6—Salmon
The first creature showed up after they found the second corpse and the broken ramp. Thin, hunched over, and as pale as moonlight, it had eyes – or rather, eye sockets so red and scarred over that they were a mockery of real eyes. Its face was long, narrow, and framed with long ears attuned to the underground caverns and passages. Slanted nostrils sat high on their face, slits in puckered pink skin where noses should be. They looked like elves – if someone asked a child to draw an elf without any reference. These creatures were blind, but words of their danger were written in a jagged script that stretched back to the entrance of Alftand. These white creatures killed an expedition of trained professionals. If Leara and Bishop weren't careful, they would be killed, too.
Bishop shot the first one, Leara's spell work concealing the twang of his bowstring.
The creatures began popping up frequently after that.
"Just let me shoot them down," Bishop hissed. He and Leara were huddled in an alcove encased in the protection of a bubbling Muffle spell. Karnwyr stood between them, his hackles raised and his teeth bared. It seemed the wolf didn't like the blind creatures any more than his master did.
"If we start killing them, they'll know we're here," Leara explained. "We have no idea how many there are, but if they could take out that expedition, then I'm not inclined to take any chances."
"Size never stopped you before," Bishop leered, wagging his eyebrows.
Leara pinched her nose. "Be practical for a moment, won't you? We have a better chance of sneaking through than we do of taking on an unknown number of these creatures! Do you want to die down here?" she asked bluntly. "Do you want Karnwyr to die? For all Akatosh knows, they would eat him! They might eat us!"
"Now, now, sweetness, don't get all hysterical on me!" Bishop said, rolling his eyes and placing a hand on her arm. "Fine, we'll do things your way, but follow my lead. You can't sneak worth a septim, especially in that silver plate. Let's go."
And so, they snuck their way through the ruin. Leara's hands were frozen and her moonstone ring bit into her finger from the quantities of magicka she pooled into a continuous Muffle. She held a Nighteye rune over her eyes, searching out corners for movement as Bishop crept by them unseeing. Karnwyr glued himself to her side, his body stiff and his head low as he scented the cracked stone floors. He was agitated. She didn't blame him.
Only once did Leara cast a life detection spell. Where she expected to find whirling clouds of violet smoke, she instead found plumes of pink, pale and quivering with the erratic beats of each creature's heart. Every one of the creatures had a soul weaker than even Karnwyr's, and each was bursting with a gnashing, swarming darkness. The chill permeating from the creatures' souls was unlike any Leara had ever felt either from magic or nature. Although she couldn't discern the dim memories or chaotic thoughts hidden in the souls, she could sense the discord and pain rolling off them in waves. She endured this for a moment before recoiling, the life detection rune shattering over her eyes like broken glass.
Bishop didn't notice her jerk back from the sting and she didn't mention it. They continued in the dark.
At one point Bishop caught her arm, and she whirled to face him. At some point he'd fallen behind her. Leara hadn't noticed.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"We need to stop."
"What?"
"We need to stop. You're dragging your feet," Bishop said. He almost sounded concerned, save for the sneer she could hear in his voice. "If we don't stop, you're going to stumble right into one of those creatures and all your plans about sneaking through undetected are gonna go out the window."
Akatosh, Leara wished there was a window and sunlight and a breeze down here. "You're right," she heard herself say. The words were as dull on her tongue as the exhaustion seeping into her bones.
How long had they been under the earth?
There was no apartment or defensible room where they could make camp, but Bishop found a tunnel branching off the main corridor. There must have been a cave-in at some point as one end of the hall was blocked off. Overhead, a lone Dwemer light fixture flickered, its light fractured and damaged. Under the grey light, Bishop plopped down against one of the larger boulders, his eyes trained back the way they came. "Get some shuteye, sweetness. I'll keep watch."
Leara blinked at Bishop. Part of her wondered what made him decide to be so nice, but the rest of her was too tired to care. Using her satchel as a pillow, Leara didn't bother setting her bedroll out. She fell asleep with her back to the wall and her face toward the corridor beyond. Karnwyr curled against her legs, providing a barrier of warmth from the subterranean chill.
Her dreams were hazy with smoke. Shadows at war with flames. Black wings beat against a starless sky as they clawed at their golden adversary. She stood alone, the crash of the battle above both deafening and devoid of sound. Then a hand grabbed hers, burning and scorching and eating away at her skin and bone.
Thunder cracked overhead.
Leara startled awake.
Silence.
For several moments, she tried to calm her breathing. Her entire body was on edge, cold and shaking in the aftershocks of her dream. Nightmare?
Was that Alduin?
A snore rattled nearby, shaking Leara from her thoughts. Already the dream was fading into a dim haze and all she could recall were black wings and scolding fire. It was about Alduin, she decided. Blasted World-Eater.
Wait. Was Bishop asleep—? Idiot! The bloody idiot!
Springing to her feet, Leara stormed over to where the ranger sat propped against the rubble, snoring away as if he were cuddled up in his own bed and not in the depths of a dwarven ruin surrounded by creatures that would eat him for dinner.
She kicked him in the leg. "Wake up, you sodding blockhead," she hissed near his ear.
Bishop coughed. Then yawned, his eyes blinking. "Well, hello gorgeous," he slurred, voice dull with sleep. He rubbed his face, then frowned at Leara, "Hey, when'd you put all that armor on?"
"I never took it off," Leara bit out. "Get up. We need to keep moving."
Grumbling about her silver plate and unfinished dreams, Bishop got himself together and the trio was off again a few minutes later.
Before leaving the tunnel, Leara drew a tempus charm on the back of her hand. It was after the third watch. People in decent places were still asleep. But this wasn't a decent place, she reminded herself as she ran a quick calculation. "Sixty-three hours."
"What?" Bishop said as he checked over his bow.
"We've been down here for sixty-three hours," she clarified, dismissing the charm.
"Damn."
Leara sniffed, "Quite."
Leara winced as the spikes grated against the stone, the sharp shriek of their retraction resonating through the cavern. At once, Karnwyr hunkered down on the floor. Covering his muzzle with his paws, he let out a soft whine.
