Chapter 2
Riverwood wasn't much bigger than Helgen had been. There was a smithy, a general goods store, an inn, a smattering of homes, and a large lumber mill. It was to the mill that Ralof headed. Short introductions were made all around, and Ralof told his sister Gerdur and her husband Hod about the dragon attack that day.
They were appalled and shocked, and very grateful to Marcus and Tamsyn for having helped their kinsman. Gerdur insisted they stay with her family until they were rested up enough to move on.
"I do have a favor to ask," she said, hesitantly. "Jarl Balgruuf needs to know about what happened at Helgen. If Riverwood comes under attack by dragons, we're defenseless. Would you go to him in Whiterun and beg him to send men here to defend us?"
Marcus hesitated. He just wanted to go home. He didn't know where Whiterun was, and he sincerely doubted he'd be allowed in to see such an important person as a Jarl. It wasn't that he didn't want to help, it was just that he was still shaken from the events of the day.
"Of course we'll go," Tamsyn said before he could stop her. He rolled his eyes and thought to himself, I guess we're going to Whiterun.
"Thank you," Gerdur said gratefully. "I need to get back to the mill before I'm missed."
"I'll let them into the house and…you know…show them where everything is," Hod offered.
Gerdur smirked. "Help them drink all our mead, you mean," she chuckled. She left them to return to the mill, and Tamsyn told them she'd meet them there as she had some things to do.
Marcus followed Ralof and Hod back to the house where Hod broke out some bottles of mead. Now this was more like it! Marcus had never had mead before, but he knew it was a wine made from honey. It went down very smoothly, and he was tempted to overindulge, but he had a feeling he needed to keep his wits about him. On the other hand, maybe if he passed out drunk, he'd wake up back home in his own bed. It was something to think about.
By the time Gerdur returned home, her brother and husband were exchanging all kinds of uproarious stories, with her son Frodnar chiming in now and then about practical jokes he'd pulled. Marcus was chuckling in the corner, but said little. The men tried to draw him out and get him to tell stories of his own, but he didn't know anything he could tell them that wouldn't make them think he was stark raving mad.
Tamsyn returned shortly after Gerdur and began helping her prepare supper, despite Gerdur's insistence she could manage. The two women chatted easily in low voices and very soon served up some hearty beef stew, fresh-baked bread and wedges of some kind of bleu cheese. Marcus didn't realize until he sat down how hungry he was. The mead was going straight to his head, and he thanked his metabolism that he was a quiet drunk, not a boisterous one.
After supper was finished, Gerdur and her family asked their guests again about where they'd come from and what had brought them to Skyrim. Marcus was at a loss for words. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound crazy.
"I'm from High Rock," the red-haired girl began, jumping right in. "I came to Skyrim because I'd heard about the College at Winterhold, and was heading there to study." She looked over at Marcus. With a look of almost apology in her eyes, she invented a background for him on the spot. "Marcus is a mercenary. He's returned recently from Black Marsh, having worked for some Argonian merchants there. Not all Imperials are soldiers, you know," she added quickly, as an afterthought. Well, it was a better backstory, Marcus knew, than he'd be able to come up with himself. Tamsyn seemed to know a bit about where they were, at least, which meant he needed to have a conversation with her soon.
"And it was just bad luck you both stumbled into that ambush your kinsmen set for us," Ralof nodded to Marcus. "Well, I don't hold much for magic, Tamsyn. Not many Nords do, I think you know. But I'm certainly glad you used it today. Setting that oil alight and burning those damned, faithless Im—uh, I mean, the enemy soldiers—was a stroke of genius!" He threw a quick look of apology towards Marcus before turning his gaze back to Tamsyn. There was no doubt about the look of admiration in his eyes. So, he admired her, did he? Marcus shrugged inwardly. If Ralof wanted to get to know Tamsyn better, that was their business, not his. All he knew was that he had a wife at home to get back to, except it seemed Tamsyn had promised they'd go out of their way to notify the local lord about the dragon attacks. Well, they owed that much to the people who had fed them and given them a place to sleep that night. Besides, this Jarl might know of a way I can get back home, he thought.
"Do you know any stories?" the boy, Frodnar, asked now. "I've heard all of Uncle Ralof's stories already."
"You haven't heard half of them," Ralof chuckled. "I've got plenty more—"
"But he's too young to hear them!" Gerdur cut in sharply, shooting a glare at her brother.
"Awww, Ma," Frodnar protested.
"We'd better listen to your mother, Frodnar," Ralof grinned. "If she turns me out tonight I could get captured by Imperials!"
"You wouldn't do that, would you Ma?" the boy asked, fearfully.
