Song reference: Chandelier by Sia
Chapter 42: Chanticleer
What care the Dead, for Chanticleer. What care the Dead for Day? — Emily Dickinson
He sat before the firepit contemplating the flames and his ash black skin. Had this been a forge accident? It covered his whole body yet he felt no pain.
"One, two, three …"
He did not recognize the clothes he wore. He also seemed taller.
"One, two, three, sing …"
Here, there was only the fire and darkness and silence. The past was gone; tomorrow didn't exist.
"One, two, three …"
A spark flew out of the fire, expanded, and took shape. It was the sleeping beauty, but asleep no longer and counting a beat in singsong with an inviting smile.
"One, two, three, sing …"
Was he hallucinating? He closed his eyes. Existence had collapsed. Once the fire died, there was nothing else to hold on for.
But why did he keep feeding the fire? At least twice it had almost died out, but then he gave it his magic. Why? Because, each time, he felt there were other lives out there in the dark — like the sleeping beauty — depending on that flame; needing its guidance, holding on for dear life, holding on one more night.
She took his hands in hers and pulled him up. He was astonished enough to let her.
"One, two, three …"
They were dancing in a way. She was trying to. He was just moving his feet enough not to be thrown off balance.
"Who are you?" he asked gruffly, embarrassed at and hating the coarseness of his voice.
"I am Irdal. Sing with me," she commanded.
"I can't sing anymore."
"Then count with me, please, Dumac. Try for me, please." Here eyes, like antique gold, seemed to glow with soft, subtle light.
He sighed and repeated dully, "One, two three …"
"One, two, three, sing …" She wove her voice around him though his chanting was as dull as beating the ground with a rock.
He looked up. The stars were arrayed like lights on a chandelier that seemed to sway as she guided him around.
"One, two, three, one, two, three, sing …"
X—X—X—X—X—X—X
He went into town to visit friends and see how the shoreline project was doing. He still felt guilty about abandoning it. As soon as the Dwemer station had been found under Skytemple, he'd had to drop the shoreline project. The Argonian assured him they were doing fine with J'zargo's help. Still, he'd kind of missed the physical work of stacking rocks against the relentless tide.
The fishing families were coming back, and new boats were being built in the area dedicated to shipbuilding. Small trade ships were making regular stops at Winterhold's port. In another year, the breakwater would be complete. The foundations of longer docks were being laid in anticipation of large trade ships and warships.
Thanks to the stories written about them in the Gold Coast Watch, a Cyrodiil financial newspaper on the far end of the world, international investors wanted stakes in little Winterhold. That, of course, incited Skyrim investors who weren't about to let outsiders jump over them to claim all the wealth.
The "clever-crafters" of Winterhold were something again to be proud of.
He waited in The Dock, a large, plain hall with multiple fireplaces for workers to rest and get warm. The refreshments in the Dock were free but limited to beer, tea, and fresh-baked bread with butter or jam. Food vendor stalls or tents were outside. Eventually, Colette and J'zargo came in. They'd been stuck the past three days in a decompression bubble doing the research Tolfdir had said couldn't be put off, which was to develop the drugs that would allow Khajiit to survive deep dives. The Argonians excavating the ruins of Winterhold were running into some challenges and needed changes to the destruction staves J'zargo had created. He couldn't do that outside the deepwater operational environment they were designed to work in because they exploded. He'd done as much as he could topside, but sometimes, you just had to be there to see what the problem was.
For some reason, the deep-dive drugs didn't work for Khajiit. As the only Khajiit working on the project was J'zargo, drug development wasn't a priority. But now, he needed to dive. The alchemists tirelessly worked over formulations, but an expert or master healer had to dive with him in case the drugs didn't work right and healing was needed on the spot to keep him alive until they could surface or get him into the nearest dive bubble station. Tolfdir insisted Colette handle this personally.
"Yo, Colette, sweetie. I've missed you." Curtis caught the surprised Restorations master in a bearhug, lifting her off the ground.