"And you told me to be quiet!" Bishop snorted.
Leara ignored him. She made her way from the lever platform, stepping through the now-open gate to the wide stairs beyond. Her steps were silent under bubbling Illusion magic as she crept up the dais that dominated the center of the cavern. Bishop grumbled a moan before stomping after her. It had been a while since she'd seen any of the creatures, but Leara knew that didn't mean none were nearby. If they were, it was almost certain they heard the spikes retracting. Akatosh, she wouldn't be surprised if Delphine and Esbern heard it all the way back at Sky Haven Temple.
That gave her pause. Did they even miss her? She imagined Esbern did, at least as much as one missed a person they saw briefly after more than thirty years of no contact. The thought soured and sank down into her stomach, leaving a bitter taste in the back of her throat. She needed to contact them soon, even if Delphine acted like a bloody, blasted piece of—
Bishop grunted, his chest colliding with Leara's gauntlet. "What—"
"Shh!"
A finger to her lips, Leara pointed with her off-hand. The stairs split, both leading to a wide dais, larger than many of the areas they'd passed through before. On either side of the space were large stations of some kind, but it was the contents that caught Leara's attention.
Dwemer automatons. Huge and golden, they were like armored sentinels – Leara was certain they were bigger than the giants outside of Whiterun – charged with keeping watch over the tower entrance beyond. But one had fallen, whether taken down by some previous explorer, the creatures in the ruin, or by the sands of time, Leara didn't know. It was the one that remained, the silent guard gazing blindly forward that set her on edge. It seemed the Dwemer had a special knack for getting under her skin. Almost as well as Bishop but far more dangerous.
"What in Oblivion is that?" hissed Bishop. Despite Leara's look of warning, he crested the stairs to get a closer look. "That's gotta be the biggest one I've ever seen!"
Under a bronzed helmet, a cold facsimile of an elven face turned toward them. Steam hissed and sputtered as the automaton released from its station. It took a lumbering step forward, then another, its feet thundering against the stone in billows of rising steam.
"Bloody Hell!" Leara swore. She sprinted over to the fallen machine, as far from its living counterpart as possible.
The distant twang of Bishop's bowstring hummed under the pounding steps and hiss of steam. A clatter of steel on bronze. The arrow fell.
Karnwyr barked, loud and echoing through the cavern.
Leara's knees hit the stone floor. Crouching behind the fallen automaton, she peered over its armored chest. Bishop was nowhere to be seen, but Karnwyr was still barking at the machine. The wolf was running hither-thither in wide circles around it, drawing it to turn in awkward arcs in an attempt to keep up. Leara chewed her lip.
A cloud of dense steam wailed from the automaton's mouth, fathering like smoke after Karnwyr. Karnwyr only just avoided the scalding heat, leaping clear into Leara's hiding place. He hunkered behind her, his dark eyes blown so wide that she could see the whites of them. He was shaking.
The armored giant stalked near their hiding spot. Leara held her breath as it passed them by, unseeing.
Where in the name of Akatosh and the Divines was Bishop? She could only assume he'd fallen back to a blind spot on the landing below.
From her vantage point, Leara noticed a crack along the side of the fallen machine's chest cavity. She waited until its counterpart was on the other side of the dais before she slipped her hand inside. She was unsure what she'd find, but if the smaller machines ran off soul gems, then these things surely—
Oil?
Oh! The machine was full of oil!
An idea sprung to life in her mind. A dumb, dangerous sort of idea.
Oil stained her bare forefinger as she traced runes across the chest plate of the fallen machine. Under the distant glow of the dwarven lights, the black stood dark and deep against the dull golden finish of the automaton's armor.
Then Leara led Karnwyr across the dais to the shadows cast by the surrounding towers. Once there, she threw a rock back at the fallen automaton.
It clattered loud and clear against the bronze haul. Its living twin turned from its search near the stair to investigate. Leara held her breath as it thundered toward her trap. And then it was standing over the broken machine, blindly searching.
Flames pooled across her palm, kissing her skin. Leara hurled the spell.
At the swish of flying fire, the automaton turned its helmet. In that instant, the flames connected with the oily runes crisscrossing the broken machine.
Blinding white. A loud boom! resounded throughout the cavern. Her eyes squeezed shut, Leara covered Karnwyr's face with her cloak as a wave of intense heat rolled toward them. In defense, she held an icy ward around them, depending on the old Cyrodilic dome style to shield them on all sides. She spared only half a thought to Bishop as the inferno died down in the melted ruins of the two Dwemer machines. If he was as smart as he claimed to be, he'd have found a good hiding place.
Once the strain against her ward was gone, Leara released it and stepped out of hiding.
"What in the thrice-damned HELL was THAT?!"
Ah. There he was.
Bishop stalked toward her, none the worse for wear, though his face was a little red and his eyes were bloodshot. No different than any time she'd seen him get drunk in a tavern.
"I defeated the automaton," Leara replied coolly. "Where were you?"
Bishop grumbled.
"Pardon?"
"I said," he groused, "I was trying to rig that mounted bow back there to fire."
"I see. And did it?"
Bishop rolled his eyes. "Does it look like it did?" Shaking his head, his ruffled hair untouched by the explosion, Bishop jabbed his thumb at the towers. "I guess that's the way?"
"They had to be guarding something," Leara reasoned.
The towers were foreboding pillars within the twilight of the cavern, A tall stair led straight to a promenade high overhead. Casting one last look at the destroyed machines, Leara moved quietly up the stairs, Karnwyr beside her and Bishop behind. The stairs were long, and the promenade was longer. It connected the trio of towers together with a wide walk. For a moment, Leara wondered what the Dwemer did here, what it was like for them to actually live in Alftand, and what the city ruins looked like when they did. She could almost imagine it: stone polished like gleaming marble as elven figures in olive and citrine walked by, their dark beards plaited with golden fastenings, Automatons lumbered behind them, passive under the hands of their masters. The air was filled with a distant humming, dreamlike; it resounded deep in her soul, striking notes she had no sheet music for.
