The Flames of Contempt

by Hanyolo

The Season Unending is upon Skyrim: her children spill their own blood, setting her ablaze with their courage and hate. The specter of the World-Eater looms, his army of the dead gathering in the depths. A brash young Dragonborn, struggling to rebuild the Akiviri Dragonguard, finds his neutrality tested, while a sinister, forsaken evil seeks to put an end to his legend.

2. Shalidor's Folly

Seeking study, wanting learning,

Recklessly arouse my rage!

My pupil you would be, or more? Presume not of Shalidor,

You feeble, foolish mage!

Quickly dispatched, worthless weakling,

Though this tome I gladly claim.

A diamond in the rough, I find, shining gem from feeble mind.

Now die, and curse my name!

-Unknown

---

Jakt knelt in front of the campfire, sharpening his sword, thinking of the dead.

The slow, methodical ring as he ran the whetstone down Dragonbane's charcoal-colored blade was calming, but it could not drown out their whispered voices, echoing in his ears. He saw their faces when he closed his eyes: their gazes were pained, accusatory. You failed us.

"That stupid hunk of metal is made of spellforged ebony," Esbern's irritated voice split the calm nighttime air like an axe through crisp, dry firewood. "It'll never lose its edge, boy." He rolled over in his bedroll to look at Jakt, his wrinkled face scrunched up in annoyance. The dying firelight just barely illuminated his movement.

"I know that," Jakt replied.

"So why in Oblivion are you sharpening it?" The old man asked, "I never would have given it to you if I'd known you would use it to make such an awful racket."

They had found the weapon in Sky Haven Temple, lying unceremoniously on the ground, covered in dust and the rotten remnants of the plaque that once held it up. The long hilt, no doubt once heavily embroidered in the flowing Akaviri style, had worn away with time. All that was left was the dense dragonbone grip, cut with criss-crossed grooves: once filled with fine leather strips perhaps, but now quite empty. Esbern was right, of course: despite its dilapidated hilt, the blade was still as sharp and supple as the day it was forged.

"I can't sleep," Jakt murmured.

"You can't sleep? What are you, a toddler?"

Jakt stopped and looked down at the old Nord. "I knew letting you come with me was a mistake. I shouldn't have you let bully Kharjo out of coming in your stead. The Gods forbid I keep an old man up past his bedtime."

Esbern sigh was mocking. "Yes, that is a shame," he said, "But admit it. Being around me does you some good, Jakt."

"How's that?"

"It makes you a bit quicker. Mentally, I mean. Although that isn't saying much, in your case."

"Why do you want to meet the Greybeards? I thought you hated them as much as Delphine does." He ignored Esbern's insult; it was the best way to respond to the old man sometimes, for his tongue was sharp and unpredictable.

"Delphine's still young," Esbern said, "Her fury hasn't burned out just yet. When you get to be my age, you can't afford to hate. It's not good for the heart."

Jakt rolled his eyes. "You didn't answer my question."

"I'm getting there," snapped the old Nord, "I'm old, dammit. I'm entitled to yammer on as I see fit."

He cleared his throat. "Never been to High Hrothgar. I've been all over this damned continent, but never there."

"Why not?"

"The Greybeards, of course! They wouldn't let me in. They hardly let regular folk hang around, climb the steps, see the sights as it is. But a Blade? Not even if Dibella descended from the clouds and offered to perform all her filthy arts on them herself." He chuckled at his own joke.

"So you think with me around, they'll change their minds?"

"Makes sense, doesn't it?"

Jakt shrugged. "They haven't sent for me since I left them. Maybe they're done with me. The Eight," - he paused to correct himself - "The Nine know I wish I could be done with them."

"Now that you have the Horn of Jurgen Breaks-Wind, or what have you, they'll change their tune. And besides, you're Dragonborn. They've sworn an oath to train you in the Thu'um. They can't be any more done with you than we can."

"You know an awful lot about them," Jakt said, frowning as he looked down at his knapsack. The very tip of the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller peeked out, cheekily mocking him for the wild goose chase that had finally led to its acquisition.

The old man coughed. "They know an awful lot about Alduin. Probably more than any mortal on Nirn - so I made it my business to know their business."

"And you think they can teach me how to defeat him?" Jakt said skeptically, "They're pacifists. When I studied with them last, I got the feeling that they were a little relieved the world was coming to an end. They didn't seem to give a rat's ass about saving it."

"Alduin's Wall is useless." Esbern retorted, matter-of-factly, "It indicates what the ancient Nords used to defeat him last time - some sort of shout that brought Alduin crashing out of the sky - but it doesn't say exactly what. The Gods take Reman Cyrodiil: he probably thought he was doing us a huge favor when he commissioned the damn thing. But there is still much more to be understood, and the Greybeards will help you in that. You've put off your return for quite long enough: it's time you went back."

"Wait a minute," Jakt said petulantly, coming to a sudden realization, "You convinced Delphine that it was worth it for me to go, didn't you? That's why she was so adamant that I return." Esbern was tricky, he reminded himself: after all, you don't survive thirty years on the run from the Thalmor without learning how to manipulate others.

Esbern looked exasperated. "Well, you kept ignoring me!" He paused, looking sheepish. "I also thought it would be good for both of you if you got out of each other's hair for a bit."

Jakt sighed. The old man was right about that. Delphine and he had been clashing often and badly: they both had their own visions of the Blades as they ought to be. She was having trouble adapting the Blades to their new role. After all, she had spent the past three decades in deep cover; it was to be expected. Accustomed to outthinking men and mer, manipulating enemies and allies alike before striking from the shadows, she had found that dragon-hunting required a much more straightforward effort that went against all her instincts.

Jakt showed natural talent at it (gifted as he was with the Tongue) and he suspected that she felt her leadership threatened - perhaps rightly so. She was Grandmaster, yes, veteran of the Great War and survivor of the 30th of Frostfall, but she was also duty-bound to serve him, a lowly mercenary blessed with power beyond his comprehension. Never mind the fact that he was young and prone to mistakes and had not much played at leadership before. Exposed to the light after so many years, her considerable patience was finally reaching its limit.

And in his case, the Eight - Nine, dammit - only knew how much stress he was under. Fighting dragons had almost become a welcome relief from their efforts to recruit and train new members, of which Delphine had taken point. Their training sessions together did not help to relieve tension in the least. The Breton woman was the best swordsman he'd ever fought, and he sparred with her almost every day. Even though repeatedly losing to her was forging him into a superior warrior, it came at the cost of constant humiliation, for Delphine never went easy on him (as she would occasionally on the others, he suspected). The welts she left on his body were a continuous presence, and he was beginning to doubt that they would ever heal.

Then again, he could best Mjoll three out of five times in the ring now, and she had been second-best at Sky Haven not three months prior.

"I wonder what she was like as a Blade," he mused out loud, "I mean, before the war."

"Oh, she was soft," Esbern replied, his voice quiet. "We all were."

There was a quiet moment. Jakt gave up the empty gesture of trying to sharpen his magically forged blade and instead got up, meaning to run through his practice drills.

"Why can't you sleep?" Esbern asked, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes, poking at the fire with a stick, "Was it that dragon soul you ate for lunch?"

"No," Jakt said, frowning, "That's gotten… more bearable. Although its last moments were not very pleasant - Mjoll, Kharjo and Erandur tore it to pieces, and that Erik boy can shoot to save his life, it seems."

"Yes - our newest blade," Esbern said, smirking, "Stupid but courageous, just like you were. Except maybe a little bigger and a little more stupid. He'll make a fine warrior someday, and better a Blade than a Stormcloak."

Jakt turned to look at him. "Why?" he asked.

Esbern shrugged. "Better to die fighting a firebreathing monster in the service to the greater good than hacked down by your kinsman, that's all."

"He could join the Legion instead, if he wanted," Jakt muttered offhand, smirking as he moved through the intricate sword dance that Delphine had him practice every day. A younger Jakt would have found the slow, deliberate display awfully boring, but he had come to realize that the way that Delphine fought wasn't supposed to look flashy: it was supposed to kill people, quickly and efficiently.

Esbern laughed. "Hah! Plenty of Nords do that, you know. I imagine you'd give up on them all if you could." He paused, as if hesitant to continue.

"Tell me something, Jakt: why do you worship Ulfric so? You haven't even lived here for very long."

Jakt almost slipped. It frustrated him when his companions questioned Ulfric, mostly because some cynical part of him could sense logic in their criticisms. He fought down a surge of anger, knowing that the old Nord was trying to bait him. He remembered some of Delphine's favorite words: a Blade's greatest assets are self-control and patience. Though he often had trouble living by that creed, he could admit there was wisdom in it.

"What do you think of him?"

Esbern was caught off guard. "Seeking my opinion, are you? That's new." He cleared his throat. "Well, I've never met him. Have you?"

"Once," Jakt said, after executing a series of lightning-fast cuts, "Only briefly. But his deeds speak for themselves."

"Oh, he's a natural leader," Esbern mused, "And a great warrior, no doubt about that. But Skyrim breeds warriors like corpses breed flies, and plenty of charismatic leaders inevitably fail because they lack cunning. One thing that people forget about Ulfric is that he's a skilled politician. He conceals it very well."

"What do you mean?"

"For someone who claims to hate the Empire and the Thalmor, he sure knows how to manipulate as they do."