"No, of course not," Gerdur assured her son, "as long as he behaves himself." Here she turned a withering look on her brother, who just chuckled.
"I know a story," Tamsyn offered.
This lightened the mood, as everyone settled down, and Tamsyn began to speak. It wasn't too long before Marcus realized she was telling them the story of the Disney movie "Mulan" that his daughters had enjoyed when they were younger. Tamsyn changed the names and places, but it was still the story of a young woman who took her father's place when their lord summoned the men to defend the kingdom, and her audience hung on every word. He had suspected for most of the day that she was as displaced as he was, that she belonged here in this Skyrim no more than he did, and now he was convinced.
Maybe she knew how they could get home again. It was worth a shot. But before he could think about how to broach the subject, the good food, the warmth of the fire, and his comfortable position stretched out on the floor took their toll after the day he'd been through. He fell asleep before the red-haired girl finished her story.
It was well into the middle of the morning when he woke up. Hod was the only one in the house.
"Where is everyone?" he mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Thought you were going to sleep all day," Hod grinned. "Gerdur's at the mill, Ralof left early to rejoin his company, and that companion of yours, Tamsyn, is outside gathering alchemical ingredients. Or she was, last I saw."
"I didn't mean to sleep so long," Marcus mumbled. "May I have something to eat?"
"You were exhausted," Hod said kindly, "and I don't blame you one bit. Help yourself to some bread and cheese," he offered. "I think I've got some ale left over from last night."
"Any coffee?" Marcus asked.
Hod's brow furrowed. "What is that? Some kind of Argonian drink?"
Marcus remembered then that Tamsyn had told them he'd recently worked for some 'Argonians'.
"Yeah," he lied. "It's brewed from a bean; strong, black and very good for helping you wake up."
"We don't have anything like that here," Hod shrugged. "We've got mead or ale."
"I'm not really looking for a hair of the dog this morning," Marcus frowned.
"Stump's outside," Hod said, confused. "But I don't know what you'd want with his hair. It's not like it's an alchemical ingredient."
"Never mind," Marcus said, giving up. "I'll just have some water."
He pulled himself up from the floor where he had apparently fallen asleep the night before. Someone had thrown a blanket over him. He noticed a washbasin on a wooden stand in one corner. A pitcher of water sat on the chest of drawers next to it, and a neatly-embroidered cloth hung from a side rail. He poured some water into the basin and splashed some onto his face, shuddering at the bracing cold bite of the liquid. Rubbing his over his face, he straightened and caught sight of himself in the mirror hanging on a peg above the basin. Shocked more by what he saw than the cold sting of the water, Marcus could only stare.
That's not me, he thought in confusion. I don't look like that. I'm…I'm YOUNG.
In truth, the figure that stared back at him from the glass couldn't have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Dark hair hung lankly to his shoulders, and steel grey eyes set above an aquiline nose and chiseled jaw searched for the familiar wrinkled, gray-haired, blue-eyed man he knew himself to be. In spite of what he had been through the day before, in spite of having passed out on the floor all night, he didn't feel as many aches and pains as he might have expected.
I feel younger. I AM younger. How is this possible? Who am I?
But the image in the mirror had no more answers than he did. He finished cleaning himself up as best as he could, given his limited resources, and Hod joined him in a bit of breakfast before Marcus excused himself to go find Tamsyn.
He stepped outside into a small farm yard, blinking in the bright sunlight. Nearby, a cow and a chicken rooted around in the tall grass near the house. Looking around he couldn't see Tamsyn anywhere. A small wave of panic flitted through him. She seemed to the only one who might know what was going on around here, and he really needed to talk to her. He hoped she hadn't taken off on her own yet to go see the Jarl.
A ringing sound of hammer on metal caught his ear, and he wandered over to the smithy to ask the blacksmith if he'd seen Tamsyn.
"Tamsyn?" the older, gray-haired smith asked, raising his brows. "Small, curvy, red-haired girl?"
"Yeah, that's her," Marcus affirmed. "Have you seen her?"
"She took off a while ago with Faendal."
"Who's Fayendahl?" Marcus asked, mangling the name, and irritated at Tamsyn for abandoning him.
"He works at the mill. Bosmer. Good man, and a fine archer. I heard her ask him for a few pointers, and they headed out of town. That was an hour ago. They should be back soon."
Disgruntled, Marcus fumed silently as he watched the smith, who said his name was Alvor, as the man worked the steel into a fine blade. He realized he'd left the sword he'd used in Helgen back at Hod and Gerdur's house. Something told him that might not have been a very smart idea. He retraced his steps and knocked on the door. Hod answered and let him in, waiting quietly while he gathered his meagre belongings together. He noticed Tamsyn's sack and everything she'd had with her were gone. She'd already taken them with her.