Then the image was gone. Leara tasted ash on her tongue.
A golden gate barred the way into the largest tower. Peering between the bars at the empty room beyond, Leara pushed at the door. It swung softly open, soundless in the resounding hush that followed Leara's explosive spell work. As if the stones themselves were holding their breath. Waiting.
A feeling of unease churned in Leara's stomach. She pressed forward.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Bishop said, coming to walk beside her.
A grim line set across Leara's mouth. She did, too. What could be worse than that dwarven automaton?
The corridor led from the tower gate to a room, divided on either side by tall bronze paneling. Through the doorway, Leara spied what might be an altar, but knowing of the Dwemer's infamous disdain for religion, she somewhat doubted that it could be an altar. A shadow fell across the not-altar, and Leara froze,
Bishop was stiff at her shoulder, his pale eyes squinting against the dim light. "That's not one of those machines."
"No, it's not," Leara shook her head. "It's—" Wait. "Is that – the expedition?"
Creeping closer, Leara heard the whisper of low voices, tones full of anger though their volumes were low. It seemed their fear of the creatures in the dark was stronger than their anger toward each other. For now.
Leara pressed herself against the archway leading into the not-altar room. The sanctum?
"Sulla, let's just get out of here. Hasn't there been enough death?"
Peering into the sanctum, Leara spied a tired Redguard woman in tattered clothes, a bloody shield as her only protection. She stood across from a short, stocky man with a legionnaire's cropped hair and wild eyes. He was gripping the altar, his knuckles white as he loomed over in the face of his one remaining companion.
"Oh, of course, you want me to leave!" Sulla hissed. "Just waiting for me to turn my back so you can have all the glory for yourself!"
The woman growled, a low mixture of rage and exhaustion. "No, Sulla! I want to go home! Have you forgotten what that is? Haven't we been through enough?"
Sulla slammed his palms against the not-altar. "Umana, you blasted fool! I've come too far and lost too much for you to just lead me back to Cyrodiil like a child!"
"Sulla—"
"No! Blackreach was to be my discovery! Mine!"
In a blur, Sulla leaped at Umana, a dark dagger in his hand. It might have been one of the creatures', made of purplish black chitin. Umana raised her shield. It was pronged with a cluster of spikes, bursting forward to meet Sulla's hand and ravage his forearm. The man howled. And then gargled as an arrow pierced through his throat. Huddled behind her shield, Umana gaped wide-eyed at her former companion as he crumpled to the floor, choking up blood. "Is someone there?"
Leara spun around as Bishop released the second arrow. She didn't have to see it land to know it struck the woman. The low gasp and soft thud of a falling body told her enough.
"What," the Dragonborn grit out, "was that?"
Bishop lowered his bow, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "That was putting two animals out of their misery."
By Akatosh. "Those were people! People from the expedition!"
Bishop rolled his eyes at her. "They were two deranged animals in the middle of a fight, sweetness, and if you'd been caught between them, they would have attacked you, just like any wild animal." He patted her shoulder as he went by. "Now c'mon. You were so eager to get through here earlier, weren't you?"
Her hands clenched into frozen fists at her sides, Leara stalked after Bishop. She spared the two fallen a pitying glance as she approached what she was pretty sure was not an altar. The top was inlaid with golden rings, each fitted together in perfect symmetry. Just off the center was a bronze basin, lined with blue crystals of a kind Leara had never seen before. She traced these with her fingers.
"So, what now?" Bishop asked, leaning against another gate at the back of the room. Behind it was a dark shaft with a lever in the middle. Leara looked back at the crystal.
Removing the sphere Septimus Signus gave her, Leara set it into the basin and waited.
Karnwyr coughed, and Leara smiled at him.
"So, what's supposed to happen?"
Leara frowned at the sphere. "I don't—"
The rings on the table began to spin. A deep grating sound reverberated through the floor. Leara leaped back as one after another the stone tiles surrounding the control sank down, one after another until a stair led down into the dark.
"That happens," Leara said faintly as she examined the stairs. "This must lead to Blackreach."
"That idiot was never going to get in," Bishop scoffed. Leara looked at him. "He would've needed one of those spheres, right?"
"I suppose so," Leara mused. She grabbed her sphere. If she understood Septimus, it was more like a key than a doorjamb. Nothing happened when she took it, so Leara descended the stairs into the dark, her companions behind her. At the base was a short hallway dominated by a large golden bronze door.
It creaked softly on its hinges. Leara pushed through and stopped.
"By the Nine," she whispered.
A cool green glow dominated her version. Leara blinked once, twice. Blackreach was a cavern, larger than any she'd ever read about. The green glow that lit the air in an etheric twilight hung over the cavern in a blanket of mist, born from—
"Giant glowing mushrooms," Bishop deadpanned.
"Bioluminescent," Leara whispered, gaping at the towering spores. Like a Telvanni experiment gone wrong.
"Bio-what?"
Leara shook her head, her mind whirling.
It was beautiful, in a strange, alien sort of way. As if she stepped from one world and into another. The air was cool and damp, carrying with it a musty wet smell unlaid with the scent of dew on stone. A road of gold-tinted stones led down from the Alftand door, winding into the twilight of the cavern. In the haze, Leara could make out vague shapes that might be dwarven structures, but they could've been natural rock formations for all she could tell. An ill sort of melancholy settled over Leara's shoulders. How big was this place? How much further did they have to go?
"How the Hell are we supposed to find an Elder Scroll down here, anyway?" Bishop asked, voicing Leara's thoughts.
The elf crossed her arms, her hand on one elbow as the other tapped her chin. "Follow the yellow brick road," she shrugged. Bishop rolled his eyes.