Jakt worked his way through a complicated series of parry-ripostes designed to unbalance and overextend an opponent with minimal exertion and movement. The positions required minute adjustments to traditional forms, utilizing small muscles in his wrists and hands that were typically quiescent. When his arms began to ache he stopped for a breather, turning to see the old man poking at the fire with a frown on his wrinkled face.

"Go on," he prompted, albeit reluctantly and with a trace of irritation.

"Well," Esbern reasoned, "He knows that his support is based on three things: his popularity amongst the proudest and most outspoken of our kinsman; the Thalmor ban on Talos worship; and general anti-Imperial sentiment. So, he does everything to maintain and control these factors and thereby keep himself in power. For the last decade or two he's done a bang up job of sowing seeds of discord between the Thalmor and Skyrim's Imperial sympathizers, and playing on the distrust that the other Jarls hold for them - not to mention each other! - perfectly.

"When the time came, he outfoxed High King Torygg perfectly, setting him up with a fight the lad couldn't hope to win. Somehow he made the poor bastard's thrashing seem like an act of popular will, a stand against Imperial oppression instead of a shameful rout. He made Elisif, his chief opponent for the throne, look like a weak floozy in front of her peers, first by killing her husband with ease, second by orchestrating a kingsmoot to challenge her."

"Even if all that is true," Jakt replied, feeling his cheeks redden as he repressed his burning desire to challenge Esbern's words ad hominem, "He's doing it in the name of a free Skyrim. He's playing their game by their rules, and he's winning."

"Maybe," Esbern nodded slowly, "But I'm only trying to get you to think, boy. When the time comes, we're going to need help. Make no mistake, the end of the world is coming, and it's coming too fast for the Blades to handle. Will you turn to Ulfric for aid when the time comes? Will he give it?"

Jakt did not reply. He believed the answer was yes, but doubt nagged at his brain. A few months ago, it had been one solitary gnat buzzing about, easy to ignore. Now it was like a pack of hornets - incessant, territorial, dangerous.

A moment passed. He sheathed Dragonbane, wrapped the bandoleer around its plain leather scabbard, then placed it gingerly next to his bedroll before he sat down heavily next to the fire. Then Esbern evidently remembered what they had been talking about earlier.

"That isn't why you couldn't sleep though, is it?."

"No," Jakt began irritably, "But it sure as Oblivion isn't going to make it any easier."

Esbern didn't reply. Jakt cleared his throat and continued.

"I was thinking about the dead." He paused. "They won't leave me alone."

The old man nodded slowly. "Aye, they'll do that."

Jakt's reaction must have come across as puzzled or even hostile, for Esbern recoiled visibly.

"What, you think I don't know what it feels like to lose comrades? To blame oneself for the death of those innocent?"

"There are so many, now," Jakt said, his tone turning dour. He held up his hand and began to count on his fingers. "Lydia. Malborn and Brelas. Jon Battle-Born, Uthgerd the Unbroken. And now Marcurio and Benor. And Lys-"

The name caught in his throat. Esbern surprised him by continuing the list.

"Jessup Windshear. Acilius Bolar the Oathkeeper. Maggie Sharp-Tongue, Lakug ra-Garnush. Carimund ap Delphyr." His voice was tired and dull, and his age - so usually obscured by his energetic nature - suddenly became apparent. "They visit me too. Been a while, but recently they've been dropping in quite a bit."

The old Nord sighed. "They're dead and gone, boy. Celebrate their lives and mourn their passage, but don't let them compound your guilt with their hauntings. It cheapens their sacrifices."

"Easier said then done."

"Oh, it took me a long time to learn how to do that," Esbern chuckled sadly, "But you need to push on for their sakes, and your own. And mine, for that matter. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and get some sleep."

He clambered back into his bedroll, uttering a final sentence before turning over.

"For the record, we never saw it happen. She could be alive, for all you know."

Jakt thought of the last time he'd seen her: shuffling off into the darkness, wearing his own face as an illusion to lead the Thalmor Justiciars off his trail. Somehow she'd managed to make even his own visage look haughty and superior.

"I hope you're right."

---

The Khajiit wrapped his traveling cloak tighter about him, shivering in the frigid mountain wind despite his warm fur pelt. He poked at the pitiful campfire, which flickered desperately, buffeted by the incessant wind.

"You don't look comfortable, Trystane," he said, his silky-smooth voice utterly at odds with the whistling din all around them, "Why not? We are, after all, in your element."

The young Breton woman fixed him with a glare as she mimicked his feeble attempts to ward off the cold. Winter was nigh in Skyrim, and the Jerall range was nearly unbearable during the summer months as it was. Now, as they ascended, the weather was near to inhospitable.

"Don't call her that, J'zargo," commented the Dunmer girl at her side, "You know she hates her surname, you s'srit."

"Ever the brown-nose, Brelyna," the Khajiit muttered.

Lysana Trystane was a cold woman, or so she had been told. Her fellow apprentices at the College of Winterhold had whispered it behind her back, too wary of her icy grey eyes and frosty, biting tongue to openly mock her. It did not help that her grasp of magic was geared overwhelmingly towards the offensive, a trait that her instructors attributed to repressed aggression and trauma. While she disdained the detached and condescending psychobabble of her superiors, as she buried her desire to send a bolt of lightning scurrying up J'zargo's tail she acknowledged that they might have a point.

Lysana was nearing her twenty-first year. Short and slender, even by Breton standards, she had discovered her magical aptitude at the perfect age, right as her slightness of stature began to reveal itself. Men had sought to bed her ever since she had turned fourteen, a fact she often attributed to her red-gold hair and the freckles that decorated her pale skin. They were traits common to Bretons of High Rock, but the Nords of Skyrim seemed to find them attractive, even exotic. Or perhaps it was her frosty disposition: in her experience, the male sex often sought that which seemed unobtainable. Not that Lysana spent much time letting herself be chased: when she had needs, she saw to them, and when she didn't (which was more often the case) she saw to her work.

Lysana had spent some time as a hedge wizard (the old Mage Guild classification for a magic user without a formal education), apprenticing herself to any half-baked fool with borderline magical ability, before a Bosmer mage by the name of Enthir had "discovered" her. She'd been living in Markarth, just sixteen years at the time, and had managed to impressed the elf with a particularly acute fireball spell. Beginning as a novice in the School of Destruction, she'd worked her way up to apprentice acolyte in just three years. Her rise had seemed meteoric, until a mysterious scandal (unrelated to herself, she was relatively certain) had seen to Enthir's dismissal. Unsavory rumors abounded about her relationship with the Bosmer mage, head scholar of Destruction magic at the College, and despite their inability to verify what amounted to mere slander, Enthir's detractors had sought to throw out the champagne with the cork, so to speak. Instead of dismissing her outright, however, the Circle of Mages had assigned her to field duties, a post that all apprentices dreaded.

And then she had met the Dragonborn.

"What does Tolfdir hope to accomplish by sending us here, anyways?" the Dunmer asked anxiously, ignoring J'zargo's put-down and interrupting Lysana's train of thought. Brelyna Maryon of House Telvanni was a few years older than she, a gifted young mystic and conjurer who had come from far-away Morrowind to study at the College of Winterhold. She was slim and petite, like most dark elf women, with high cheekbones, a gaunt face and ruby-red eyes. Her hair, hidden behind a padded shroud, was blacker than midnight on a cloudy evening. She was the closest Lysana had to a friend at the College, though both knew and acknowledged that it was a friendship of convenience: their grueling work ethics were mutually compatible, and their respective fields of study, while not aligned, complimented one another well. It was often said that mages did not make friends, but forged alliances, and their relationship did little to disprove that stereotype.

"His concerns are twofold," Lysana began in a brisk fashion, "One: he hopes that by sending us in the stead of more experienced mages, we might attract less attention."

She paused before disclosing her suspicions. "Two: he hopes to keep us away from the Thalmor representative at the College."

J'zargo shook his head, hissing his amusement. "Your paranoia would put a skooma addict to shame."

"Are you ever going to tell us what happened?" Brelyna asked as she wiped the frost off her eyelashes, "You know, with the Dragonborn?"

Lysana felt a stab of what she might classify as emotional pain, but it was easy to repress.

"Who told you I traveled with the Dragonborn?"

"We're not idiots," J'zargo replied sardonically, "We know the Circle sent you to investigate the magical anomalies caused by the dragons' return. We've heard the stories and rumors of a cabal of dragon-slayers in Whiterun, the Rift, and now the Reach as well. We know you returned months after you were expected - and considerably worse for wear, at that."

J'zargo was a bit of an oddball - brilliant in his own fashion, but possessing the strangest combination of ambition and heedlessness. He cut corners and was quite sloppy in his studies, but his work was undeniably complex, a potent mixture of destruction and illusion that had half his instructors scratching their heads with wonder as the other half were cursing his carelessness. Lysana suspected it was due in part to his Khajiit heritage: as the cat-men rarely showed an interest in the pursuit of magic, the rare Khajiit mage seemed to view the magical arts through a completely different lens than what was considered typical. Regardless, his ego was large even by the College's standards, and he rubbed Lysana the wrong way more often than not.

She waved his remark aside. "The Circle has prohibited me from speaking of my travels."

J'zargo rolled his eyes. Lysana rolled forward, changing the subject.

"As I was about to say, Tolfdir thinks Ancano is trying to worm his way into the College in order to exert his influence over those predisposed towards the Thalmor's particular magical habits. As the college's most junior members, aside from the fresh batch of novices, he thinks we are prime candidates for... reconditioning."