"Curtis! When did you get back?" she asked after submitting to an embarrassing show of affection that had onlookers whistling and clapping.
"Yesterday morning. Had to rush back to collect stuff." He let her go and turned to J'zargo, clapping the wilting Khajiit on the shoulder. "Man, you look like you could use a stiff one. How ya been doing, J'zargo?"
"This one, as Curtis has said, could use a stiff one. Something stronger than beer. But welcome back, friend."
"Thanks. Hm, I might have something. Hey, Colette, is he cleared for alcohol? Anything any drugs still in him might react to?"
"No, the latest deep-dive drugs are mostly gone; alcohol should be fine, but he'll pass out for a day or two from anything stronger than beer."
"Great. Here, J'zargo, elf beer, Brother Salindil's recipe. This should put you out for a week," Curtis made sure the cat was sitting at a table before giving him the leather-covered metal canteen off his belt. J'zargo got two large swallows down before collapsing over the table. Curtis recovered the canteen, capped it, and then laughed as he hauled the cat-man across his shoulders.
They went to the recently built lift, an iron cage suspended by a thick cable of Morrowind silk, half the size, and a third the weight of equivalent hemp cables. A team of draft horses hauled the cage up to its platform. The lift platform was near the college, so the only tasking part for Curtis was carrying J'zargo's dead weight up the bridge. As they walked up the bridge, Curtis told Colette all about the long journey, the Snowmer's forgotten vale, and how they were settling in.
"But there are Falmer there, too? How sad."
"Yeah. It's tough. What's worse, there are vampire Falmer. You know the story how Gelebor's brother was infected? We found his last memoir. He managed to find a way to trap himself to the vale so that he wouldn't be tempted to leave; or that he would allow the other vampires to leave. The two groups destroying each other is what's kept the vale from being overrun by either side. Even so, we are planning for total extermination. We can't afford anything else. The only hope we have will have to be the bunch we have at Xrib's Temple."
"Gods," said Colette. "Before the Snowmer's revival, the extermination of all the Falmer would not have bothered me one bit. It was a horrible part of history, and there was no saving them. Now … There are so many doubts. Are we playing at being gods at Xrib?" Curtis cringed, but she didn't notice. "Do we have the will and the resources or the cleverness to really affect their fate?"
"Well, we're working hard on a teleport system. It's the reason why I came back so quickly. We had a lucky break because Jhunal decided we needed help, so he gave us a study night in Apocrypha with direct access to books and scrolls we needed to make everything work. My people crammed hard. I've brought back some notes to share with the college and Baladas. I'm also collecting paper, inks, and stuff for printing. Brother Salindil and his priests have been a blessing. They've been doing all of the domestic chores of food gathering, cooking, making the place livable, laundry, starting a garden … all that, so the Snowmer and Dwemer could concentrate on the teleport project. It's our top priority. A Dwemer transport between the entry shrine and the college.
"So I'm on a shopping trip plus scavenger hunt for Dwemer parts. It's going to be a massive pain in the ass figuring how to get everything back without being noticed."
They dropped J'zargo off in his chamber. Curtis's office was untouched, so they went there. Ilya, who had been trailing silently after them, settled in at the outside secretary's desk to fend off the people who had seen Curtis and wanted to talk to him.
"We're killing off most the Falmer and all of the vampire Falmer in the vale. But my people still want to come back here and work with the Xrib colony. So, it's only been a few weeks. I don't suppose you had any great breakthroughs while we were gone?"
"Nothing really. I have managed to recruit some promising alchemists. I've also got Gunnar of the Dawnguard interested in working with us. He's a master animal trainer. If he can train trolls to take orders and fight vampires, maybe he can help us think how we need to act or think so that we can get through to the Falmer."
"Staff training? Smart."
"I've also started corresponding with Mistress Constance Michel of Geirmund's Honor Orphanage. If anyone knows the minds traumatized and abused children, we can't do better than her."