They rested in the hallway, the door to Blackreach closed behind them. After a meal of dried fish and horker jerky, Leara took the time to make sure all their water skins were full. Frost magic in itself wasn't dissolvable into drinking water, but there was an old spell from the Imperial Battlemage Academy that altered the aetheric ice into mundane water. She learned it from a nondescript book in the castle library while stationed in Skingrad. Sometimes she wished she'd taken it when she left, but despite being unassuming, something told her that book was valuable to someone. It was a concentrated spell that required a steady hand and more than a passing familiarity with the Alteration school. The results were a flat, tasteless skin of water. She didn't use it much, but in a place like this, Leara trust her own spell work over any subterranean river or lake.
Bishop took his skin without a word and drained half of it. Leara gave Karnwyr half of hers before refilling both skins. Her hands were cold and damp when she was finished.
They set off a few hours later. The silence of Blackreach was different from that of Alftand: There was a nearly imperceptible humming that tickled the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Sometimes it was a low murmur, others a clear high note. Every so often, Leara glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting someone to be there, following her, but each time there was nothing.
They were alone.
"I don't like this," Bishop grumbled after a while.
The road curved left down a slope. Through the mist, Leara spied a low square structure just off from the road. Curiosity drew her forward.
"Hey!" Bishop called out, but Leara ignored him as she mounted the steps – sidestepping just in time to avoid a sphere as it came shooting from a short, gilded box on the porch. Leara spun, her katana ringing through the air as the sphere began to unfold. With a shriek, the upper humanlike mechanics split from the ball. Broken, the sphere clattered down the stairs in pieces.
Bishop coughed,
Leara's head lulled back, her katana falling loosely to her side. "What."
"Oh, don't mind me, ladyship. Just admiring the view."
". . . right,"
The door swung silently open with a gentle prod, and Leara found herself in a dusty alchemy laboratory. Which . . . couldn't be right. The laboratory setup looked modern, surrounded by shriveled piles of ruined ingredients. On the far side of the table were an enchanter's arcane table and a stack of dusty books. These things were recent. But how? There was a sad hum in the air, almost as if the house were mourning.
"What a dump," Bishop said, kicking at a tattered old sack. It toppled over and out spilled what may have once been potatoes. Now it was just a pile of shriveled gray-brown rocks.
Karnwyr woofed. Leara turned and her heart clenched in her chest. In the far corner was a rickety cot with a skeleton hanging halfway on it. A black chitin arrow was lodged at an angle in its ribcage.
"Poor bastard," Bishop said. He yanked the arrow out, examining it. "Not too different from the ones in the body we found."
"So, the creatures are in Blackreach too. Lovely," Leara sighed. The mourning notes struck a minor chord. From the corner of her eye, Leara saw a red silhouette rustle, as if sighing. Rounding, Leara came face to face with a Nirnroot. A Nirnroot as bloody red as a rose of passion.
It was the source of the singing.
"Oh my," Leara whispered, peering closer at the Nirnroot. She knew the plants to sing, but this one was so different and its song so tonally dissimilar to its green cousins that she felt her curiosity piqued. This must be a research laboratory! To study the subvariety of Nirnroots – Leara tore back to the table and shuffled through the stack of books. "No, no, no—"
"Have you gone crazy, bookworm?"
Leara set De Rerum Dirennis down. "I'm looking for research notes. I'm positive this is some kind of laboratory for field research! Someone was studying these Nirnroots!"
"You mean the screaming plants?" Bishop sneered. "Who would want to study those? They're weeds. Noisy weeds."
Leara pinched her nose. Do not engage, she told herself. Do not. "They have some alchemical properties of interest," she settled on, passively.
Bishop rolled his eyes.
Abandoning the worktable, Leara skirted the room, passing over the cold cookpot and moldy food sacks to the cot. She glanced at the small camping table with its crumbling candle stub before reaching the skeleton of the ill-fated alchemist. In their arms was a tattered leatherbound journal. Those had to be the research notes! With delicate fingers and a silent prayer to Arkay, Leara pulled the book from the bones. Her skin itched to read through it, but her rational mind reminded her that she still had a task ahead of her. With a sigh, she slipped the book into her satchel.
"So, that's it? You wanted to pry a book from a dead man's hands?"
"I want to preserve knowledge," Leara explained. "Who knows who could come here next and if the lab will still be intact then."
After clipping some samples from the red Nirnroot and placing them in a vial, Leara snagged the scattered soul gems and followed an exasperated Bishop back into the churning mists of Blackreach.
Leara calculated the time from the tempus charm. Well over a day since they'd entered Blackreach. Over half a week since entering Alftand. She hadn't the foggiest idea how far down they were under the earth or where they would pop up if – when they emerged from the earth. She drew a compass rose on the back of her hand. Southwest. Still steadily southwest.
What might have once been a guard post stood on either side of the road, connected overhead with a bridge. They'd stopped there to rest, but the longer they waited in the shadows of the Dwemer stone, the more disquiet Leara felt. She cast a distrustful eye toward the dark towers. Aside from the hum of the red Nirnroots and the rush of nearby water, the cavern was quiet. Eerily so. The feeling of unease that settled on her shoulders when they entered the cavern seeped through the slots in her armor, through her clothes, and into her skin with a chilling tingle.
Karnwyr snuffled at her side. Banishing the runes, Leara scratched the wolf's head. Bishop emerged from behind a geode mound, his hands tugging the ties of his pants closed. Leara averted her eyes.
"Any idea how much further we need to go?" he asked, wiping his palms on his thighs.
"Not a bit," she shook her head.
Bishop frowned. "Food's getting low."
"I know," Leara shifted uncomfortable, all too aware of the lightness in the food packs. She missed how heavy it was on her back when they climbed the glacier nearly a week before.
"What's bugging me," Bishop said, kicking at a stout little mushroom just alongside the road, The powder blue top popped off and fell to the ground. "Is that we've not seen one of those creatures. They're here. We both know that, but you'd think they'd be, y'know, here!"
"Do you want to run into them?" Leara asked, one chestnut eyebrow raised to a gentle point.
"Are you crazy? No, but it's kinda strange, you've got to admit."