J'zargo flicked an ear. "Tolfdir's politics interfere with his judgement," he said, "Of course he doesn't like the Dominion. The old man's a Talos worshipper, after all. I've seen the shrine in his room."

"No you haven't," Brelyna deadpanned, "Stop spinning horseshit, J'zargo." She turned back to Lysana, her forehead creased. "He does have a point though," she continued, "The College has pledged neutrality, and that's always been so. Say what you will about the Thalmor, their grasp on magic exceeds even the Circle's in some capacities. Especially in your schools of study, Lysana."

Lysana frowned, but did not reply. How could she communicate to them the horror she'd lived? She remembered her return to the College, not two months prior: limping into the courtyard, buffeted by the wind, half-frozen and far from triumphant. An emaciated shell of her former self, she'd staggered into the great hall to find a tall figure in sinister hooded robes - black trimmed with gold, a triggering sight - among the small crowd that was there to welcome her. The sight had nearly driven her to collapse with panic: just one look at that angular face, with its golden skin, angular forehead, and platinum-blonde hair, was enough to recall boundless agony and despair.

The following weeks passed like molasses down a gentle slope. Sickly and miserable, the Circle confined Lysana to her chambers to recuperate, but her sleep was fitful and plagued by nightmares. Eventually the Circle wrangled a report out of her, albeit one that she edited heavily due to Ancano's presence. They ultimately decided not to take any action regarding the Dragon crisis, deciding to sit back and observe until events progressed to a more critical stage. Lysana was not really surprised: of course the College would act conservatively. They could afford to do so, after all: they were secure in their corner of the world, untouched by the flames of war and contempt that burned throughout the land. Only to Tolfdir, her kindly, stalwart protector, did she reveal the true scope of her journey. He was the sole member of the Circle interested in the finer details: the Greybeards and the Blades, the intrigue at the Thalmor Embassy, her dealings with the Thieves Guild, and her capture at the hands of the Justiciars...

And Jakt, the Dragonborn: what was he like? A hero for the ages, strong and brave and true? A foolish boy, wrapped up in something far larger than he could possibly fathom? She still did not have an answer. Deciding she had dwelt upon his memory long enough, she pushed him to the back of her mind once more. I've made my sacrifice for him - and for the greater good - at the cost of my work, my health, and very nearly my life. He deserves no more from me.

"In any case," Brelyna said after a long silence, "If what you say is true, and Tolfdir is afraid the Thalmor are on to his research, I can't help but feel we're under-qualified to be the ones retrieving the damn thing."

"If it even exists in the first place," J'zargo muttered, rubbing his shoulders with his hands as he spoke.

Lysana had her doubts as well. Of all the warlocks and sorceresses at the College, Tolfdir was by far the least mage-like. While the other senior members would occasionally deign to throw scraps of their attention to the acolytes, subtly encouraging them to scramble and bicker amongst one another for their meagre gifts, Tolfdir welcomed them with open arms. As such, he was saddled with orienting newcomers to the College, a duty that many of his peers considered mundane. Tolfdir seemed to enjoy it. A kindly, forgetful old man, his nature had earned him the moniker "Tolfdir the Absent-Minded," but Lysana got the sense that Tolfdir acted in such a manner purposefully.

It was wise not to question Tolfdir's kindness: given that it was staffed by egotistical zealots, the life of a student at the College was inconsistent at best and terribly chaotic at worst, and it was nice to have an anchor to secure your before the hurricane swept you away.

When Tolfdir had come to them with this mission, however, his normally grandfatherly voice had a frantic edge. Lysana knew a little about his field - the school of Alteration having many practical applications when combined with Destruction - and therefore about his own research, which he appeared to neglect in favor of instruction. So it was a surprise when he summoned the three of them and revealed that his research of late had focused not on the vagaries of Alteration magic, but rather the writings of the Archmage Shalidor, an extremely powerful sorcerer who dated back to the First Era and was one of the founders of the College of Winterhold.

Tolfdir, it seemed, had been spending as much time spying on Ancano as Ancano had been spying on the rest of them, and had subsequently determined that the Thalmor emissary seemed unusually interested in the collected writings of Shalidor that the College had in its archive. The College kept immaculate records, of course, and Shalidor's Insights were often studied and relatively well-understood. Regardless, Tolfdir - along with the College's archivist, a particularly temperamental Orc named Urag gro-Shub - began funding mercenaries to investigate Nordic ruins and other places of power associated with the ancient Arch-Mage. While studying the products of these expeditions, they had stumbled upon something that seemed to disturb Tolfdir a great deal.

"The description he provided us seems accurate enough," reasoned Brelyna, flipping open her leather-bound journal to a hastily-scribbled note, "'A simple oaken staff, five cubits in length. At one end, a green-blue orb surrounded by three curved spines; at the other, a small jewel.' Hmm. Seems pretty innocuous, as mage staves go."

"What's a cubit?" Jzargo asked, puzzled.

"You think it belonged to Shalidor?" Lysana said, ignoring him.

"A unit of measurement," Brelyna, ever patient, explained before turning back to Lysana. "If it didn't, at least he had possession of it. I've read of his maze - one of Skyrim's most enduring mysteries, a curios poorly understood even now."

"Tolfdir must be desperate to be sending three apprentice mages to fetch the stave."

"Speak for yourself," J'zargo snickered, "We're journeyman acolytes now."

The damned Khajiit loved reminding her that during her long absence, he and Brelyna had successfully undergone their journeyman trials. Lysana had been unpleasantly surprised to find herself bunking with fresh faces in the apprentice quarters, the class of novices that were below her when she left for the field having (mostly) moved up to join her rank. Once again the hierarchical system of the College - a useless relic introduced to give some semblance of order - showed its lack of worth. The hardships she had endured on the road were monumental compared to the paltry examinations that determined the path to Journeyman status. Then again, she hadn't had the time to really rejoin the frantic everyday life at the College before Tolfdir had summoned them.

Lysana rose suddenly. There was a momentary break in the cloud bank that wafted about them, revealing their destination, albeit some miles off. Nestled between two smaller peaks at the western edge of the Jerall range, she could make out what must be a gigantic set of stairs, carved out of stone and decorated with a series of partially-collapsed arches. She turned around to catch a glimpse of Whiterun valley, its vast swathe of rolling plains dotted with farmsteads and intersected by streams. Off in the distance she could barely make out the solitary tower of Dragonsreach. It looked far more inviting, stubby and wide as it was.

"Bromjunaar," breathed Brelyna, her voice quiet with awe.

"It's Labyrinthian, now," Lysana replied, "No one calls it that anymore. Shalidor had something to do with that, I believe."

"According to Tolfdir's notes," the Dunmer said, skimming through her notebook, "Shalidor used to bring his understudies here to test them." She frowned, looking worried. "He'd force them to enter the maze and reward them if they, erhm, survived." She paused for a second, then continued. "One of them reported coming across a burial site within the maze that contained a giant stone coffin, to which was affixed the stave."

"The site itself is far older than Shalidor, this one believes," J'zargo interjected, stroking the small tuft of fur that sprouted from his chin.

"You're right," Brelyna continued, "Scholars think Bromjunaar was built in the Merethic Era, when the dragons ruled Tamriel."

Lysana turned toward the sun, hanging low in the west, peeking through the low-hanging clouds that encircled the mountain.

"We're not going to get there tonight," she reasoned as she lifted another log and placed it on their pitiful campfire, "So we'd best try and get some sleep. Who knows what we'll find in there."

---

They were two days out from Whiterun when it began to rain.

"If we'd just stuck to the Imperial Highway, this wouldn't be a problem," Esbern muttered irritably as he helped Jakt out of yet another muddy patch. The dirt road they'd been using had become less and less passable as the day wore on.

"Too dangerous," Jakt replied, "This is Imperial-controlled territory." The muddy water in his boot was cold and unpleasant, so he walked into the wood until he found a suitable rock to rest on and pulled it off. His soaked wool traveling cloak shed droplets of water in sheets as he sat. My armor will start to rust if the deluge continues, he thought to himself with consternation. Esbern followed him: the old man's cloak was no less soaked than his, but he had instead chosen to don a heavy fur robe that stretched to his knees. It made Jakt jealous.

"Last time I checked," The old man said, ignoring Jakt's annoyed glare, "Whiterun was neutral. Both sides rely on its crop during the winter months, after all."

"Don't forget that Jarl Balgruuf was at the Thalmor Embassy party that we infiltrated," the younger Nord replied, "Why else would he be there if he wasn't courting the Empire?"

"Maintaining the status quo, perhaps? To my knowledge, he hasn't contributed anything but grain to the Empire's war efforts. Not to mention he didn't give you over to the Thalmor when he recognized you there. I imagine turning over the Dragonborn would have brought him much favor from the Dominion, let alone a Dragonborn who's both a spy for the Blades and - worse - a gate-crasher."

Jakt frowned and nodded slowly. "He seemed to know who Delphine was too." Delphine wouldn't reveal herself unless she had just cause to do so - she was too cautious. She had refused to comment about the strange connection the last time he'd brought it up, insisting he concentrate on more pressing, dragon-related matters. That had been months ago.

"It's better if we don't get involved," Jakt finished after a moment.

"Balgruuf might be able to help us," Esbern countered, "He did make you a Thane, after all. Not that you've been particularly active in his court."

Jakt laughed. He'd forgotten all about that: his first dragon slaying, so long ago, Balgruuf's proclamation, and the celebration that followed it. Then he remembered Lydia and his mirth turned morose.

