Chapter 7: The Dark Brotherhood
It was time.
The knife was cold in my hand. The man in front of me was bound to a chair. On either side of him stood a Dark Brotherhood assassin waiting for me to make my choice. The room was dim, with a few candles standing in a circle around my victim. Hecate—my assassin—stood behind me with her hands on my shoulders and her lips next to my ear. She whispered words of encouragement to me even as the man before me pleaded for his life. Dust motes flickered in and out of sight as they danced with the candlelight.
It was a frozen moment, one that will live on in me forever.
I made my choice.
It had been a day and a night since my assassin came back into my life.
Once she had woken me from my slumber, she explained to me that she needed me to clear out certain parts of my home so that I could complete my test. She also explained to me that before I could learn anything more, before I could become a true member of the Dark Brotherhood, I had to take a life. I had to prove to her that I could kill on command—not just to kill, but to kill who she said and when she said to do it. She was quite grave when she explained this to me, and I knew that it was non-negotiable.
Once she was gone I was too excited to sleep, so I cleaned the house. It was pretty clean from my previous efforts, but knowing that the Dark Brotherhood themselves would be visiting my home made me want to make the place even nicer. I felt a little ashamed of the state it had been in when she had come to see me the first time, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I spent the rest of the night sweeping and polishing the floors, moving furniture, and putting away dishware.
When I was done with all the chores I could manage, with dawn just beginning to turn the eastern sky pink, I realized that I had agreed to kill a human being. I looked deep inside myself to see if there was some part of me that objected to the idea. I had asked the Dark Brotherhood to kill Grelod, but it was different to kill someone yourself. Wasn't it? I sat up all morning wondering about that separation.
Around noon, I was shocked to hear the front door opening. Had my assassin forgotten to lock it? Rushing to the stairs I saw a strange man entering. He had dark skin and piercing eyes, and he dressed in strange, foreign robes. As I looked at him in shock, his hard and cruel-looking face suddenly breaking into a wide, friendly smile.
"You must be Aventus," he said in a rumbling voice. I could only nod, my mouth agape. "I'm Nazir. Hecate sent me."
"Who?" I asked dumbly. He quirked an eyebrow at me and the corner of his mouth turned up into a sardonic smirk.
"Didn't introduce herself, eh?" His voice was loaded with sarcasm and a kind of humor that I didn't understand. "Well, she knows you. Killed a woman for you, even."
"Oh!" I said suddenly. By then, I was sure he thought I was simple or soft in the head, and my face started to burn. "You mean the woman who…" I paused. I had never talked about this with anyone before.
"Killed Grelod?" he finally finished for me. I nodded to him, casting down my eyes so that I wouldn't have to meet his gaze. He belly laughed as he sat down on a wooden stool. He ran a hand across his eyes, flicked the tears away, and finally reached out to tilt my chin up so I was looking at him again.
"Boy," he started, "I have never in my many years seen someone so embarrassed about helping people." I felt electrified suddenly; he said I had helped people! "I've done a lot of killing and sent a lot of people out to kill in my time. But never before Grelod the Kind had I heard of a Black Sacrament so completely justified. Old crone had it coming."
I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, my eyes wide and staring. My mouth hung open. He was saying the very words I had thought so many times before leaving Honorhall and all the things I had said to myself to justify the Black Sacrament after I left it.
"So, out of professional curiosity," he asked mildly, "where did you get the effigy for the ritual?"
"My mother," I murmured. He cocked his head and looked at me quizzically. "My mother died almost-" I paused. Divines, had it really been so long? "Almost two years ago. I ran away from the orphanage and came back to Windhelm, then I stole her body from the Hall of the Dead." I waited for him to lash out at me, to chastise me, but he only nodded sagely.
"That's clever," he said with something that I thought might be admiration. "Not many people would have the strength to carry through with something like that. I can see why Hecate thinks you're special."
"She does?" I asked dumbly.
"Well, yes. Do you think we invite children to join the Brotherhood every day?"
"I'm not a child." I finally looked him right in the eyes, staring at him defiantly. I might have only been twelve years old then, but my childhood had ended long before. He met my gaze for a long time, his near-black eyes seeming to bore into my soul. Neither of us flinched. Finally, he nodded respectfully.
"No," he rumbled, "I suppose you aren't, at that." He looked around the main room of the house critically, and I was suddenly irrationally glad that I had taken the time to clean up. "You know what you have to do if you want to join us?" he asked without looking at me.