Leara hummed and knelt beside her food pack. She pulled some horker jerky from its paper and extended it to Karnwyr, who scarfed it up. "Salmon or jerky?" she asked, elbow-deep in the pack.
Soft steps padded closer to here. "I'm not hungry, sweetness. Not for that, at least."
Leara sat back on her heels, craning her neck back only to find Bishop looming over her, a wolfish grin on his face. She scoffed, "Then starve."
"Stop playing hard to get, darling," Bishop smirked. "It's cold down here. Why don't you crawl into my bedroll for the night and I'll keep you warm."
"I'm warm enough, thank you," Leara said, biting the end of a salted salmon patty. "If you're cold, why don't you cuddle Karnwyr?"
He stared at her. "Are you usually this dense or is all the salt drying out your brain? I want you. Now. In my bedroll. With me."
Leara sat, crossing her legs in front of her. Why did he always choose the most inopportune time to come on to her? Although, she amended, there would never be an opportune moment for it. She didn't want him that way. Why couldn't Bishop see that?
"Listen," she began.
An arrow appeared in Bishop's shoulder, burying itself in the thick black leather. The ranger jerked back with a grunt. He yanked it out the next moment, and Leara recognized the black-purple chitin of the creatures' arrows.
Leara was on her feet, her katana drawn, but the creatures were already on them.
"Hey!" Bishop yelled, as three piled on him. He cut them back with his dagger, only for more to swarm closer.
Leara swung the food pack on her back, barely twisting in time to meet the gnarled blade of one of the creatures. They pushed back and forth before Leara blasted it with a shard of ice. To her horror, while it skewered the creature clean through the sternum, shattering bone, the aetheric ice did not crawl into the flesh. It remained untouched as if the spear were one of wood or steel and not magic.
The creatures were impervious to ice.
Spindly fingers grabbed at her elbows and Leara screamed.
"WULD!"
In a blur, she flew across the dark earth, stumbling to a stop several yards away from the fray. She spun, taking in the pandemonium in a split second: Bishop was fending off several at close quarters, one of the chitin swords in his hands. Karnwyr was low to the ground, snapping at bare ankles and feet. Leara couldn't count how many creatures were there. A lot was not a definite number, but it was several too many anyway.
A second passed, then bodies began to move toward her. Leara balled her fists together, her katana falling to the grown. Her hands tingled.
Lightning spun in a chain through the air, hitting one creature before jumping to the next. Inhuman shrieks filled the air, shrill against Karnwyr's deep bark and the electric sizzle pop of destructive magic. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, nauseating and familiar. Karnwyr shot from the fray like an arrow toward her.
"Run!" Leara screamed, snatching her katana from the ground.
Bishop hesitated, staring at the sizzling bodies around him and the number of creatures still teeming toward him. He spun and fled.
With Bishop and Karnwyr on her heels, Leara ran into the dark away from the road, the shrieks and scuttle of the creatures in pursuit. There was running water nearby, right? Half an idea sat in the back of her mind, trying to come together, but Leara's senses were dominated by a burn in her chest, adrenaline in her limbs, and a thousand thoughts whirling in her head.
Bishop's longer legs pulled him ahead of her, his form dark as his feet pounded against the earth. Then there was distance between them, growing longer the further they ran. Leara's knees threatened to buckle. The creatures were gaining on her. Where was Karnwyr? Leara could feel the whisper of spidery hands at her back, grasping and pinching and never letting go. With a grunt, she fell.
Most of the horde passed her by, still after Bishop, still hunting the moving target. Two remained to examine Leara's prone form, pale hands grasping at her armor. The weight on her back was unbearable, and Leara was pressed harder into the dirt. It was in her mouth, on her tongue. She squeezed her eyes shut, her heart pounding the doom drum. Then the whirlwind in her head stilled.
Fade. Spirit.
Fade. Spirit . . .
She inhaled, dirt coating her tongue. "FEIM ZII!"
Earth fell away from her mouth. Leara rolled, passing through the screeching creatures reaching for her. Their hands passed through her, cold and strange but untouching. Leara rolled to her feet. The dim twilight glow of Blackreach faded, brightening and blanching as if the world passed away and only its ghost remained. Or perhaps Leara was the ghost, ethereal. For a moment she closed her eyes, remembering her quiet meditation with Paarthurnax over Feim, the first word to Become Ethereal. "Su'um ahrk morah. You will find that your spirit will give you more strength." Breathe and focus. Peace settled over her, banishing her panic. Leara drew her katana.
Her spirit became skin and bone once her katana connected with the creature's neck. She swung in a wide arc, cleaving the long head from its thin neck. Its fellow screamed and was silenced a moment later as lightning burned a snapping hole through its chest.
Karnwyr darted from the shadows, head bumping into her leg. Leara grunted at the contact, reaching down to caress the wolf's head before looking around. They were alone. "Oh dear."
Clairvoyance and an ear to the air led Leara on a tether into the dark after Bishop and the horde of creatures. She would need to try and discover more about them if she ever made it back to the surface world. There was something unnatural and inhuman about them, yes, but something dreadfully broken and melancholic. Their souls were shattered, and Leara wanted to know why.
The distant drone of an underground river that she'd heard from the guard post became a rushing roar somewhere below. So, it ran through a canyon carved through the cavern. Then Leara saw them.
Bishop fought the horde, right on the precipice. The chitin sword was still in his hands, now coated in blood as pale as morning.
"Bishop! Move!"
He looked at her, his eyes wild and his face twisted. He must have seen something in her face, though, because the next moment he fell into a roll, slipping from the immediate grasp of the creatures on the cliff.
Again, Leara inhaled, the earth stilling beneath her feet as though she were a mountain, rooted to its core. "FUS RO DAH!"
Her Shout billowed out, slamming into the horde of creatures several yards away. They went over the cliff, screaming and howling in terror and rage. A shout of surprise and dismay, deeper than the creatures' wails, echoed through the air almost at once.
