragonrend if you know it!"
"Joor zah frul!" I bellowed, tearing apart my half-healed throat. Blood joined the swirling ash. In the thickening grey of the world I forced into Alduin's black heart the truths that we all must die, that our world is finite, that even the greatest of our works are temporary, that all of our words and deeds amount to driftwood in a riptide. Mortal existence crippled the great black dragon. His wings flapped wildly, but no air passed over them. He fell like a bird hit by a rock and crashed down before the shattered word wall.
He and I fought on in the rain of fire. Time and time again, I spun around his face to try and stab at the thin scales of his temples and neck. Again and again, his viper-like speed kept his five-inch teeth between me and the kill. Our competing grace and strength prolonged the stalemate, but Dragonrend gave me the edge in the end. At last as my sight began to blur, I grabbed tight to one of the razor-sharp crests behind his jaw and levered myself high up on his neck before letting go and cutting down. I dropped hard to the ground, the grip of my borrowed sword slick with my blood. The blade was notched where it bit and tore at Alduin's scales.
I stepped back to shout and charge again when the crippled dragon quit struggling and the fire stopped falling.
"Meyz mul, Dovahkiin. You have become strong," he admitted. The blood from his neck shot to the side in fitful squirts. His eyes were orange pinpricks set in the darkest obsidian. I felt like a helpless prisoner again kneeling before the headsman. He lifted himself above me on his crippled wings, "But I am Al-du-in! Firstborn of Akatosh! Mulaggi zok lot! I cannot be slain here, by you or anyone else!"
The world was darkening, but those eyes remained bright as they bored into me from skeletal pits. "You cannot prevail against me. I will outlast you... mortal." With those words he took flight again. My vision faded ever more toward black.
The world reverted to silence as the beating of Alduin's wings faded in the east. The wind picked up in the wake of the battle, buffeting me like gusts from beneath Alduin's fleeing wings. I turned away and saw the outline of Paarthurnax perched on his word wall.
"Lot krongrah. You truly have the Voice of a dovah. Alduin's allies will think twice after this victory," Paarthurnax said with sincere awe.
My healing spell took the sting out of my torn hand and burned skin, but not out of my failure. The growing wind snatched at the loose buckles and straps on my armor and blew gravel into my face. "This is a hollow victory Paarthurnax," I croaked. "He'll be back and more deadly than ever." I wiped blood from my lips.
"True, this was not the final krongrah-victory, but not even the heroes of old were able to defeat Alduin in open battle. But Alduin always was phalok-arrogant in his power. He took domination as his birthright. This should shake the loyalty of the dov who serve him."
"We need to discover where he went," I said.
"Yes... One of his allies could tell us. But it will not be so easy to convince one of them to betray him... Hmm, perhaps the hofkahsejun-the palace in Whiterun, Dragonsreach. It was originally built to house a captive dovah. A fine place to trap one of Alduin's allies hmm?"
"Jarl Balgruuf is going to faint when he hears this one Ieago," Lydia said beside me.
"Paarthurnax nodded, "Hmm, yes. But your su'um is strong. I do not doubt you can convince him of the need."
I turned to face my human friends for a minute, wanting their thoughts on the matter. Lydia gasped. "Ieago, your eyes..." Aela began.
"I see it Aela."
"It looks like they're filled with blood."
"I said, I see it. I knew I ran this risk. It had to be done."
"Stay here a while, Dovahkiin," Paarthurnax said, "Meditate a while with me on Aura Whisper. There is much you may be able to see yet without your miine-eyes."