"Yes," I said with what sounded like resolution.
"Good," he replied. "Then I don't have to go over that part with you. What I'm here to do, Aventus, is to teach you about all of the other things—the ones that Hecate probably didn't get around to. And once that's done, I have to get your house ready for your test."
"What sort of things?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"The first thing you need to know is that the woman who killed Grelod for you—Hecate—is our leader." I goggled in open awe. I hadn't gotten just any assassin, but the leader of the Dark Brotherhood! "She's called 'the Listener,' and she's our link to the Night Mother."
"I read about the Night Mother!" I said excitedly. "Sweet mother, sweet mother, send your child unto me-"
"For the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear," he finished. "The words of the Black Sacrament. It's our most important prayer. I know you've read the book—otherwise you wouldn't have caught our attention in the first place." I nodded, careful to keep quiet now lest I say something else foolishly obvious. "Anyway. The Night Mother is… Well, she's our icon, I suppose you'd say. She's the reason we're different from simple hired thugs and murderers. She gives us purpose.
"The Listener is the only person with the ability to hear the Night Mother's words. Anytime someone says the Black Sacrament, the Night Mother hears it—and if she judges the plea to be worthy, she passes on the message to the Listener. In turn, the Listener gives the mission to a Speaker—like me—who arranges for someone to make contact with the person who performed the sacrament. The Speaker meets with the supplicant and negotiates a price for the deed." He smiled at this part. "Our prices are fair and negotiable; we never charge more than a person can pay." He winked at me. "Of course, we never charge less than they can pay either."
I nodded to indicate my understanding. So far he hadn't said anything that contradicted my view of the Brotherhood. I was thrilled to think that someone as important as the leader of the Dark Brotherhood had decided to come and take my case personally. Everything he said only made my faith in the Brotherhood and their methods grow. Nazir's pleasant, rumbling voice and engaging way of speaking drew me in completely.
"If you pass your test," he said in a way that made it clear he had no opinion about it one way or the other, "then you will be expected to train, to hone your skills, to improve as an assassin. These are not obligations from the Night Mother; they're simply what you will have to do in order to survive. Our life is not an easy one, Aventus. It can be dangerous, painful, and even maddening." As he said these things, I got the impression that there was someone specific he was thinking about, but I did not interrupt.
"However, this life is also rewarding. And not just in coin. The Brotherhood is a family, first and foremost, and our only rules are about protecting the sanctity and safety of that family."
"Rules?" I asked, finally unable to keep my questions in.
"Yes," he nodded, "five of them. We call them the Tenets, and they are the only law that any assassin obeys. No king, no jarl, no chieftain can constrain you from your duty save by force of arms. Once you become an assassin, you belong to no nation, no people, no tribe save ours. We are your family from the moment you take a life in our name, and only the Night Mother and her children may judge you worthy or lacking."
"What are the five rules?" I pressed.
"First, you must respect the Night Mother," he replied, ticking the rules off one by one on his fingers. "You must never betray the Brotherhood or its secrets. You must always obey your superiors—so generally, the Listener and the Speaker. You must never steal from one of your brothers or sisters. And you must never kill one of your brothers or sisters. To break any of these rules is to invoke the wrath of the Dread Lord Sithis." He turned his hand around toward me so that I was looking at his palm, the fingers splayed out. It was like the symbol in the book.
"Five fingers to make a hand," he said, "and five fingers curled together to make a fist. That's the way of the Dark Brotherhood." He dropped his hand back to his lap, and for the first time I noticed that his other hand was on top of the hilt of his curved sword. He saw me looking at the blade and simply continued as though nothing unusual was going on. "The Brotherhood has a long and rich history… none of which is really important to you right now. If you join us, then I'll be the one primarily responsible for your training and education, and you'll have ample free time between missions for personal business."
"That's it?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" asked Nazir.
"I mean… It just seems simpler than I expected." Nazir surprised me by taking his hand off his sword and covering his mouth as he burst out laughing again.
"It always does to the young," he said when he finally regained control of his voice. "You may not be a child, Aventus, but you're definitely not an adult yet. Things become more complicated as you get older, and sometimes the things that seemed very simple at thirteen seem impossibly convoluted at thirty." He stood up from his stool, and I followed suit. "Now that you know the rules, it's time to get to work."
"What do I need to do?" I asked, eager for my time with the Brotherhood to begin.