"We can talk about it further when we're closer to Whiterun," he said curtly. Esbern shrugged. When Jakt started back towards the road he placed a hand out to stop him.

"Wait," the old man reasoned, "Why don't we forgo the road? It'll just be a slog. Whiterun's due northeast from here anyways, we'll be fine."

"Sure."

"The Blades ought to really invest in some damned horses," the old man muttered as they rose and trudged along.

"Where in Oblivion would we stable them?"

"Why, at the summit of the Karthspire, of course!"

The forest floor proved more forgiving than the muddy road, and they made good time. The trees began to thin as they descended from the steppes of the Reach towards Whiterun valley. The rain let up a little as they traveled, but Jakt was very thankful that he'd invested in the thick fur that padded the inside of his fine scale jerkin, for the dampness was quite chilly.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the increasingly large gaps in the tree cover when all of a sudden the sounds of a scuffle reached Jakt's ear. He heard a woman or a child scream, and the telltale ring of steel on steel.

"You hear that?" he asked Esbern, coming to a halt and putting his hand out.

"Sounds like a fight," the old man replied, perking up.

The clash of metal abruptly stopped; it was followed by a round of shouting and cursing and another scream.

"A one-sided fight," Esbern corrected himself. He paused, looked sideways at the young Nord. There was a flash of guilt in his eyes as he said, "We ought not to get involved."

"Highwaymen, I'd bet," Jakt growled, "Preying on the innocent."

Esbern sighed. "Jakt, in times such as these, is anyone really innocent?"

Jakt ignored him and started forward, rushing towards the sounds of the commotion. He heard Esbern puffing along behind him; it did not take them long to reach the disturbance.

They came to a clearing intersected by a lightly cobbled road. A small overturned cart rested at one side of the the scene; the horse that had drawn it lay punctured by several arrows in a pool of its own blood. Five or six men, dressed in a motley assortment of ragged leather and steel, stood in a semicircle around two smaller human figures; two more ruffled through the cart. Jakt looked to see a headless corpse lying near the horse, dressed in an unassuming leather coat and half-clutching a steel blade. The corpse's bare arms were covered with fur and a limp tail snaked its way out from underneath the body; a Khajiit, clearly.

"What to do with them, Stygge?" asked one of the men, a greasy-looking Imperial with a blunted mace. He was clearly referring to the two half-obscured forms in the middle of the circle, who appeared sitting or kneeling. Jakt felt his stomach clench in apprehension as he took a few steps forward to try and identify the crouched figures. One was a woman, the other a child, both with terrified looks on their faces.

"We can't just let 'em go," another piped up, an unkempt Nord woman dressed in boiled leather and slightly rusted mail, "They'll report us to the Whiterun guard, or the Companions. It'll dismantle our entire operation."

From the way they deferred to him, Jakt could guess that this Stygge was the leader of this rag-tag group. His back faced towards Jakt, but he looked to be a Nord: his shoulders high and wide, he wore a crude iron helmet that had two curled goat horns protruding from either side. He was clad in mail of a faded blue shade, and secured to his back was an ugly, straight-bladed greatsword forged of some bronze-colored alloy.

"Whiterun guard're busy enough as it is keeping the peace between Ulfric's boys and the Imps," Stygge spoke, his voice raspy like gravel, "The Companions, though, that's a different matter."

"Oi!" another of their little gang spoke up, a short, black-haired imperial who gestured at Jakt with her unsheathed steel sword. "We got newcomers!"

Stygge whirled around, hand going to his own sword in a threatening manner. Jakt mimicked his movements, placing his right hand at Dragonbane's hilt, but did not draw the weapon. His other hand went to the clasp at his traveling cloak. He glanced to the right to see Esbern, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, spinning his dirk in one hand with surprising dexterity.

"Kyne's tits, who are you, then?" growled Stygge. He had a big, broad face and a long, pleated beard; the horned helmet gave him an almost devilish appearance. His mouth gaped open to reveal a surprisingly clean set of teeth.

"What in Oblivion's going on here?" Jakt asked, ignoring the question.

"Help us!" the crouching woman, still partially obscured, screamed, "They murdered me 'usband and they mean to do the same to me!" At her side the child began to blubber and cry.

"Fool would have been spared had he paid the toll," Stygge grunted, "Rushed at us like a madman when we made to search his cart." His accent was thick: Jakt guessed he was from far up north, Dawnstar maybe.

"Highwaymen," Esbern muttered, "Not very smart ones, looks like."

"Let them go," Jakt said, gesturing to the woman and child.

"But, what about me things-"

"Quiet, bitch!" the man with the mace yelled, sending a poorly-aimed kick at the woman.

"They look dangerous, Stygge," the Nord woman said quietly, her eyes narrowing, "And they've seen our faces. Best we stick 'em real quick and dump their bodies down a deep hole, along with these two."

Another one voiced his agreement, then another, but they stayed put, waiting for Stygge's ultimate judgement. Jakt locked eyes with Stygge, but the big Nord stood there for a second, uncertainty written plain on his face. Jakt's heart pounded as he made up his own mind - evidently a little quicker than Stygge made up his.

Got to separate them somehow...

With one smooth movement Jakt unhooked his cloak and threw it at the big Nord. The heavy fabric wrapped its way around the man's head and torso, causing him to fumble about; Jakt darted forward and lashed out with his boot, hitting the big man in the ankle and sending him sprawling.

There was a split second of silence before the remaining five of them sprang into action, giving Jakt just enough time to draw Dragonbane from its sheath on his back. Three of his attackers clustered towards him, leading with assorted iron and steel. Jakt opened his mouth and shouted with the Thu'um: a visible shockwave exploded outwards, followed by a cone of unstoppable force, sending his three would-be assailants careening backwards.

The man with the mace, too far to the side to be caught in Jakt's shout, recoiled, his jaw gaping in dismay. His hesitation cost him his life: he failed to raise his weapon in time to counter Dragonbane's razor-sharp blade as it sliced through the thin leather that protected his thorax. Jakt sidestepped the spurt of blood from the man's chest as he went down.

His last assailant left standing, the dark-haired imperial, clanked her sword against a gauntlet and darted towards him. She wore the telltale studded leather of a legionnaire scout, in poor condition and splattered with mud. Her short blade darted in towards his groin, but her turned it outside with a graceful, split-second parry. Silently congratulating himself for reinforcing his kneepads with steel, he lashed out with his right knee, striking her hard in the abdomen. She doubled over in agony - her light leather armor poorly suited to disperse blunt-force trauma - and he darted past her, whirling Dragonbane around to stab her through the back, severing her spinal column right at the chest. He grimaced at her agonizing shriek as he withdrew the sword, sending blood spattering through the air in a violent, beautiful arc.

An arrow whizzed by his head, putting the poor woman's cry out of his mind, and he turned to see the two men who had been looting the cart - both armed with bows, one reloading. He threw himself into a desperate tumbling roll as the other loosed his notched arrow: he felt its wind as it streaked by, missing Jakt by an arm's length. He came up to see two of the three downed by his shout rushing towards him once more.

"Esbern!" he shouted, "Archers!"

"Got 'em!" came the old man's reply; Jakt caught a glimpse of Esbern, cackling demonically, his hands pulsating with red-orange arcane energy. Turning away, he heard a whoosh, followed by a concussive blast, then screams and the smell of smoke.

At that moment Jakt had more pressing concerns, for the two highwaymen were upon him. One was a Redguard wielding a curved scimitar, the other a skinny Nord with an axe. The Nord rushed forward first, Talos' name on his lips, swinging his axe with abandon. He died quickly: Jakt danced around his clumsy rush and sliced his back open with a single upward slash, then turned desperately to avoid the Redguard's curved blade as it came darting forward.

The Redguard was dressed in fettered clothes that looked like they belonged in a desert. His strange headdress was wrapped around his head and extended to drape about his neck; his trousers ballooned outward at the knees and the toes of his boots were turned up into a point. He was relatively unarmored, a fact which Jakt found worrisome: he'd heard the tales of Hammerfell's desert warriors, of their prowess with their distinctive curved blades and their disdain for clumsy plate armor. He jumped backward and raised Dragonbane in salute; the Redguard did in kind with his scimitar. Then they clashed.

The Redguard was quick and aggressive. He snarled something in his own melodic language as he darted forward, feinting towards Jakt's left. Jakt, watching the man's eyes instead of his sword, recognized the ruse for what it was, catching the Redguard's blade as he reversed the slash above his head to his right side and sending it sliding it high and wide. He countered by lunging forward with his steel-plated shoulder pauldron, hoping to disorient his opponent with sheer brutality, but the man was too fast, twisting aside and regaining his guard.

Jakt realized with a sinking feeling that he was up against a skilled opponent. He also knew he did not have the luxury of time to defeat him. He risked a glance to see Esbern going toe-to-toe with the remaining two bandits - the Nord woman and Stygge, hence recovered - the old man backtracking furiously, a magical ward protruding from one hand. He turned his attention back to his Redguard opponent, blocked a lazy swipe with a snap of his wrist, and launched a lightning-fast attack routine designed to overwhelm his opponent with speed and force. Dragonbane became a deadly blur as he whirled the blade at a nearly imperceptible speed, raining blow upon blow down upon the man. The Redguard blocked every strike with expert precision; the repeated shock of impact sent a tingling sensation through Jakt's fingers that began to disseminate up his arms. He knew he was tiring himself out, but he had to end the skirmish quickly so he might rush to Esbern's aid.