"Are you and the girl leaving for Whiterun today?" Hod asked him.
"I don't know," Marcus admitted. "I haven't seen her yet to know what she wants to do."
Hod chuckled. "We always wait on the women to make a decision, don't we?" he grinned. Marcus allowed a shared smile.
"Yeah, my wife's like that, too," he said.
Hod looked confused. "I thought we were talking about your wife. Aren't you two married?"
Marcus blinked. "Who? Tamsyn and I?" He shook his head vehemently. "No, we're not. We just escaped Helgen together. We're not married!"
Hod stumbled to apologize. "I'm sorry, I thought—never mind. Well, Ralof will be pleased. I know he was taken with her, but thought you two were together. He left before he could make a fool of himself."
Marcus gave a mental shake of his head. So that's what was bothering the big blonde guy. He thought he was encroaching! Too bad he didn't say anything earlier. Marcus would have been only too happy to set him straight.
It occurred to him to wonder if Tamsyn would be scorned for traveling with him as an unmarried woman. He didn't know what the moral temperature of this place happened to be, and he realized he really didn't want to ruin her reputation, if the people here frowned upon an unmarried woman traveling with a single guy. Everything he'd seen so far indicated a kind of medieval society, with the exception that magic apparently worked. Blowing out a breath in a heavy sigh, Marcus shouldered his pack and said good-bye and thanks to Hod, leaving the house and heading back out to the main street.
He decided to wait at the smithy, since it provided a clear view of the road out of town, where Alvor had indicated Tamsyn had gone with this 'Fayendahl' character. As he chatted with the smith, however, he became more and more engrossed in the man's work, and before he knew it, he was asking if he could help in any way.
Alvor was more than happy to take Marcus up on his offer, and immediately put him to work crafting an iron dagger. It was a lot harder than Marcus thought it would be, and took much longer than he expected, to the point where he forgot to watch the road. When Alvor was finally satisfied with the dagger, after Marcus sharpened it on the grindstone, he showed the younger man how to work with tanned leather to create a helmet made of cured hide. A few more pointers on getting the fit right, and Marcus donned the helmet for the first time, proud of himself, and impressed with how well it fit his head.
"Nice job," he heard a woman say and turned to see Tamsyn standing nearby. With a shock he saw that it was nearly evening. He had worked the entire day away at the forge without realizing it!
"How long have you been there?" he demanded crossly, still irritated with her. "And where the hell have you been?"
"Picking up some things to sell," she replied in that calm, soothing voice of hers. "Faendal and I went to a mine nearby that had been taken over by bandits and we cleared it out. They had a bunch of useful things there."
"You could have told me," he grumbled crossly.
"You were sleeping," she said bluntly. She might as well have said, You were passed out in a drunken stupor. She wasn't wrong, he knew, and his irritation deflated. "Don't worry," she continued, smiling to soften the blow. "Half the proceeds are yours. We'll need the coin to buy better weapons, armor and spell books."
"Well, it's almost night now," Marcus pointed out. "It's too late to keep your promise to Gerdur and go to Whiterun."
"We're not going to Whiterun just yet," Tamsyn replied.
"We're not?" Marcus blinked, perplexed. "Why not?"
"Because there's a couple of things we need to retrieve from Bleak Falls Barrow," she said, leading him away from the smithy. "Come on, let's go sit by the river. We've got some things to talk about."
"Alright," he agreed, still slightly miffed. "As it happens, I've got quite a few questions for you, too."
"I've no doubt about that," she said wryly.
Tamsyn led Marcus down to the river's edge where the rushing roar of the water would make eavesdropping difficult for anyone casually walking by.
"Alright," Marcus began tersely, "Would you kindly explain to me just what the hell is going on here? Where are we? Who are you? And how do I get back home again?"
"One question at a time, please!" the red-haired girl protested. "First of all, my name is Tamsyn, but you already know that. And you're in Skyrim." Marcus said nothing. "The…video game?" she added when he looked confused.
He stared at her for a long moment. "I don't know what that means," he said finally.
"Didn't you ever play it?" she asked.
Marcus shook his head. "No. Never heard of it. Maybe my kids might have, but we didn't really get into that. So you're from the same place I came from?" he asked.
"I'm going to guess that I am," she said. "In the cart, and before…before the dragon attacked, you started asking to speak to supervisors and borrow a phone. I guess you thought we were at some Renaissance Faire or something."
"I don't know what I thought," he muttered. "I certainly never expected they'd actually behead me! Did they really do that?" He turned to her with haunted eyes. "Is all of this real?"