"Nothing yet," he said, glancing around the house. "You've already done an excellent job clearing out the space we'll need for later. I just have to go over some basic details. Check the windows, muffle the glass, make sure that there's nothing our target can use against us…"
"You're going to kill someone in my house?" I exclaimed suddenly. I had thought they were going to take me somewhere else so I could prove myself, not here in my own home.
"Is that a problem?" Nazir asked, his eyes fixed on me critically. I paused, realizing that this was part of the test too. While I was a little uncomfortable with it, I realized that it was just a lingering territoriality more than anything practical.
"No," I responded, straightening my back and meeting Nazir's eyes. "No, it's no problem."
He nodded, then proceeded to inspect the area critically. From time to time, he would move something or open a drawer to look inside it. I felt embarrassed, like he was searching me personally. At long last he finished his inspection and told me that he would be coming back at sunset to finish preparations. He recommended that I get some rest before then, and I suddenly realized that I was genuinely exhausted. I was barely able to see Nazir out before the fatigue overcame me and I collapsed into my bed, dreaming of the night to come.
I woke up to someone shaking my shoulder. It was pitch black outside and the interior was lit only by the glow of candles. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked up into the kindly face of Hecate, my assassin. She wore the robes of a priestess of Talos, and I wondered briefly if I was dreaming. Her hand was too warm and solid for a dream, though, and I finally was able to gather my wits enough to speak.
"Is it time?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Am I going to be a Dark Brotherhood assassin?"
"That depends on you, Aventus," she said with a slight, sad smile. "You just need to prove you can kill someone for me."
"I want to be a Dark Brotherhood assassin. I want to help people like you helped me," I said, repeating the words I had said the night before. "Whatever I have to do, I'll do it." She nodded at me and her face became grave, almost mask-like. She took my hand as she had the previous night, but now it was a firm grip.
She led me away from my bed near the fire to the room that used to be my mother's. A blanket had been hung across the doorway to give the room a sense of privacy. A few candles were placed on the windowsill, giving off enough light for me to make out four people. Nazir stood at the doorway, holding open the curtain respectfully for Hecate and me to pass through. At the rear of the small chamber were two figures silhouetted by the candlelight. I could barely make either of them out, save that one was a man and the other a Khajit—and both sported huge, toothy grins.
The last man was clearly intended to be my victim. He was a burly Nord tied to a chair in the middle of the room. His face was bruised in places and a few scratches marred his cheeks and bare chest. He was moaning lightly and was clearly just beginning to come to consciousness after having been roughly knocked out. As he looked up and opened his eyes, I felt my mouth drop open at realizing the identity of the man they had chosen for my victim.
"This is the man you have to kill," Hecate said seriously, not acknowledging my shock.
"I know that man. He's-" I stammered, trying to cover my true emotions. "He's at the Candlehearth a lot."
I carefully studied the face of the man as Hecate rambled about his evils and his crimes. I didn't need to hear any of it. I already knew this man's true nature. I had seen it the day he and Angrenor Once-Honored had threatened an innocent Dunmer woman while I cowered in fear. I had seen the face of Rolff Stone-Fist in my nightmares for a year, taunting me for my cowardice and my selfishness.
Truly, the Night Mother had chosen to bless me.
"Rolff has gone past simply taunting 'lesser races,'" Hecate continued, finally getting through the sound of my blood pounding in my ears. "A couple of weeks ago Rolff killed an Argonian." I turned to look at Hecate's face, but she wasn't looking at me anymore. She was staring straight at Rolff with an expression I could only interpret as disgust. "She was a kind and gentle soul who saw only the good in life. She smiled when others couldn't—because she wanted to be happy more than sad. She was supposed to be married soon."
"Little boy," Rolff cried suddenly, straining at his bonds, "don't listen to that woman! Run and get help!" The man behind him stepped forward and started to reach for him, but Hecate waved him back. He struggled uselessly against the ropes for a moment before finally settling back down. His muscles continued to strain and twist as he looked for any purchase to attempt an escape.
"Rolff saw her in the city one night," Hecate continued as though there had never been an interruption, "and killed her. He decided that a 'dirty lizard' didn't deserve to be in the city limits. And he beat her to death. Shahvee was supposed to be married the next day.'
This time my shock was genuine instead of feigned. Shahvee was dead? She had always been so kind to me while I was working, and I had long suspected that she was the one who recommended me to Torbjorn Shatter-Shield. How could she be dead? I had just seen her… As I thought about it, I realized that I hadn't seen anyone in well over a week, and even before that I hadn't seen Shahvee down at the docks for at least a few days, maybe longer. She had been dead all that time. And I hadn't even known.