He used Dragonbane's superior length to keep the man on the defensive, working him around towards the overturned cart. The ground nearby was slippery and muddy; Jakt had hoped the terrain would prove too treacherous for him, but the man's balance and footwork were impeccable. He kept his feet wide apart - one always planted, his legs slightly bent and never crossed. Frustrated and sweating despite the chilly rain, his muscles beginning to ache, Jakt gave a yell and overextended himself with a wide, arcing slash. He recognized his mistake immediately but it was too late to stop his momentum.

The Redguard sidestepped the swipe and surged forward, smacking Jakt's weapon out of his grip with a blow of his own. Dragonbane clattered down into the muck. With a shout of triumph, the man whirled about in an impressive yet superfluous display, blade leading, obviously meaning to decapitate Jakt. Instead he gave the young Nord just enough time to duck backwards. Looking frantically about for Dragonbane, Jakt spotted the weapon half-buried in mud just as his assailant slashed forward once more, forcing him to pirouette awkwardly away from his diagonal slash. The Redguard's face was taut as he twirled his scimitar in his hand, stalking forward in a methodical fashion.

But Jakt had one card left to play: when the man lunged forward, raising his blade to land the killing blow, the young Nord opened his mouth and spat a cone of flame into the man's face at point-blank range.

The Redguard screamed - a bloodcurdling sound - and dropped his sword to claw at his burning torso, his face and hands immediately covered with blisters. Spots dancing in his eyes - for shouting twice in short succession often left him groggy and exhausted - Jakt staggered around him, launched Dragonbane into the air with a swift kick of his foot (an unnecessary, if not ridiculous flourish he'd nevertheless perfected with hours of practice) and caught the hilt. Not wishing to let a worthy opponent suffer through his last moments, he turned about and swept the man's head from his shoulder with a swift stroke, gliding right between the man's neck vertebrae with precision.

Jakt was always amazed at how easily Dragonbane slipped through flesh and bone, not to mention leather and plate. He made a halfhearted attempt to avoid the spurt of blood that followed the decapitation, turning away from the body as it fell. Ignoring the weariness in his muscles, the ache in his chest from the shout, and the smell of scalded flesh in the air, he started back towards Esbern, his heart jolting at the thought that he might have taken too long.

To his surprise, the old man needed no assistance. He stood, still as a statue, watching one of the bandits doubled over a prone form nearby. Esbern's brow was furrowed, his shoulders hunched; blood dripped from his dirk, but otherwise he looked unharmed.

"Wylla," groaned the man as he pawed one-handed at the corpse. It was Stygge, his horned helmet askew on his head to reveal one grey eye, misted with tears. His other hand clutched at his stomach. It was covered in blood.

The woman was a ghastly sight: her eyes wide open, the glistening pink slit that was her mouth mirroring the dark-red line on her throat that pulsed and beaded with blood. A hideous scorch mark decorated her abdomen. Jakt looked back up at Esbern, his mouth agape. The old man's expression was expressionless as he looked on. Then he noticed Jakt staring, and gave a crooked smile that was devoid of mirth.

"Why do you look so surprised, boy? I was a Blade, after all." Esbern's words came out more hollow than cocksure.

"Wylla," Stygge said again, his breath wheezing and ragged. Jakt lowered his blade from its ready position: he knew what it looked like when the fight drained out of somebody. He wiped Dragonbane on the wet grass to clear it of its crimson stains.

"You've killed her," the man gasped, "My wife…"

Jakt's stomach churned, and he instinctively looked down at his feet. Then he reminded himself what Stygge and Wylla were: common bandits.

"She brought it on herself," came Esbern's cold reply, "When she decided to prey on the needy."

Jakt looked up into the old man's face. All traces of warmth had fled his visage, leaving only an ancient, stony shell behind. The wounded man looked up at him. He coughed, and nodded.

"S'pose you're right," he mumbled, his head drooping, "'Tweren't supposed to be this way. When we fled the army-" he grunted in pain as he shifted to stand. Jakt felt stirrings of guilt and doubt tug at his chest as he watched Stygge struggle to get up. His adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and the miasma that always followed acts of violence was setting in.

But he did not move to help the man. Neither did Esbern.

"Deserters, then?" asked Esbern nonchalantly.

"Aye," Stygge replied after a moment, "Of Ulfric's war."

Jakt cast an eye about the corpses. Now that he had time to reflect he found the band an odd mix of men and women of differing allegiances.

"There are Imperials here too. Are they also deserters?" he asked the big Nord.

Stygge wheezed in what might have been a chuckle. "Aye. I'd have trouble believing it meself were I you, but hunger makes for strange bedfellows."

"Why did you desert?" Jakt asked, trying and failing not to sound accusatory.

The man eyed him through the muck and tears and blood that clung to his face. Then he sighed.

"Tired of fighting another man's war while scaly beasts set fire to my land," he replied, "Ulfric and the Empire were doin' a bang up job of guttin' Skyrim before there were any sign of Dragons to do it quicker."

"So you thought to turn to banditry?" came Esbern's sharp reply

Stygge turned to face him, nostrils heaving.

"Talos damn you, spare me the trial!" he spoke, "I make no excuses, I did what I did to stay alive. If you're to kill me, be done with it! But I'd rather die on my feet like a true-"

All of a sudden the tip of a blade erupted from between his sternum. He looked down in surprise and agony, then collapsed sideways, scratching at his chest with his hands, blood spattering from his mouth with his every cough. Standing behind him was the woman from the cart, clutching a captured blade, her face impassive. She watched the big Nord flop about for a moment before she noticed Jakt and Esbern staring at her.

"What?" she asked, shrugging, "I gave him what he wanted."

The combination of her short frame, large pupils, almond-colored skin and distinctive pointed ears gave away her Wood Elf heritage. She dressed unassumingly in a simple brown dress, but she looked capable and strong. Her child came padding up behind her, and, to Jakt's confusion, she did not resemble her mother in the slightest. She looked to be eight or nine, with long, golden-brown hair. Her round face was paler than his, and a pair of deep blue eyes, misted with tears, stared up at him. Jakt had a feeling that her hair hid a pair of rounded ears, but he said nothing. A war orphan, most like.

"I suppose I should be thanking you," the Bosmer said, sniffing as if in annoyance. "I'll let you have first pick of the lootings, then."

Jakt frowned and looked about at the carnage. He had no desire to do anything of the sort. Esbern echoed this sentiment out loud.

"It was no trouble," the old man murmured, "And we'd prefer to let the dead lay."

Jakt felt a rush of gratitude for the old man.

"Suit yourself," the woman said, shrugging. She walked over to a nearby corpse and began to ruffle through its pockets. The little girl walked up to Jakt and looked up at him, the fear in her eyes slowly giving way to curiosity. He was surprised that his blood-splattered armor did not seem to frighten him; he drew the unfortunate conclusion that it was a sight she'd seen before.

His heart ached for her.

"Are you a knight?" she asked. Her voice was slight and reedy, like her malnourished body. She was dressed in a rough cotton tunic and patched wool pants. He could practically see her ribs through the thin, coarse garment, soaked through as it was with rain.

Jakt smiled and shook his head. He crouched down to her level. She looked at her feet, bashful.

"No, I'm not a knight, I'm afraid. What's your name?"

"Braith?" came a sharp voice. Jakt looked up to see the Bosmer woman, bent over another corpse. She called the name once more over her shoulder, but didn't seem bothered that Braith did not come when she was beckoned.

"It's a pretty name," Jakt said, and Braith's eyes met his own and she smiled shyly. "Where are your parents?"

Braith's smile disappeared instantly, and she looked at her feet once more. After a moment, she replied,

"Arialle's my mama now. And Daj'en is - well, was - my papa." She frowned and sniffed, and Jakt got the feeling that she wasn't all that sad about Daj'en no longer being her papa.

"Now I've lost two papas!" she sobbed suddenly, and threw her arms around Jakt's shoulders, crying uncontrollably. Jakt rocked backwards on the balls of his feet, surprised and feeling quite awkward. After a moment he gingerly put his arms around the poor little girl in an attempt to comfort her. He looked over her shoulder at Esbern, who had moved over to sit on a stone nearby, and was draining his boots of water. Seeing Jakt mouth for help, the old man merely smiled and shrugged before continuing his task.

The little girl sobbed for a few quick moments and then drew back, wiping her eyes.

"My name is Jakt," he said, unsure of what to say to her.

"Jakt," she repeated, scrunching up her face, "Your name is too short for a Knight, Sir. You ought to get a new one."

Jakt stifled a laugh. Then the Bosmer woman appeared standing behind Braith and he stood to address her.

"Braith," the wood elf said, her tone severe, "I told you, you're not to ever talk to strangers. Now come with me, you rotten child."

Seeing how the little girl recoiled from her foster mother, anger surged through Jakt's veins.

"Whose child is she?" he asked, nostrils flaring, "She can't be yours."

"Does it matter?" the woman replied coldly, "She was wandering the roads when we found her. Her parents are long dead, or worse. She should be grateful." She turned back towards the child.

"Now Braith, it's time to go. Don't make me ask you again." She raised her hand in a threatening manner. The girl retreated behind Jakt and clung to his leg.

"Stupid, stubborn child!" the Bosmer said, cursing, starting forward, arms outstretched. Jakt put his hands on his hips and shook his head slowly.