As Bishop toppled backward into the abyss, howling at the top of his lungs, Leara realized too late that the full power of Unrelenting Force pushed wider than she thought it would. Crying out, Leara scrambled the remaining half dozen yards to the cliffside, but she was too late. By the time she fell on her stomach to peer over the edge, she could neither see Bishop nor the creatures. Only the distant gleam of murky gray water under the bioluminescence of the towering mushroom forest.
"Bishop! BISHOP!"
Silence.
Karnwyr was at her side, down on his forelegs as he peered down into the river. His ears were flat against his head. Leara met the wolf's dark brown eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered, voice thick. "I'm so sorry." In response, Karnwyr lowered his head to his paws. The wolf sighed.
Leara turned again to the river, but it was as void of life as before. Her stomach soured and her heart clenched. Bishop was gone. She killed him and now he was dead.
Bishop was dead and, barring Karnwyr, she was alone in the deep dark of Blackreach.
Despite herself, Leara felt tears build at the edges of her vision. He was the most insufferable, disconcerting, and possessive individual she'd ever met, but she didn't want him dead – at least, she didn't want to kill him. Especially here when traveling alone could mean death.
It was a while before Leara could bring herself to move. Karnwyr glued himself to her side, and they retreated from the cliff, a clairvoyance spell leading the way back to the road.
The eerie light of an artificial sun mixed with the glow of the mushroom forest, casting citrine, aquamarine, and amethyst shadows over the banks of the river. Leara stood at the head of the bridge, her gaze fixed on the plummeting falls just downriver. Karnwyr pressed into her leg. Before her across the river rose a towering city of silent stones. But it was far from empty. Life detection revealed hundreds of pale pink pinpricks swarming across the ruins like ants in their hill. In the mix were a few dozen dark souls, human souls. A closer look saw hazy memories, glimpses at blood on snow, spidery hands, the descent into the dark, and pain. Pain and fear, constant and without hope of an end.
Leara's heart bobbed in her throat. She and Karnwyr would not be entering the city.
"I hope the Tower of Mzark isn't a part of that place," she whispered to Karnwyr.
Leara retreated back from the bridge, the wolf at her heels. Plopping onto a rock, she pushed her hood back and buried her face in her hands with a weary sigh. "I'm so tired of this place, Karnwyr, aren't you?"
The wolf's only answer was to push his head into her lap and sneeze on her war skirt.
"Thanks," the Dragonborn giggled. She scratched his ears.
Seventeen hours had passed since Bishop fell. Leara and Karnwyr had hunted out a hollow between rocks to sleep in, far enough away from the guard post and the cliffs to avoid being found if any more creatures came skulking around. It was dismal, but it was the most rest she would get while in Blackreach. Karnwyr had the good fortune to be able to sleep anyway, unbothered that his bed and pillow were made of rocks.
Bishop's bow was across Leara's back. He'd dropped it before his fall, and she picked it up from the cliff's edge. She had no arrows – archery was never her strong suit – but she didn't feel right leaving his bow in the dirt in a place so forgotten by the rest of the world.
Now more than ever, Leara was on edge, her senses tuned to the music of Blackreach. Something else was here. She'd felt it since entering the cavern, but after the ambush at the guard post, the feeling flamed into an inferno that licked at her skin, reaching for her soul. But it did not show itself, slumbering on in the eternal night.
She eyed the silent city. "There's nothing for it," she said to Karnwyr. "We have to pass by it at the very least and pray to Akatosh we're not exposing ourselves."
Leara approached the bridge, Illusion magic bubbling from her hands to muffle her and Karnwyr's steps. The bridge was long and without a rail, spanning the entire length of the river. Leara refused to look down. She wasn't afraid of heights, but the idea of plunging down into the murky waters, so cold and so deep beneath the earth, filled her with unspeakable dread. She couldn't fathom what Bishop must've felt before he hit the water. To realize in a moment that waters never touched by the sun would be his grave. He must have been so scared.
When they reached the opposite side, Leara finally glanced at the expanse beyond the falls. Emptiness, a great dark emptiness void of light or life.
The shadows fluttered.
Leara frowned.
Tension tightened across her shoulders. She walked close to the walls of the city, out of sight from anyone who looked over the parapet. Karnwyr trailed close behind her, his short ears strained against the silence of the city. Leara knew he could hear things she couldn't. She couldn't imagine what he heard: the sounds hissing through the ruins, the hush of bare feet on the stone, and the whisper of unknown tongues.
The road stretched around the city, studded with natural rocks of bright teal and fallen debris of dull gray. It brushed tantalizingly close to the cliffs and the dark beyond. Leara kept her eyes pointedly on the road, wary of the threats on either side. It was a slow trek, long and winding. Leara prayed to Akatosh, Kynareth, and the rest for the journey to be near its end. Down in the underground, her sense of time was precariously tied to a tempus charm she cast with increasing frequency. What would she find when she emerged from Mzark with the Elder Scroll? What destruction would Alduin have wrought in her absence?
Dread pooled low in her stomach. She'd been underground so long, was there anything left to return to? Feelings of loss and loneliness clawed up her throat, stinging her eyes, and Leara had to choke back a sob. Why was this so hard on her? Why?
As if sensing her despair, Karnwyr shoved his nose into Leara's palm, his whiskers tickling her bare fingers. Leara exhaled harshly, forcing her welling emotions back under her careful control. She would be fine, she and Karnwyr. They would retrieve the Elder Scroll and make it out of Mzark and back to Paarthurnax. Then she would learn Dragonrend and defeat Alduin and everything would be fine. Perfectly fine.
The darkness fluttered in the corner of her eye. Leara ignored it.
After several hours, she and Karnwyr were clear of the city. Its silent horror slept on behind them as the Dragonborn and wolf made their way across a dark plateau studded with boulders and crumbling ruins. In the distance, she spied a twisting walkway and a towering pinnacle that she was certain had to be the Tower of Mzark. It was still a few hours' walk away, but the sight of it calmed the anxiety building in her chest. They were nearly there.
The dark fluttered again, and Leara felt her fine hairs stand on end.