"Is she in town?"
"No, she's in Hjaalmarch right now and will return at the end of the month." She looked thoughtful. "She's there with Lord Sadri at Tel Windstad. You know, if you need help transporting things back in secret, he could help. I'm certain he has friends in Solitude who could cover for any shipments from Winterhold to there and arrange for ground transport of goods heading towards the Reach."
"Fantastic idea." Curtis quickly wrote a letter to Lord Sadri and gave it to Ilya to send.
Well, there was no putting off what had to be said.
He sat beside her and hugged her close.
"Curtis?"
"Just give me a moment, sweetheart. I need this, and I'm being selfish, okay?"
"Oh? Oh. Well, a little selfishness isn't bad. That's one of the first things I tell new healers." She rubbed his back and snuggled under his chin.
Eventually, he let her go and moved away. She frowned in puzzlement and concern.
"Colette, you said earlier you wondered if we were playing gods with the Falmer. We are. And I've decided to play a Daedric Prince. I've made a deal with Lady Valerica Volkihar to give her Falmer to experiment with."
Her expression went stony, but she remained silent.
"What she'll be doing would be too close to necromancy for you or the college to accept. Remember how I tried to explain to you the concepts of DNA? I couldn't do it because my understanding is below novice level. Initiate's probably. It's a branch of science I never really studied, just introductory classes and general concepts given to kids. I never got beyond that.
"You're brilliant, Colette. But Valerica has two advantages — she's an autopsy expert and won't flinch at vivisection. Done right, it can shortcut decades of roundabout research. Vivisection, cutting apart something while it's still alive, is evil. I ain't debating that.
"If she finds the data keys I know are there, will you work with that knowledge? I've asked her to use cadavers as much as she can. She can do quite a bit of mechanical research using resurrected corpses. But eventually, she will have to work with live subjects. This is a battle for the Falmer future, and it will be a price paid in blood. I don't want the sacrifices made in vain. Will you work with the results?"
"What do the Snowmer say about all this?" she asked after a long silence.
"I haven't told them yet," he confessed. "I already know they won't like it, just as I know they won't like it when I order them to submit to the unpleasant harvesting of their seeds and eggs for genetic splicing or straight implantation. I need the Xrib colony to be fully weaned off the mushrooms before this can happen. And the mentality of the Falmer will have to be controlled so that they don't reject and kill their altered children, or try to use magic to fix the children back to what they consider normal."
He went to sit behind his desk thinking, by the way Colette had curled in on herself, that she didn't want him near her.
"And the gods …" She started, and waited for him to finish.
"Jhunal gave us some help with teleport technology. One of the reasons stated — straight from Savos Aren, so likely also from Jhunal — was to continue work with the Falmer. They had to already know my intentions because I was talking with Lady Valerica before we got to the forgotten vale. Nothing was forbidden, and I got no warning. I'm taking that as permission to proceed."
"I see. And what do the vampires get from this?" She asked. "The knowledge to manipulate their physical nature? The secret to thriving under the sun? What kind of slaves will they breed for their food or their armies?"
"All I can tell you is that if I find she's using what I taught her for shits and giggles, I'll go after her. She knows that. Of course, she could outlive me and do what she wants when I'm dead. I don't know what she's researching. Serana says she doesn't know either. I don't see how gene manipulation will do anything to a vampire; they're technically the walking dead. Their genetics are dead; they're artificially sustained life forms. I doubt they can breed a day-walker. As for mutant servants, why bother? It's redundant and too much trouble. The methods they already use are efficient enough. I mean, they can create death hounds and gargoyles already. They can keep thralls semi-functional in the brains department. And all those can function in the daylight, so what else do they need?