The woman stopped, looked up at him, her large, dark eyes flashing with fear. Then she threw up her hands and turned away.

"Fine. She's your problem now. Ungrateful little bitch!"

Before Jakt realized the true implication of her words, the Bosmer had faded into the forest. He looked around frantically for her, and was about to call out when Esbern came striding over, shaking his head and smiling. Jakt looked down at Braith, clutching on to his leg with fresh tears in her eyes, and anxiety clutched at his stomach. I know nothing about children!

"The God's damn her!" he vented to Esbern, "What in Oblivion is that woman's problem?"

"Skooma," Esbern replied, not missing a beat. Seeing Jakt's surprise, he continued. "What, you couldn't smell it on her? Or notice her twitch? She's a smuggler, I'd wager. Bet you she and the Khajiit took the child on to make themselves seem less conspicuous."

"How do you know what Skooma smells like?"

Esbern shrugged nonchalantly.

"I've been around a long time, kid."

"Are you my new grandpa?" interrupted Braith, detaching herself from Jakt's leg and staring up at Esbern with a bright, mischievous smile. She doesn't seem to miss her foster mother much either, Jakt thought to himself. He wondered if what Esbern had opined was true, but the Bosmer woman had yet to return.

Esbern looked down at her, then looked back up to Jakt.

"Perfect," he grumbled, "Another one. Orphans, bastards, broken things - they flock to you like fleas to a dog."

"Grandpa seems grumpy," Braith observed, "Doesn't he, Sir Knight?"

Jakt smiled down at her through his teeth. "Yes he does." He looked up to him, letting the panic show on his face. "What do we do with her?"

Esbern rolled his eyes. "Come on, we'll take her to the Temple of Kyne in Whiterun. The priestesses there will treat her well."

"But-"

"Jakt," Esbern said matter-of-factly, the mirth disappearing from his face, "I don't give a damn that you don't want to go to Whiterun. This is what happens when you play the hero and get involved in other people's business."

Jakt sighed and nodded; the old man was right once again. He looked at the bloody scene he had left in his wake one last time: at a second glance, the dead bandits all seemed scrawny, ill-fed, weak. Their desperation lingered on even after their lives had fled. He felt a sudden wave of weariness wash over him. All this just to spare a Skooma dealer.

He looked up to see Esbern place a hand on Braith's head to ruffle her hair.

"Come, foolish child," he said, "Let's go build a fire. Grandpa's quite chilly."

Jakt smiled as the little girl dashed off to find firewood, feeling a bit of warmth return to his tired, soaked chest.

---

Frozen hunks of flesh, arms and legs and torsos arrayed in a macabre spiral, decorated the courtyard of the ancient Nordic stronghold. There was something disturbingly harmonious about it, like the elegant curve of a snail shell, radiating inwards to a central point.

"Trolls," J'zargo said, pointing to the severed head that sat at the center of the spiral. It was furred and apelike, fanged, with a third eye in the middle of its forehead. The fur, or at least the fur not stained rusty red with dried blood, was whiter than the snow and ice that surrounded them.

"Frost trolls," he corrected, "Nasty buggers. Wonder what killed them."

"Impossible to tell how long they've been sitting here," Lysana observed.

"Bandits? Graverobbers, perhaps?" Brelyna asked, her query accompanied by an anxious tremor.

"The pattern is too... sacrificial," Lysana replied, "I've known precious few bandits with such dramatic flair." Brelyna shot her a look, but she didn't care. She was in a mood, as J'zargo called them. It was early in the morning, miserably cold, and Labyrinthian was quiet as the grave.

"A warning, I'd conjecture." she continued. Brelyna shuddered, and Lysana was pretty sure that the cold had little to do with it.

Mountain peaks framed the ruined city to the north and south, sheltering it somewhat from the wind, but the shadows they cast and the stillness they wrought gave the ruins an eerie, tense atmosphere. The old city itself was barely more than a shell. Dilapidated walls, crumbled archways, empty husks of buildings. The platform upon which it lay was perhaps the size of Whiterun's cloud district, but not nearly as spacious, instead cluttered with the bones of structures long since collapsed or destroyed. The four walls of a keep towered nearby, the tallest structures left standing, on top of a raised stairway.

It was nearly impossible to distinguish the stone from the ice, and accumulated snow drifts, crusty and frosted, made navigating the ruins difficult. At least the elevation was low enough to preclude severe altitude sickness, unlike High Hrothgar.

J'zargo and Brelyna argued for half an hour about using magical means to clear a path. The Khajiit advocated for a couple of well-placed fireballs; the Dunmer worried about disturbing the scene, leaving not only a physical but magical imprint that might compromise the secrecy of their visit. In the end, the ice proved too entrenched to melt without a serious expenditure of energy, solving the dilemma for them. This worried Lysana: the magical aura of Labyrinthian was ancient and hung over her like an oppressive cloud. It made her sinuses ache - or was that the elevation? Lysana shook her head in a halfhearted attempt to clear it. Regardless, the wintery accouterments that coated the city's skeleton bespoke of a powerful frost enchantment.

"It doesn't look like much," J'zargo said, casting a wary glare about the city, "Other than this exhibit here."

"Something sapient," muttered Brelyna to herself, still staring at the gristly spiral. She pulled out her journal and a charcoal stick and began to sketch the display. Lysana marveled at her tendency for scholarly obsession, even in the face of such bitter cold and eerie disquiet.

"Labyrinthian's bounty lies beneath the earth," Lysana reminded the Khajiit, quoting Tolfdir as she spoke.

"As do its perils," Brelyna spoke up, still sketching.

"Guess we'd best find a way to get down there," the Khajiit muttered.

It did not take them long. Once they succeeded in dragging Brelyna away from the corpse spiral, Lysana immediately led them in the direction of the largest building, which she fingered for some sort of temple. Her speculation very nearly touched off a long-winded argument about the archaeological history of the building. This is why mages never accomplish anything in groups, she reflected as they trudged into the building.

J'zargo was in the midst of an unnecessarily inflammatory statement about the falsity of Lysana's hypothesis, but he fell silent when he saw the scene that awaited them within the shelter of the building's dilapidated walls.

Several naked corpses of men and women hung from stone archways within the building. Their bodies were blue-black from the cold and eerily still: the ropes that held them were too frozen to sway. Brelyna immediately doubled over, retching. J'zargo looked queasy as well, but he kept it together. As with the troll bits, it was impossible to guess how long they had been hanging there because of the cold. Lysana gave them a cursory look - for as long as she could stomach, anyways - but even their race was difficult to discern through the ice.

She quickly decided that investigating the corpses was a pointless exercise and instead looked for some sort of passageway. A wooden door at one end of the building - the wall closest to the mountain, no less - looked promising. She ducked under the frostbitten feet of a massive man to get there, resisting the urge to look up into his eyes, which were frozen open. The others followed reluctantly.

The wooden door led into another, smaller room, which contained a plain staircase cut into the stone. Lysana peered down; it doubled back in on itself and disappeared into darkness. The lack of snow on the steps indicated to her that it had opened relatively recently.

"Right," she said to the others, "This seems like the place to start." She whispered a spell of candlelight, and a faint blue orb puffed into existence, bathing her in its soft, soothing light as it slowly floated to her eye level. Not looking back at the other two, she began to descend.

The air was a little warmer in the shelter of the tomb, warm enough such that Lysana removed her heavy fur hood. She had explored a Nordic tomb once before: Tolfdir had taken them to the ruins of a city called Saarthal when they had become apprentice acolytes. Together they had observed the archaeological practices of the ancient Nord people, and reflected on the nature of the residual magical auras that inhabited such places. What began as a downright creepy and very nearly dreadful field trip became an interesting and thoughtful discussion on the friction between magic and culture. The tomb harkened back to Skyrim's days of yore, Tolfdir had said, when those pursuing the study of magic were welcomed instead of ostracised. From Lysana's cynical viewpoint, however, 'worshipped' seemed a better descriptor for the way the ancient Nords treated their wizards.

Then again, she was not entirely opposed to being worshipped.

The tomb beneath Labyrinthian conformed to a familiar style: low, wide, oval-shaped tunnels, snaking through the earth, occasionally opening up into larger chambers populated with long stone tables, heavy iron sarcophagi, gigantic clay urns, and plentiful dragon motifs carved of wood, metal and stone. Saarthal had been full of mummified corpses stuck into square niches carved into the wall; Lysana had assumed they were lower-ranking cultists, who hadn't warranted their own burial masks or heavy iron coffins. She had marveled at the quality of their preservation - they were hideous, to be sure, but still very much intact - and suspected that mummification was aided by magical means. J'zargo had made a joke about zombies springing to life at any moment, which Brelyna had found in poor taste. Tolfdir had merely laughed and reassured them that they hadn't walked for thousands of years

The first major difference that Lysana noticed was that the wall niches in Labyrinthian were all empty. As were the sarcophagi, their impossibly heavy lids littered on the floor like common waste. This should have made her more nervous than it did, but for some reason it didn't concern her.

They moved through the tomb slowly and surely, each remembering Tolfdir's warning about the elaborate, deadly traps that these ruins often contained. Swinging axes, collapsing floors, spring-loaded dart launchers with poisoned tips: the kinds of demented devices of torture a cruel child with an active imagination might dream up.

They found no such things, only crumbled masonry, empty space, and silence. It began to grate on Lysana's nerves, already frayed as they were from traveling with her two peers. As they descended further into the mountain, the silence became more and more oppressive.

