Chapter 22: Stuff of Dreams

It was still morning when Elyon, Crow, Nightshade, and Ice reached the smoldering city of Kvatch. Most of the people, despite the crisis being over, were too scared to start rebuilding in case the Daedra came back, and were scared even to leave. "Everywhere is a target now," Nightshade heard a Wood Elf in a blue dress whisper to a Orc woman, "Every city even has an Oblivion gate now."

Although most of the tension was gone from the camp, no one looked happy. To themselves, they were all stuck until the invasion was completely over. Not one believed that the Daedra would stay away from them.

None of the group were surprised to hear that Captain Savlian Matius was still inside Kvatch, trying to get everything in order although the villagers said it was a waste of time. They themselves wasted no time, for with such good timing Elyon was hoping to reach the city of Anvil before nightfall.

Kvatch had changed very little, the only difference being that there were no fires, but everything was a mess like before. Savlian Matius was discussing something about Ocato in whispers with his second-in-command inside the chapel before seeing them in the doorway. "Well, if it isn't the Heroes of Kvatch! What brings you here?"

"We need guards for Bruma's defense," Elyon wasted no time getting straight to the point, "The last attack was bad enough. We think they'll try the same thing there as they did here, and we don't want another city in ashes."

Matius frowned. "'They'?"

"The bad guys," Ice chimed in.

"But I thought all the cities are in danger of that."

"Not so much as Bruma," Elyon's face had turned stern and serious. She was in a serious mood after hearing about what happened in Miscarcand.

He sighed and nodded. "I'll send a few men, for the country and the empire."

"Thank you."

Stars glistened in the sky like distant blinding flames when the small band hit Anvil. Without much looking around, they noticed a distant orange glow in the hills. No one was active enough to think much of it, so they entered the city and spent the night at the Count's Arms, which seemed too far for the lazy and complaining Ice. As of what Nightshade could remember that following morning, it was peaceful and quiet that night, but it radically changed as she stepped out of her room.

The inn had suddenly changed to a tense congregation of about ten people, all who were worried and loud. It was in fact this noise that had woke her up from a rather odd dream about a blizzard.

"What's going on?" Ice peered out of his door, looking at Nightshade who was watching from the top of the stairs going down to the tavern. "I'm not sure."

"They don't sound happy."

"Nope. But we have to start leaving to see the Count."

Ice opened his mouth, about to say something, but the doors to the inn swung open. The crowd suddenly quieted. Curious, they started descending the stairs for a better view.

It was a man in white robes followed by a procession of townspeople, several with a weapon either in their hands or on their belts. One peculiar man who looked like a short Nord was wearing a sign that, in crude, red letters, said, "The End is Near." The Imperial in white entered with gusto, commanding respect as he walked past the whispering congregation. He stepped up onto a table where the worried onlookers and anyone watching from the stairs could clearly see him. The inn was now so full that Nightshade and Ice couldn't join the crowd if they wanted to.

"People of Anvil, it is now our time," the man in white lifted his arms. "The Daedra, in their jealousy, have chosen to kill humanity, but we still have hope."

"How?" the Nord with the sign sneered in doubt.

"The Nine will help us."

"When?" a woman cried, "When we're all dead?"

There was a sudden uproar in the tavern below Nightshade and Ice and the man in white. "The Nine will help when the time is right. We need faith and loyalty!"

"My ass," Ice hissed with a rather pleased smirk towards the Imperial. "He's not so in control now, is he?"

"What can we do to survive? What happens when they invade like Kvatch?"

"Well—"

"What do we do when Mehrunes Dagon smashes the walls?"

"We—"

"We run for our lives!" the Nord threw up his hands. "We must run while we still can!"

And with those words the horde ran for the exit with the force of a stampede of angry bears, leaving the man alone, on his table, and Nightshade and Ice could finally come down for some breakfast. The innkeeper, also the supplier of food, had followed the crowd outside, so the adolescence helped themselves to the food behind the counter, Nightshade being kind enough to leave money on the counter. They seated themselves and were into their meal when Ice turned around in his chair and asked the man, "What's up with them?"