A near-silent swoosh overhead and Leara fell into a crouch, Karnwyr lowering beside her. Every nerve was on end, waiting.
The shadow lighted on the path ahead, its dark eyes gleaming with golden fire. It crept forward, unheeding as Leara pulled her katana from its sheath.
It crept closer still. Under the dim light of the artificial sun and the tower mushrooms, the bronzed face of a dragon loomed closer.
Her katana in hand, Leara slipped into the familiar Bretic dualling pose, her left foot back, her right forward, and her sword turned to a stabbing point. Why was there a dragon in Blackreach? How—? No, that didn't matter right now. What mattered was the dragon ahead of her and the hive of creatures behind her. She needed to defuse one without setting off the other.
The dragon watched her.
"Drem Yol Lok," said the Dragonborn, her guard arm still raised. She waited.
"Dovahkiin," said the dragon. His voice was hoarse, as if from disuse. Or damage. "Pruzah grind, zu'u Vulthuryol. Zu'u hon hin Thu'um nau fin su. Zu'u paar wah tinvaak wah hi."
Leara gaped at him. The droning whisper of his voice carried a memory of power long faded. She didn't understand what the dragon said, but she recognized her name, Dovahkiin, and tinvaak, Paarthurnax's word for speaking. Did this dragon – Vulthuryol, her soul hummed – wish to speak to her?
She fell back on what she learned from the Greybeards. "Sky above, Voice within, Vulthuryol."
Vulthuryol peered closer at her, his eyes aflame. Then he breathed fire.
It did not burn, just as Paarthurnax's hadn't, but Leara threw a ward over Karnwyr, nonetheless. She didn't want to know what the customs of the dov would do to a wolf. "YOL!" she breathed, bathing the bronze dragon in gentle golden flames.
Vulthuryol preened. "Hin Thu'um los mul. Krosis, nuz hi kod fin joor tinvaak. You speak the mortal tongue."
"Yes," Leara said slowly. Of all the things she'd expected to encounter in Blackreach, a dragon that wished to speak to her rather than try to consume her was not on her list. "Greetings, Vulthuryol. What do you wish to speak to me about?"
Rearing his neck back, Vulthuryol peered into the darkness of the cavern before returning his gaze to the Dragonborn. "I felt the shift of kosetiid, the sands of time. Has Alduin thuri returned?"
Leara eyed the dragon distrustfully. Hadn't the dragon in Kynesgrove, Sahloknir, called Alduin thuri? She made a mental note to ask Paarthurnax or at least Master Arngeir what "thuri" meant. Maybe Master Arngeir had a primer on the dragon tongue that she could study. Whatever thuri meant, she didn't trust it.
"Yes, he has," she replied evenly.
"Then you are doom-driven, Dovahkiin," said Vulthuryol in his deep whisper. The Dragonborn was stone=faced. "This is daan, destiny at hand. Alduin thuri lost his suleyksejun long ago."
At last, Leara lowered her katana, the long hilt held loosely in her hand. "You wish for me to defeat Alduin?" she asked in surprise.
"Geh, you must," nodded the bronze dragon. "Kogaan tiid, time broke around Alduin, and the world is worse for his folly." He bowed his head. "I would make a request of you, Dovahkiin, if you would allow it."
Vulthuryol was very different from Paarthurnax. While the leader of the Greybeards enjoyed long speeches, the bronze dragon, despite being the one to initiate conversation, seemed to be a dovah of few words. "What is it?' Leara asked.
"When Alduin's folaasdrah is undone, remember me in my torment."
Torment? Leara desperately wanted to ask Vulthuryol what he meant, but the words caught on the back of her tongue. She glanced back at the silent specter of the dwarven city, at the huge cavern dominated by the ruins of Dwemer civilization, and she knew somehow that the deep elves were responsible for this dragon's presence in Blackreach. Somehow, they had broken and diminished his power, and in the millennia since their disappearance, Vulthuryol seemed scarcely to have recovered. She would not shame the remnants of his pride in asking. It was likely difficult for him to approach her in the first place. He wasn't . . . scared of her, was he?
The idea didn't sit right. Dragons shouldn't fear mortals.
But you're not mortal, her soul whispered. You are Dragonborn.
Her mind was made up.
"I will return for you, Vulthuryol," she said, voice high and clear. "I will not leave you in Blackreach. You will fly the skies of Tamriel again, on my word as Dovahkiin."
If dragons could cry, Leara imagined Vulthuryol would have shed a steaming tear, so deep was the look he gave her.
Vulthuryol flew her and Karnwyr to the Tower of Mzark. Getting Karnwyr to sit in her lap while the dragon was in flight had been a nerve-wracking experience for both Leara and the wolf. The hours they'd had left eclipsed in a matter of minutes. Karnwyr shook and whimpered the entire time, but Leara held tightly to him, whispering gentle words of comfort in the wolf's ears.
From the back of a dragon, Blackreach was a different world. Overhead she could see glittering specks of diamond blue and crystal white gleaming down into the haze of purple-blue-gold light wafting through the cavern. Her soul sang at the sensation, soaring higher than Vulthuryol's wings could bear her in the confines of Blackreach. It was wonderful. It was right.
It was over far too soon.
Vulthuryol alighted at the top of the ramp, his large wiry body settling with a birdlike lightness. Leara bid the dragon a thankful and respectful farewell, again promising to free him from the cavern. Vulthuryol only bowed his head, his heart reflected in his eyes. He bade the Dragonborn a solemn goodbye and took flight.
Then Leara and Karnwyr entered the Tower of Mzark.
Karnwyr liked the lift as much as he liked flying: that is, not at all. He laid across Leara's boots as the platform ascended. Leara hummed to herself, anxiety and excitement building in tandem. This was it. This was where she would find the Elder Scroll!
The remnants of a ruined camp greeted them when they stepped off the lift. Leara studied the dusty remains as they entered the chamber. They were old, but not related to the alchemy laboratory near Alftand. Her shoulders relaxed. Good. This meant there was likely an exit from the tower that was unconnected to Blackreach. Leara wasn't sure what she'd have done if she and Karnwyr had been forced to pass back through miles of ruins to the Alftand entrance. Cry, probably. Starve, most likely.