My breathing went shallow, and my eyes started to fill with tears. That's when Hecate put the knife in my hands. It was a plain iron dagger, no different than any cutting tool in my kitchen except for the hilt, which was wrapped in black leather. It was cold as death in my hand.
"If you do this," Hecate said, "it won't be easy for you or him. Rolff will bleed and beg—and it will probably take a long time." She knelt down and looked me in the eyes. "And he deserves it."
I wanted to tell her that I agreed with her, that I knew Shahvee and that anyone who could take her out of this world deserved to be cast into the Void. But I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, and I knew that if I opened my mouth to speak only sobs would come out. I was angry at myself for being so happy about joining a new family when my happiness came from someone else's misery.
Not Rolff's, of course. He deserved every bit of pain I was about to give him. No, I was angry because I hadn't thought about the person we would be avenging tonight. I swore to myself that I would do this right—that I would remember Shahvee as I put Rolff out of the world and into the Dread Lord's horrible embrace. I would become an assassin, and I would make the world a better place.
I looked around the room, wanting to fix the moment in my mind forever so that I would never again forget why I was doing this. Nazir stood with his arms crossed, doing his best to look like a wooden statue, but he nodded his encouragement at me. The two others I didn't know had their enormous grins in place; they felt predatory, frightening. Rolff was cursing incoherently at all of us. I tuned him out.
"I want to be a Dark Brotherhood assassin," I said, pushing the words out through my teeth. "I want to help people."
And then the stabbing began.
At first my strikes were hesitant. I didn't know much about hurting people, and I was shocked at the spatter of blood that came after the first stroke. The second one was easier, and the third was easier still. Eventually I picked up a rhythm, stabbing and slashing in alternating strokes. Rolff screamed and his blood went everywhere. I was screaming myself, wordless noises of fury and horror. The moment was perfect, and it will live in my mind forever.
Rolff Stone-Fist died poorly.
I don't know how long it took me to kill Rolff. After that perfect, gleaming moment of righteousness, there was only the physical repetitiveness of murder. He screamed for a long time, it seemed like. I screamed too, until my throat was too hoarse to continue. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I drew my arm back for one last strike and I found Nazir's strong hand holding me back. I looked up at him, desperate and questioning. Had I failed?
"He's done, Aventus," Nazir said solemnly. "He's been dead for a while now. You can stop."
I let Nazir gingerly pull the knife from my hands and I forced myself to look upon my handiwork. It was true; he was dead. His body was covered in cuts and gouges from my sloppy knifework, and blood was pooled all around him on the floor. I had a confused moment where I wondered how I was ever going to clean it all up myself, and then I looked at my own hands. To say they were covered in blood was an understatement. I was soaked in the stuff, all the way up to my chest and shoulders, and a quick daub at my face made me certain that Rolff's bloodhad made its way there as well.
"Go clean yourself up," Nazir said to me with great patience. He looked up at the other man, the one who had stood in the shadows and watched with a mad smile the whole time I was passing my test. "Cicero, take him outside and make sure no one sees. There's a water trough right along the side of the building. I have to report to Hecate."
"As you wish, oh great and powerful Speaker," the man called Cicero said with an exaggerated and mocking bow. Nazir's face turned into a stern frown, and I could swear that his eye started twitching. "I will make sure no one disturbs the boy."
Cicero walked past me without a second glance, and I had to scurry along to follow him. Once he was no longer a black shadow backlit by candles, I could see that he was an Imperial. I thought he might be red-haired as well, but it was difficult to tell with his hair pushed up under a bright red jester's cap. He was covered head to toe in the motley of a southern gleeman, red and black crushed velvet whispering softly as he walked. It struck me how quietly the man moved; I could barely hear his clothes rustling when he walked past me, and once he was more than a few steps away, I could hear nothing at all.
I followed him outside, worried that someone would see me covered in blood and gore. By the time I got to the trough, I was more worried about freezing to death while I cleaned myself up. Windhelm is cool even in the summer, and in the middle of Frostfall… Well, the month lives up to its name in Windhelm. The water trough was slicked over with a thin layer of ice, and I just stared at it helplessly for a moment until Cicero pulled out his knife and cracked it with a bored sigh. I was shaking from the cold, and from a sick sensation that was building in my stomach.