"The Oblivion gate outside, what else?" he stepped down from his pedestal. "Haven't you seen it?"

"No," Ice spat crumbs onto his robes. "Figures, our luck. Every city has one now?"

"Yes, or at least they say."

Nightshade stopped eating. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Prophet, once a priest at the chapel here, well, before the whole Underking fiasco. With the chapel in ruins I preach in the gardens in the southern part of the city. And who are you?"

"Nightshade, and this is Ice."

He smiled a sarcastic smile. "You chose a pretty bad time to come to Anvil for a vacation. The whole city is in panic."

"Really? Haven't noticed," Ice was punished for his rudeness when Nightshade stepped on his foot with extra force, causing him to cringe as she spoke. "We're not here on a vacation. We know how to close the gates; we've done it before."

This aroused the Prophet's interest. "Really?"

"Yeah, we're the Heroes of Kvatch."

"By the Nine! Mere teenagers heroes of Kvatch?!" the Prophet was very taken aback and almost fell backwards into a table. "That's terrible."

"It is," the dunmer girl agreed, and before more words could be spoken the doors once again opened with gusto, this time to reveal Elyon and Crow, both fully dressed and looking rather confused. "I was wondering where you guys were," Ice grinned.

"We just came back from seeing the Count," Elyon didn't notice the Prophet. "Apparently there's another Oblivion gate."

"Yeah, we know," they said in unison.

"How?"

"There was just a big meeting here," Nightshade took a bite of bread and leaned back in her chair. "This is the Prophet, their leader."

The Prophet bowed. "It's nice to meet the Heroes of Kvatch. Haven't you heard that all of the cities are each threatened by an Oblivion gate?"

Crow shook his head. "No."

"The people here are nuts with fear," Ice again spoke with his mouth full. "They followed some guy with a sign outside."

"So they're panicking?"

"Pretty much."

"Then we'd better start moving," Elyon adjusted her armor, "let's hurry before they riot."

It was too late. As they exited the inn, there was the horde of people at the east gates where Elyon, Crow, Nightshade, and Ice had entered the city that night. A line of guards blocked the people from getting near the gate. "No one is allowed to leave the city without special permission from the Count."

"Why not?!" several people shouted, although not exactly in the same words.

"There is a dangerous gate out there that can kill anyone that is not behind these walls. If the whole city leaves, the Daedra will have a blood-bath."

"Hey," Elyon pushed her way through the crowd, making a pathway for the others to comfortably walk through. "We have special orders from the Count."

There were protests from the crowd, but Elyon raised her arms, and her calm and soothing voice quieted them. "We are here to destroy the Oblivion gate."

The mob broke into whispers as the gates opened for them. Nightshade saw the Nord with the crude sign scowling. "You won't succeed," he shouted after them, and the gates closed in his face.

On their way to the Oblivion gate, Nightshade told her friends about the last Oblivion gate and how she had had a dream. When she told them about her most recent one involving a blizzard, Elyon shook her head. "There is no snow in Oblivion."

"Looks like we're going in without a clue again," Ice sighed as they jumped into the portal.

It was nothing special. As they jumped, all of them were together, and there wasn't a soul in sight. Cautiously, they advanced.

It wasn't like the other gates, with three citadels, but instead was a large mountain with one citadel on top. It was a steep grade upwards, so they followed awkward paths winding around the mountain. There were very few Daedra, most being scamps and Clannfears, and after quietly passing through a few caves reached the citadel with a record time of just an hour.

For some reason the citadel seemed to be taller than the other citadels in the other gates, and this caused Nightshade to be uneasy. Everything would await them in there. With swift steps Crow and Elyon stormed in only to find the circular room empty. There was no Daedra, just them, and the only sounds were that of the thick beam of fire in the middle and the whistling of the wind.

"This is too weird," Elyon peered around, flexing her fists, but nothing ran out at them or shot a spell at them. Crow's chainmail boots clunked and echoed eerily. Ice's breath sounded like the ocean waves lapping at the shores of Anvil which they could hear at night. Nightshade felt like she had some sort of fever.