For Labyrinthian seemed to descend forever. The cool, still air, heavy with the stench of must and decay, began to assail her senses, to warp her sense of time and place ever so slightly. How long had she stared ahead at passageways that sloped ever so gently downward?

"This is awfully disappointing," J'zargo complained after a long silence, "Do you think we are in Shalidor's maze yet?"

Brelyna turned around to look at him, her eyes wide. "You aren't terrified?"

"Wait," Lysana said, bringing them to a halt, "Do you hear that?"

The other two stopped and strained their ears.

"There it is again," she said.

It seemed to carry through the stone, a rhythmic, repeating vibration, a low rumble that rose from below them.

"Almost sounds like… a chant," J'zargo said, screwing up his face in confusion.

Brelyna, who had become more and more visibly unnerved the further they descended into the mountain, was trembling.

"J'zargo," Lysana said, "Muffle our footsteps. You can do that, right?"

The Khajiit scoffed at her and spoke a quick command. There was a dim purple flash, and for a moment Lysana lost the feeling in her feet. They seemed impossibly light; She lifted one leg off the floor and brought it slamming down, but there was no sound on impact, and hardly any feeling of pain.

"Useful spell," she muttered to herself, making a mental note to try and learn it at a later time.

They started forward again, this time a little quicker. The muffled footsteps spell turned out to be an unnecessary precaution: they came across absolutely nothing of note. Regardless, some inexplicable sense of urgency seemed to take hold: the compulsion to dash down into the heart of the mountain, and then - what? The low rumble got louder and higher in pitch as they went further, and Lysana began to feel cool, flowing air brush her face. We must be nearing an exit, she thought to herself.

A strange, inexplicable excitement began to grip at her: she wanted to find the source of the chanting and join in, but some detached part of her brain kept nagging at her furor to do so. She looked around to see that her peers seemed to feel similarly: Brelyna had stopped shaking and was smiling stupidly as she walked, and J'zargo's eyes shone with elation. This soothed her in some essential way, and the frantic voice of doubt in her mind shrunk and crawled away like a wounded animal. With every rhythmic pulse that sounded through the earth the whisper of magic and power echoed, a fleeting promise of glory that once was.

At the end of a particularly long, snaking shaft, they came to a heavy iron door. She could practically see the trails of wind flowing out from the crack at the threshold. Lysana reached for the handle only to discover that it was locked; the Khajiit swore loudly between heavy panting. She pressed her ear to the metal, welcoming the icy kiss as it touched her flesh. The chanting was almost deafening now, and it seemed to be coming from the other side. She resisted the urge to pound against the frigid metal - but she had to get through that door!

"How do we get in?" asked the Dunmer, her face taught, her chest heaving.

"Spell," croaked the Khajiit, who stood with his legs wide apart, sheathing and unsheathing his claws repeatedly.

She remembered that she knew a spell that could open the door and fumbled to remember the commands. She closed her eyes to concentrate and came to the realization that something was very wrong.

Why can't you remember the spell, Lysana? asked the doubt-filled corner of her mind, and suddenly she remembered why she was here, and what she was doing. The spell came rushing back to her, but now she wasn't so sure it should be used; the incessant call of power that echoed from behind the door seemed fainter, less appealing.

"Wait," she said, her eyes tearing up from the strain of concentration, "Maybe we shouldn't go in.''

Brelyna looked at her like she was crazy. "Open it!" She ordered, her red eyes narrowing in anger.

The strange mind-warping effect seemed to be wearing off of J'zargo as well. He was clutching his head and hissing. Brelyna pushed Lysana to the side and strode to the door. She placed her hand on the latch and it clicked open.

"How did you-"

Brelyna turned back to Lysana. Her eyes seemed to flash blue for a moment. "They welcomed me," she whispered.

She threw open the door and slid inside. Lysana lurched forward to catch the heavy frame with her foot, then pushed it open to follow her.

She found herself inside a hollow chamber, atop a cliff like edge that looked to be rather high off the floor. Lysana looked up to see that the cavern was gargantuan: Dragonsreach could fit inside with plenty of room to spare. The walls were jagged and columnar, giving the chamber an ancient, primordial feel. The air inside the chamber was piercingly cold, and whirled around like a blizzard, tracing graceful spirals through the vast space. The rhythmic chanting noise, however, drowned out the sound of the wind. Brelyna stood before her at the edge of the platform, peering over. Lysana walked over and joined her.

A writhing mass of bodies lay perhaps a hundred feet below. Lysana recognized them at once: desiccated corpses, their rotting, flaky skin grey-blue in color, and dressed in heavy black armor corroded with age. A sea of eerily bright blue dots swam within: the eyes of the creatures, unblinking, luminescent. They were the source of the chanting: somehow they were still capable of speech, emitting a repeated, guttural phrase. There must have been thousands of them. Whatever strange, magically-influenced desire she had felt to join in on the ritual flitted away like a leaf on the breeze.

"Draugr," Brelyna said, swallowing, "An army of them." The spell seemed to have broken its hold on her as well, horror taking over instead. Her nose had begun to bleed.

"What are they saying?" she whispered to Brelyna over the din.

The Dunmer turned to her, her face scrunched up with fear. She turned back and pointed down at one end of the chamber.

"Morokei," she whispered back.

Lysana strained her eyes to see what Brelyna had indicated. A figure floated in the air above a mound of bleached-white bones. Lysana recognized the horned, reptilian skull that lay atop the pile. It was the remains of a dragon.

The chanting became more clear as she realized just what the corpses were saying.

Morokei. Morokei.

The body hovering above it wore loose robes, and what looked like a mask carved from wood. It was too far away, however, to make out any of its details. The figure seemed to be the source of the atmospheric disturbances; the trails of frost that whirled through the air seemed to spiral outwards from its levitating body. In its hand it clutched-

"The staff," Lysana breathed. Brelyna nodded. The floating wizard - most likely the subject of the chanting - was whirling the distinctive three-pronged staff in the air like a conductor in front of a choir. He seemed to be directing the trails of frost at something, but Lysana couldn't tell what that was.

"What do we do?" she asked.

Lysana shook her head. "We get out of here. Tell Tolfdir what we saw-"

Brelyna grabbed her shoulder, her eyes frenzied, flashing blue once more.

"No!"

"Brelyna, what-"

"He calls," she whispered.

Morokei. Morokei.

"Snap out of it!" Lysana growled, grabbing the dark elf and shaking her back and forth. The Dunmer woman shrieked and scratched at Lysana's face, grabbing at her hood and pulling it over her face. Momentarily disoriented, Lysana felt sharp nails break the skin of her cheek and forehead and cried out, shoving Brelyna backwards in an attempt to untangle her. Brelyna released her and staggered backwards, clutching at her head, groaning. Lysana wiped blood from her eyes just in time to see her, awfully close to the edge-

"Brelyna, watch out!"

But it was too late. The Dunmer slipped and fell.

Lysana lurched forward, reaching with both hands, just in time to see Brelyna plummet, screaming, and disappear into the mass of spindly blue-eyed bodies below.

Slowly, a section of luminescent blue eyes all turned upwards to look her way. The chanting did not falter.

Morokei. Morokei.

She threw herself back from the ledge, heart beating fast. Scrambling to her feet, she ran to the door. It didn't budge; she nearly burst out in a sob, but then she remembered her lockpicking spell. Frantically she whispered the words; the door clicked open.

"J'zargo!" she called, realizing at that moment that the Khajiit had not followed them into the gathering chamber. She stared into the gloom of the tunnel; he was nowhere to be found. Her head throbbed and she felt sick. Brelyna…

She stood, dumbfounded, heaving. Then the chanting was joined by a new noise, no less rhythmic: the clunk of many heavy boots marching over stone.

Lysana raced up the tunnel, her instinct for self-preservation taking over.

Morokei. Morokei.

The chant assaulted her senses as she sprinted back the way they had come, but her drive to escape it kept its strange, mind-numbing effect at bay. She got lost several times on her way back up - almost breaking down in fear and exhaustion after coming to a room she did not recognize - but then she figured as long as she kept moving upwards, she would reach an exit at some point. Labyrinthian was a colossal ruin, with miles and miles of underground pathways, and she had a feeling that the pathway they had taken had been one of many avenues from the audience chamber to the surface.

She had been jogging for three quarters of an hour when she first encountered the Draugr.

The air was beginning to feel cooler - a positive sign, she opined, as it indicated that she was nearing the surface of the tomb - when suddenly, right in front of her, the metal lid of a standing sarcophagus burst open, revealing a secret passageway behind it. The Draugr poured out like water from a bad leak, spotting her instantly, their heavy boots and creaking bodies echoing loudly in the oval-shaped chamber. She screamed and backpedaled furiously, wracking her brains for an appropriate spell as they clunked after her.

In a state of desperation she threw up a magical ward with one hand and loosed a fireball with the other. The poorly-cast ward blocked the searing heat of the spell but couldn't handle the full extent of its concussive force, collapsing inward and sending her careening backwards. She clunked her back against a heavy clay urn and fell to the floor, the pain of impact causing her eyes to water. She forced herself upwards, prepared to launch a gout of flame from her hands, but it proved unnecessary. She cleared her eyes only to see a dozen burning draugr, staggering about, writhing on the floor, growling and screeching in their guttural voices. Their dry, papery skin caught flame easier than dead brush in a Khajiiti summer, and she wondered at that moment if they still felt pain. Certainly, they seemed to retain some autonomy in their undead state: it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

But there was no time for academic inquiries. Lyana lifted her robes and picked her way through the burning corpses. She turned about to see several more of the undead Nords pouring forth from the passageway, but while they were certainly fearsome they were not very fleet.