As I scrubbed at my skin with freezing water, something plopped onto my shoulder. I jumped, sure that we had been caught, then I managed to wrap my hand around the object. It was a towel, wrapped neatly around a bar of soap.
"The boy has good reflexes," Cicero noted, looking out at the streets and not at me. "Cicero thought the boy might not remember, so he took the liberty of bringing soap and cloth along from the inn. Must clean all the hard to reach places!" he added cheerfully.
"But-" I started, then noticed that under Cicero's arm was tucked a folded set of clothes that looked suspiciously like mine. "Where did you get those?" I asked him.
"What?" he said, turning to look at me with an innocent face. "These old things? Why, Cicero just found them laying around while the boy was sleeping. If they should happen to fit the boy, that would be a happy coincidence!" He hummed to himself for a moment and danced a cheery jig. I covered my mouth with a hand and giggled. He was a very funny sort of man. I wondered if he always talked about himself in the third person.
I stripped off my shirt and scrubbed as hard as I could bear, the chill water quickly stealing the feeling from my fingertips. I rushed to get all of the blood out of my hair and off my skin. Rather than worry about the clothes for the time being, I stripped to my skin and held out a hand to the jester, who didn't look at me as he passed me the extra clothes. I thought at first he was trying to give me privacy, but from the way his eyes scanned back and forth I realized that he was just still keeping watch. I quickly dressed myself and bundled up the soiled outfit under one arm. As I started to turn to go back into the house, Cicero held up one gloved hand and gestured me back.
The alley was covered in a rime of ice, and my short-cropped hair was already stiff from washing it in the cold. I shivered and chattered while a pair of Windhelm guards walked right past the mouth of the alley, complaining about the weather as they patrolled. Cicero was pressed up against the wall ahead of me, nearly invisible in the shadows, his dagger drawn and held behind him to prevent the metal from gleaming in the torchlight. Once they were gone, Cicero sheathed his knife and turned to me again, a jaunty and roguish smile on his face.
"Welcome to the family," he chirped. His face suddenly seemed to cross over into shadow, and his cheery smile became vicious and threatening. His voice turned gravelly as he said, "If your first kill was any indication, I look forward to great things from you."
At that, my stomach suddenly turned over and I had to face away from the jester as I suddenly threw up all over the alley wall. When I finished, Cicero was watching me with something like distaste. I couldn't really blame him; I had just shown him the entire contents of my stomach, which didn't tend to lend itself to good impressions. As I straightened myself up and went to check my mouth for stray matter, he handed me a hand towel. I looked at him quizzically, and he pantomimed using a napkin to dab at the corners of his mouth.
"Cicero knows that many young people feel sick after a first kill," he said as I wiped at my face. "The excitement, you know. It will get easier."
"Will it really?" I asked. Even with my raw hatred of Rolff at work, it had been hard to convince myself to stab another human being, especially one that screamed and cursed at me.
"Oh, yes," he said, nodding. "But never any less exciting!" Cicero let out a mad cackle as he danced his way toward the door to my house. As I trailed along behind him, my empty stomach gurgling and my body shivering from the cold, I suddenly felt unaccountably emotional. I had done the right thing in killing Rolff; so why was I on the verge of tears?
Once I was back inside, I found Hecate waiting for me, changed into traveling clothes more like what I thought she should have been wearing the first time. Nazir and the Khajit—a female, I now saw—had already wrapped up Rolff's body in a tarp and were pulling up a waterproof oilcloth from the floor where he had been sitting. I hadn't even been able to tell I was standing on it before; it was very clever. Hecate walked over to Cicero and squeezed his hand affectionately before sitting down in the chair next to the fire. Someone had gotten it going while I was outside, and now it was crackling merrily.
I wandered over to Hecate, feeling more unbalanced than I had for months. She held out her arms to me, and at long last she gave me the hug I had been dreaming of for nearly a year. As she pulled me into her warm, strong embrace, I finally realized that my emotion wasn't a negative one. I was cold and tired and sore—but I was also happy. I was sad that Shahvee was gone, but I was happy that her killer had found justice. And I was happy for myself.
When Hecate finally whispered the words I had been waiting to hear from her, it pushed me over the edge and I started weeping openly. "Welcome to the Dark Brotherhood, Aventus Aretino," she said. I cried for almost an hour, pouring out my heart on her shoulder. Sweeter words had never been spoken to me before.
After I finished, I put away my few possessions, locked up the house, and never looked back. It was time to begin my new life. With my new family.
…to be continued…