"There's only this locked door," Crow was trying to pry it open. Ice pushed him aside in a sudden burst of bravery. "I'll unlock it." He tried a spell, with didn't work, and then dug into the left pocket of his robe to reveal a light brown, shiny lock-pick. With skill he slid it in and began to turn it in different directions.

And then Ice began to look different to Nightshade. He was getting blurry, like she was in murky water. Everything seemed to be like that, and her mind seemed to suddenly go blank. Elyon seemed to be holding her head, and Crow was leaning against the wall. Ice was saying something, but collapsed only a moment before she did.

For a moment, Nightshade thought she didn't open her eyes, because all she saw was darkness. She blinked slowly, feeling every muscle, only to find that she had either gone blind or there was simply no light.

She was lying on something cold and hard in the shape of a bed. She turned, placing her legs on something squishy, stiff, and wet. Recoiling, her legs automatically came back up onto the slab, and then cautiously came back down. She grimaced and began to walk and balance herself on the bumpy things before hitting something dangling from the ceiling. It was like the things on the floor, except she could feel that it was cold and clammy. It was dripping something, water maybe, and it drenched her armor as she continued to walk.

It wasn't long before she found a wall, presumably made of the same stone as the citadel, and followed it along, crunching and squashing the material under her feet. Her eyes had started to grow used to the dark, but all she could make out were the long shapes that hung around her. They looked like sacks, just hanging.

And then a brilliant thought came to her. Why not just brighten the place up with a fire spell? With hardly a mutter of words her hand sparked and a flame came alive in the middle of her palm. Pleased with herself, her happiness didn't last long.

Nightshade's eyes grew wide with fear as she looked around her. They were not sacks hanging from the ceiling but bodies, pale and tinted blue with death, jaws gaping, teeth rotten, eyes distant and yet reflecting the terror they had seen. The liquid dripping from them was none other than blood falling from gashes and wounds. She was standing on similar bodies, those that must've fallen or maybe the Daedra were just too lazy to hang them. The blood, she noticed, was also coming down the walls and ceiling, slowly creeping downward towards her.

She almost screamed except she stopped herself by closing her eyes and holding her mouth. It was better not to see the horror around her; a sense of nausea swirled in her stomach and she vomited. It was then she noticed the smell of decay and death, putrid in the air, and saw that the sleeves of her armor were stained a dark red from touching the walls and bodies. This can't be happening, she thought, and closed her eyes again, this time tighter.

For the first time since waking up she thought about the others and felt alone, wondering where they were. Wherever they were, she thought, it was better than there.

She knew she couldn't just stand there, so she reluctantly and warily moved on, holding a hand to her mouth and nose, crunching the bodies so that blood squirted out onto her leather boots. Several times she swallowed down vomit and closed her eyes out of disgust. This must be some sort of disposal room, she distracted herself, only to find her mind back with the bodies.

Nightshade went in circles, finding no door. The ceiling was too far up for the light to reach, so it looked like an empty black void forever going up.

She stopped and went back onto the stone slab, hoping to find help there but was to no avail. It was just a slab, just some stone. She was trapped.

The bodies didn't bother her anymore as her mind raced. She couldn't fly out, she couldn't jump out, she was helpless. She paced in concentration, and without realizing it began to walk on the bodies, thinking and walking, before something almost caused her to trip.

Nightshade hopped a little on her remaining foot and looked back to see that her foot was being held by a thin, gnarled, blue-tinted hand shooting out of the bodies. She screamed this time, and fell as the rest of the body came up. And she felt like screaming again.

It was Ice, or what looked to be Ice, in his robes and his daggers, his hair the same, but his face, his body, was bloody, his eyes distant, his lips gone to reveal his imperfect teeth.

And then all the bodies started moving. She saw everyone she'd ever met: Elyon, Crow, Martin, Baurus, Lyze, even the lobbyist from the Arcane University. They were all dead, all rising from the ground, the blood, all zombies, all wanting to kill her.