A handful of soul gems were scattered on one of the shelving units in between piles of twisted dwarven metal. Leara swept these into her satchel, then looked back at the camp. There were stacks of books everywhere, each one ruined and shriveled with damage. A pang for lost knowledge tugged at Leara's heart. The cold remains of a campfire drew her eye, and Leara frowned. Yes, there was definitely a surface entrance.
Picking up an empty knapsack, Leara made her way to the opposite end of the room where a high arch led into a short passage. At the end was a door, and Leara pushed through this silently.
And stopped.
"By the Nine," she whispered, crystal eyes wide.
A large domed box of gold and blue crystal, not dissimilar from the alloys that made up Septimus Signus' lockbox, dominated her vision. To the side was a stone ramp curving along the circular walls of the room. Leara mounted this, her steps growing quicker the further she went until she emerged at the top of the box, her breath knocked from her lungs.
A dim light shone down from high in the ceiling, bouncing off blue-green glass panels mounted on the upper walls. Fastened to rods crisscrossing the ceiling in a golden patchwork were several long spindly arms with great rings on the end fitted with refracted crystal lenses. Each arm stretched down in a graceful arc, forming a protective nest around a series of rings and beams. In the midst of these, just visible, was an oblong capsule of crystal so deep and opaque that Leara could not see what was inside.
This was the Dwemer Oculory, and Leara knew that Elder Scroll was inside that capsule.
On the podium above the oculory, Leara found the controls. She drew sort. A skeleton was propped against the wall, a red leather journal strown across its lap. Hesitant, Leara gave Karnwyr a shrug before crouching beside the skeleton and reaching for the journal. Flipping through it, she frowned at the crude language of the man, Drokt, and his obsession with the ocular array. Then she studied it more closely. Chewing her lip, Leara set the journal aside and approached the controls.
"I'm not very familiar with this at all," she said over her shoulder to Karnwyr. The wolf sat watching her, his head tilted to the side in curiosity. "But I have an idea it's not quite as complicated as that man tried to make it. The Dwemer were a highly technical race, thriving off math and science. I'm sure logic is the answer here."
Karnwyr barked, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. Leara laughed softly at him.
Extracting the cube Septimus Signus had given her, she placed it on the far right control where stout little arms latched it into place. At once, covers slid back from the other controls, revealing a series of glowing buttons brighter than the sun in high summer. Overhead, the ceiling opened, and light flooded the chamber, unfocused. Leara studied the buttons, noting the central panel studded with the alignment of Nirn's skies.
Pressing the first button, Leara held her breath. The apparatus did not move. Nodding to herself, Leara delicately pressed the second button.
It sprang to life at once, arms shifting and lenses redirecting light. At last, progress!
Leara pressed buttons, counting back and forth as the lenses and rings shifted, reflecting light across the room. Trial and error were her bread and butter as she ran through a series of patterns across the panel, focusing and refocusing the oculory,
At some point, Karnwyr fell asleep, but Leara carried on, engrossed in her task. This was the kind of challenge she was suited for. Patterns and information retrieval. Perhaps she should've been a librarian instead of a Blade. Maybe when all this was over, she would join the College of Winterhold, see if Urag gro-Shub needed an assistant.
Her mouth set in a grim line. Fat chance if Ancano was still there. Especially after she pulled that stunt on him.
Light flooded the chamber and the machinery sang. With a resounding ring! the lenses slid into place and the capsule lowered to the ground.
With a cry of excitement, Leara flew down the ramp to the capsule, a startled Karnwyr close behind. The capsule hissed open, finished metal sliding against polished glass. A long cylindrical scroll was nestled inside, cocooned in light.
With careful, trembling hands, Leara extracted the Elder Scroll. Holding it to her chest, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then began to laugh. And then she began to sob. She'd done it! She actually found the Elder Scroll!
"Tears, darling? And to think, I'd thought you left me behind."
Leara's arms grew rigid around the Elder Scroll. Slowly, oh so slowly she turned around.
Standing with his back against the wall where the upper and lower ramps met beside the oculory, was Bishop. A little worse for wear, with a hole in the dark leather of his armor just below his right shoulder and a black bruise along the left side of his face, was Bishop.
At Leara's open-mouthed shock, he smirked. Pushing off the wall, he sauntered toward her, a swagger in his step. "Did you miss me?" he said, coming to a halt in front of her.
The musk of fungus and mineral water flooded her nose and clotted her throat. "Bishop," she whispered as a storm of turmoil thundered through her veins. She'd thought he was dead. He was dead and she kept going despite her guilt. But he was never dead, not really. He was in front of her. Alive.
Leara felt her brain grind to a halt. If she were asked to refocus the oculory now, she wasn't sure she'd even be able to attach the lexicon to the receptacle, much less retrieve the Elder Scroll.
Bishop smirked at her.
The timeless artifact clattered to the floor as the ranger enfolded a statuesque Leara in his arms. She felt unattached from her body, as if she were drifting through the beams of light flooding the oculory. She couldn't feel her hands or her feet. If Bishop hadn't been holding her, Leara knew she would've crumpled like paper.
And when, the next moment, Bishop kissed her, one arm locked around her waist and the other hand tangled in her matted red hair, Leara didn't fight him.
No, she kissed him back.
Vulthuryol's Dovahzuul:
Pruzah grind, zu'u Vulthuryol. Zu'u hon hin Thu'um nau fin su. Zu'u paar wah tinvaak wah hi. | Well met, I am Vulthuryol. I heard your Thu'um on the air. I desire to speak to you.
Hin Thu'um los mul. Krosis, nuz hi kod fin joor tinvaak. | Your Thu'um is strong. Pardon, but you use the mortal tongue.
Kosetiid | sands of time
Folaasdrah | wrongdoing
Note from ao3: ? Tune in next time for the long-expected return of Dragon Dad!