All of a sudden she found herself on the surface of Labyrinthian once more. It came as a surprise, the bluish glow of her candle spell giving way to a dim grey light in the blink of an eye. They must have been down in the tomb longer than she'd thought: the sun was low in the sky, invisible behind the nearest mountain. The chanting of the Draugr, which had gradually quieted as she ascended, gave way to a howling wind. It must have grown, or changed direction, since they had entered the ruin. Tiny particles of snow and ice whirled past her face, forcing her to turn away.

Shielding her eyes, she looked around to get her bearings, only to find herself in a different location from where they had first descended. The tunnel exit was carved directly into the mountainside, and the door she had just run through hung by one hinge. Inspecting the scorch marks that adorned the door, she touched the warped knob to find it slightly warm to the touch: someone must have blasted it open quite recently. She raced outwards, spotting the four walls of the temple nearby. A robed figure leaned up against the nearest wall. A tail protruded from its side, whipping about in the wind, a dead giveaway.

"J'zargo! You cowardly shit!" she shouted, exhaustion giving way to frustration. She had half a mind to drill an ice spike through his skull. She reached the Khajiit only to find someone else had beaten her to him; he was grimacing in pain, clutching his side. His robes were ragged and hung off his torso, revealing scorched fur that was wet with blood. A bald patch of skin revealed the telltale spiral scar of a lightning bolt strike.

"J'zargo, you-"

"They followed us here," he interrupted her with a gasp, his breathing ragged and uneven. His pupils were dilated in fear and moistened by pain. He gestured with a jerk of his head around the corner.

"Who?"

"Thalmor."

Hoping fervently that he had been mistaken, Lysana peeked around the corner to spot three tall, black-robed figures stalking forward. One of them pointed towards her and opened his mouth, but the gale was too loud to pick out his words. She ducked back around, resisting the urge to scream. Repressed memories of darkness and despair came flooding back; gruesome, unending, the lashing of a whip, the twisting of metal calipers. Ugly, brutal, physical pain, accompanied by high-pitched laughter and the occasional pointless question.

"Lysana!" J'zargo cried, taking a swipe at her to get her attention but missing and nearly collapsing with the effort, "Snap out of it! Do something!"

"What do they want?" she asked desperately, fighting her overbearing sense of terror.

"The staff," he replied miserably, holding out an empty hand in a darkly symbolic gesture.

"We'll have to fight them, then," she said, steeling her resolve. "Can you still cast?"

He grunted, rearranging himself on the wall, and nodded feebly.

"Remember that brilliant flame cloak spell you've been working on?" she added, deciding that stroking his ego was the best way to motivate him, "Think you can you cast it on the both of us?"

The Khajiit nodded again, stronger this time, even managing a cocky grin. The pain in his eyes disappeared as he sank into the throes of spellcasting; She grabbed him by the side and threw his arm over her shoulder, supporting him as he spoke the words. A wreathe of fire expanded outwards from his outstretched hand, enveloping them in a whirling circle of flame that stretched from their heads to their toes. Lysana felt warmth surge through her body, reinvigorating her; she raised her free hand and dragged the injured Khajiit around the corner.

She heard the wordless shouts of the cloaked Thalmor agents, spotting their dim bodies through the orange flame. Instinctively, one of the elves sent a fireball crashing into them, and she struggled to stay upright as a wave of pressure crashed over her. J'zargo's bizarre spell absorbed the worst of the projectile, however, absorbing the blast into its swirling mosaic of flame. Praying fervently that her aim was still what it used to be, she created a momentary hole in the cloaking spell with an improvised two-way ward in order to send two jagged spikes of ice flying at the nearest elf. She disliked frost-based destruction magic and had neglected to learn some of its more difficult spells, but she hoped that the blue-white spears would be harder to spot in the blizzard and therefore harder to anticipate or dodge.

Her hunch worked; the nearest Thalmor gave a scream as a meter-long spike tore through his robe and buried itself deep in his chest. J'zargo's howl of triumph was cut short as he ducked a bolt of lightning, but Lysana knew it was a trick that would only work once; no doubt their remaining adversaries were throwing up protective wards to counteract future ice missiles. One of them even tried a similar trick, lobbing a long, barbed icicle at the pair, but the heat of the cloak was enough to melt it instantly, and Lysana felt only droplets of water sprinkle over her.

J'zargo stumbled, and Lysana recognized that his strength, already lessened by his injury, had ebbed. The cloak seemed to flicker for a moment and another lightning bolt sizzled by her face, and she concluded that it was time to abandon the flame cloak.

"J'zargo!" she commanded, "Let go the spell!"

The Khajiit turned to face her, his face twisted in pain and rage. With a roar worthy of a saber-toothed lion, he pushed her away and threw out both of his hands. The cloak blossomed and expanded, swirling outwards in a storm of fire, accompanied by a powerful kinetic wave. Lysana's felt her feet fly out from under her: she was propelled backwards through the air by a fire spell for the second time that day. This time she skidded into a snowbank - a comparatively soft landing - but the warmth of the cloak abandoned her and she felt the icy grip of the mountain once more. She struggled upright, scanning the frigid ruin for signs of life. J'zargo lay face down, motionless, and one of their Thalmor opponents was sprawled out nearby, littered among a group of stones. Lysana determined, based on his horribly twisted limbs and the screams of pain that accompanied them, that the elf would not be getting up anytime soon.

Her body aching and bruised, she had just taken a step towards J'zargo's still form when a firebolt flashed in front of her eyes. She whirled about to see the last remaining elf stumbling towards her. Her hood had fallen off, revealing golden skin, but J'zargo had managed to badly scorch one half of her body, a burn that stretched up to her face. She staggered forward, gradually gaining confidence in her footing, while shrieking what Lysana assumed were obscenities in her native tongue.

Lysana fought back exhaustion and dropped into a crouch, minimizing the surface area of the protective ward she cast in order to conserve what was left of her magical stamina. The elf shouted a command and send a devastating bolt of lightning careening towards her. Lysana cried out at the effort of sustaining her ward upon the impact of the powerful missile. She replied in kind, sending a compact, precise arrow of flame hurdling towards her Thalmor assailant, but the elf deflected her spell with a simple wave of her hand and came on.

Unfortunately, her long months of inaction had left Lysana rusty in the magical combat department, and the Thalmor sorceress, despite what should have been a debilitating injury, was deadly and precise. She whirled a whiplike appendage of flame towards Lysana that the young Breton strained to block. She felt flames lick at her legs for a panicky moment before her ward dissipated the deadly spell, its soft blue light flashing once before fading. She had a split second to throw up another ward as a shard of ice hurled towards her. The magical shield shattered as it struck, and Lysana raised her arms to protect her face from the tiny shards of ice that exploded outwards. Before Lysana could react, a purple wave of magical energy lifted Lysana off her feet and threw her onto her back. She struck something hard with her elbow: a frozen piece of troll, harder than stone, the impact sending waves of agony through her body. The elf had cast a telekinesis spell, and Lysana looked upwards to see her opponent's face - one half, impossibly beautiful, the other scorched and hideous - grinning in victory. Lysana could hear her harsh laughter, despite the distance and the howl of the wind. She's toying with me.

The Thalmor mage was so focused on her prey that she did not notice the hulking form that loomed behind her until it was too late.

The agent's laughter turned to a screech, and that sound mixed with the guttural roar of the Draugr as it tackled the sorceress to the ground. Lysana pulled herself upright and watched as the elf sent the Draugr careening away with another well-cast telekinesis spell, but three more took its place, falling upon the poor woman. They were armed with axes and swords of some dark iron alloy, decorated with gracefully carved runes, ancient weapons that looked impossibly heavy to wield. Two of the animated corpses pinned the struggling elf to the snow, while a third raised its weapon. Lysana turned away as it fell, but nothing on earth would ever make her forget the scream that accompanied the blow.

She whirled around to take in the scene. The Draugr seemed to materialize out of the mist, stalking forward slowly and deliberately, their unblinking eyes gleaming pale blue through the wind and the snow and the sleet. Lysana sprinted over to J'zargo, straining to turn over his body, but she knew as soon as she looked into the Khajiit's wide, vacant eyes that the strain of casting his last and greatest spell had quite literally sucked the life from his body.

Her heart plummeted, and she felt tears leak from her eyes, the moisture quickly freezing to her cheeks. She turned to face the horde of Draugr, fearing the end, but something had made them stop in their tracks. There must have been more than a hundred of them, clustered together on the ruins, and Lysana looked to see even more of them streaming out of the tunnel she had so recently escaped from.

They began to chant once more, thumping their feet along with the rhythm. But this time, the words were different.

Alduin. Alduin.

Lysana heard the telltale whump of heavy leather wings on the air. She saw the serpentine shadow of some mammoth winged beast, its head adorned with wicked horns, tracing its way across the plateau. But she did not look up.

Instead she stood and ran. She did not stop until her exhaustion led to her collapse, many miles down the mountain.

---

A/N: This took longer than I thought. Suffice to say that I feel the same way writing about Nordic Ruins as I do wandering through them in the game: if I have to do it one more time, my fingers are gonna fall off.