She was surrounded, her sword gone, she had just realized, and helpless. She waited for them to close in on her, kill her, turn her into one of them…

She opened her eyes to see that, without any words or incantations her body had shot out fire in all directions, burning the zombies. With a burst of speed she sprinted towards the stone slab and stood on it, refusing to question what had just happened, and frantically looked for a way out.

They were coming closer, and soon they were at her legs, ready to bring her down. She had no choice; this was the only way out.

In fear, she shut her eyes, feeling their hands on her, ready to consume her…

The pain never came. In fact, when she brought up the courage to open her eyes the whole room was gone.

Instead, it looked like she was in a well-lit dungeon-like hallway made of light brown stone. Nightshade found it hard to walk; her legs were wobbly and shaky from the fright she had just had, but she was very bewildered. How did she get here? Or, a better question, where was "here"?

It didn't take long for her to suddenly praise the gods. At the end of the short hall was a cell, but a very big cell with a whole pile of gold glistening like stars along with a cart full of gold as if someone was going to scoop up all the gold and move it, but got tired. However, it wasn't the huge pile of gold that made her happy. It was Ice, crouching behind the cart in total terror. She called out, "Ice!" and he looked, wide-eyed at her through the bars of the large cell. She couldn't tell if he was telling her to come or go away, but she bounded to the door and stood next to him in less than a second. "What are you doing? Did you see the bodies? Why are you here?"

"Get down," he hissed, pulling her arm and forcing her on the floor. "She'll see you."

"Who?"

When he opened his mouth the ground suddenly shook like someone was walking in the cell. The cart suddenly got pulled upwards and holding it was a giant woman, elderly and yet looked well despite her light azure wrinkles. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and she scowled with her Dark Elf eyes down at the two, her purple dress now billowing in a wind that came when the ceiling disappeared to make room for the woman. "Ice," she boomed in a raspy, stern voice that matched her look. "Ice, wasting time again? Why weren't you at your lessons? You'll amount to nothing like your father if you don't. Don't ignore me!" She flung the cart at the pile of gold, causing coins to scatter everywhere. Ice was paralyzed with fear, and muttered, "How could this happen?"

"Ice, Ice, who in Oblivion is that?" Nightshade looked up dumbly at the giant. He, however, responded by jumping to his feet and running to the door. Incredibly, as no one was watching it, it had locked itself, thus Ice was shaking the bars desperately. "What are you doing here, you thief? Stealing from the treasury. Your grandfather would be ashamed!" In rage the woman began throwing what looked to be toxic green spells, causing poison gas to disperse around the room. Nightshade and Ice started coughing frantically. She crashed into the bars with her shoulder and he wheeled backwards in a whooping cough. Everything started to go dark when someone crashed through the door and began whacking like crazy at her feet. Another began to heal Ice first and then came to her. When her blurry vision came back and the poison cleared, she saw Elyon in front of her. "Are you okay?"

"Mmph," she mumbled. "What's going on here?"

"I'm not sure. If you haven't noticed, it's hard to think clearly."

She looked over at Crow, now shooting bolts from a cross-bow Nightshade had never seen before up at the face of the woman. "Where did he get that?"

Elyon shrugged. "He had it when I saw him."

"Should we be killing her?"

"I think killing is the way out," she looked at the woman, who was now not paying any attention to Ice and was trying to kill Crow unsuccessfully. He was always fast, Nightshade remembered, but never that fast. He was dodging her blows with fantastic agility. Something wasn't right.

"This… this is too weird…" she held her head.

She was interrupted by a shriek somewhere between the roar of a lion and the cry of a scamp. The woman began to dissolve in the air, and the whole world spun under her…

Nightshade opened her eyes to see the top of the interior of the citadel. She groaned, sat up, and saw she was at the edge of the top floor. In front of her was the fiery beam, heat hitting her face intensely. The others around her stirred, but there was no Daedra running at them, trying to kill them, just the Sigil Stone, hovering above the pedestal. Without thinking, on an act of fear, Nightshade got on her feet and shoved the stone to her chest, and everything began to fall apart.