"If I had to guess, Lady Valerica's original research was into life extension without the burden of vampirism. The sticky part was how to stop being a vampire once she found the solution. Right now, Mage Falion in Hjaalmarch is the only one who knows how to manage that, but he's mortal. She knows of him but hasn't made any moves to meet him. Whatever. That's between them. Why in hell she wants to live forever is beyond me. For all I know, she'll figure out how to make a clone and use magic to transfer her consciousness and soul to it, leaving behind vampirism and Molag Bal's grip. Wasn't that how she and her husband got into vampirism in the first place, their fear of dying?"
"We've wandered off the subject, Curtis," Colette said icily. "You are having a vampire lord tearing apart Falmer to study those chemicals you've tried to explain to me as being the base components of all life. You've also said the study was decades of work, involving thousands of scientists, thousands of test subjects, and massive machines to do calculations. Do you honestly think one vampire lord can accomplish this on her own?"
"Yeah, well, my world didn't have magic to shortcut the research. We couldn't summon a dremora or make a deal with a Daedra to bring us answers in exchange for a few souls. We didn't have Snowmer who could group dream experiments and solutions once they understood concepts and had goals in mind. Can't recall the word for it, but, um, 'thought experiment,' or some such, with calculations and data processing by living computers.
"Another shortcut is the Dreamtime. As I said, we're killing 'most' of the Falmer. Those Falmer, whose minds have evolved enough to be receptive to dreams, can be taught, can be lured to safe areas, so self-separated from the slaughter.
"I'm not trying to grow a new race from scratch. We're just trying to reverse generations of drug-induced mutations. First, by weaning them off the mushrooms and then breeding the survivors. Imping in the original Snowmer genetics works best if we can identify the Falmer with the strongest recessive traits." He sighed. "Here I am, talking my head off about things I don't fully understand. I've never studied animal husbandry either. All the dog breed shows I've ever watched were parades of mutations, critters bred to human tastes, and most of them insults to their original wolf ancestors. And now I'm leading a project on breeding Mer." He grinned wryly and held up his hands, flapping them in his own direction. "Dunmer, Daedra-forced mutation of the Chimer, who are an off-breed of the Aldmer. Flip a few recessive genes, make it dominant, and there you have it. Azura just snapped her fingers. Us, we gotta do it the hard way."
"You've been caught up in a lot of dreams lately, Curtis. Most are astonishingly practical and productive. It sounds like you'll be exposing the Snowmer and Dwemer to a vampire's dreams. I worry. Where are your dreams leading you?" She got up and headed to the door. "I need to think. I'll let Ilya know when I'm ready to talk to you again."
"Colette …"
She paused before the door. "I understand you see this as a war, and I know people sacrifice and die. I know many medical advances and skills come about in wars. But if you remember, I refused to go into the Great War. That's how I became the College's Restorations master because the other masters never returned. It wasn't that I was afraid of dying myself — all the Winterhold College healers were assigned to the front lines — it was because I couldn't bear the thought of putting so much of myself into healing only to see them throwing themselves back into battle.
"To answer you, yes, I'll use the results your vampire comes up with if I see a clear benefit. I've worked with war survivors. No glory there; no one appreciated those of us mopping up the aftermath."
The door clicked firmly shut behind her.
Curtis sat back and stared up at the ceiling. He'd been prepared for anger, arguments, disgust, but her quiet acceptance scared him even more. She'd never told him or hinted that she'd done work after the Great War. Now he wondered if some of her shrewishness came from that work and not just the general piss-poor attitude traditional mages here had for the priestly healing arts. Caregiver burnout plus lack of academic respect? He was glad she wouldn't outright reject Valerica's work; that was good at least.
He wanted to run after her and cheer her up, but he felt Slitter holding him back. *Madder than a betty netch about to lay eggs; they'll lash out and sting anything that comes too near. Besides, you fetcher, you just told her that her best efforts weren't ever going to be enough. She knows you're right, but it's still a cut.*
"What do you suggest?"
*Dunno. All I can think of is regularly putting water and food outside the door she's shut on us. But I don't think that's enough here. You're the one with the brains and the smart mouth, but I don't think you can sweet-talk your way out of this.*
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