Tamsyn's face looked bleak. "They really did it," she said quietly. "And this is our reality now."
"I don't accept that," Marcus gritted out. "How do we get back?"
"I don't think we can," she murmured, not meeting his eyes. He could barely hear her above the rushing of the water.
He stood up and paced around. "I don't believe you!" he said vehemently. "You're hiding something. What aren't you telling me?" He loomed over her, seething with anger and fear. Mostly fear, and it was making him react in ways he didn't like. He felt completely out of his element, and he didn't know how to respond. He stalked away several yards, finding a wood-chopping block and an axe. Without realizing what he was doing, he picked up the axe and swung, burying it deeply in the chopping block. The recollection that that could have happened to him yesterday chilled him, and he backed away, horrified, coming back to where the red-haired girl waited.
Tamsyn said nothing, but merely waited for him to regain his composure.
"I just want to go home," he sighed miserably, dropping down on the log beside her. "My wife has to be wondering where I am by now."
"Marcus," she said gently. "What's the last thing you remember before you woke up in that cart yesterday?"
He thought back. "We were coming home from a party," he replied slowly, trying to grasp the elusive memories that even now seemed to want to slip away from him. "Lynne was driving because she hadn't had as much to drink as me." He closed his eyes, shutting out everything around him to try to bring it into focus more clearly, but he couldn't.
"Anything else?" Tamsyn asked softly.
"I'm trying…I can't…quite remember," he whispered, so subdued she had to strain to hear him. "I remember getting into the car. I remember the oncoming headlights seemed awfully bright that night." Whatever he almost grasped slipped away. He slumped in defeat. "I can't remember any more."
The girl next to him said nothing for several moments. "Do you remember how old you were?" she asked. "Or what you did for a living? Where you lived?"
"Yeah, I remember those things, I think," he answered. "I was an IT technician. I lived in Des Moines. I was…I was over fifty, I think. Maybe closer to sixty? I…I don't remember how old exactly, and that's not right, because I should know how old I was… am," he corrected himself. "I know we had kids and grandkids." He fell silent for several minutes. "What about you?" he inquired. It seemed only fair to ask about her, since she had inquired about his life.
"I was very old," she said. "I was in a nursing home. No one came to see me. I couldn't get out of my wheelchair without help. I could barely take care of myself."
"That's horrible!" he exclaimed. Looking at her now, she seemed to be no more than nineteen or twenty. It was hard to imagine her as an old woman.
"It wasn't all that bad," the girl replied. "It was a very good nursing home. The staff were very kind. It was an expensive place to live, I guess, and I know my family had money. They made sure I was taken care of, so they didn't have to."
"How could you live like that?" Marcus asked, appalled.
"I had a choice?" she threw him an angry look, but the anger soon faded. "I used to pass the time playing Skyrim, the fifth in a series of video games about this world we're now in. It gave me a virtual escape. I could still manipulate the controller, and there was nothing wrong with my mind. It kept me quiet so the orderlies could take care of the problem residents."
"So that's how you knew to stop on the stairs yesterday?" Marcus asked. "And how you knew what we were going to face going through the Keep and the tunnels before we even got there?"
She nodded. "I played a lot of Skyrim, Marcus. A lot. And now it looks like we're in the game itself. I knew it, really, the moment I woke up in the cart with Ralof and Ulfric."
"How is that even possible?" he queried. "How could we end up in something that doesn't really exist?"
Tamsyn shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe the gods have a sense of humor."
"You mean God," he corrected her. "And I don't think He had anything to do with this."
"Don't be so sure," she said cryptically. "This isn't our old world. There's a whole pantheon of deities here known as Aedra, and they have a keen interest in this world they created. For now, let's concentrate on how we can get out of this."
"You've got some ideas?" he asked eagerly. Anything to get out of here and get back to where he belonged. He definitely felt like a fish out of water, out of his comfort zone, and the feeling of helplessness was bringing out the worst in him. He hated it, and he hated the whole situation they were in, but he couldn't see how to fix it right now. For someone who spent his entire life fixing things that went wrong, this wasn't sitting well with him.
"I do, but you're not going to like it," the girl replied. "You see, we came here right at the point where the game begins. You wake up a prisoner with an unknown past in a cart with three other men, bound for Helgen and execution. You don't even have a name, race or gender until that Imperial lieutenant, Hadvar, asks you and you get to create your character. The game mainly plays from a first-person point of view, so you can't even see yourself until then. You then get taken to the block, and you saw what happened from there."
"But we didn't do anything," Marcus protested. "That Captain sent us to the block without even a trial!"
"Because that's how it's scripted in the game," she explained, sighing.
"You said 'three other men,'" Marcus pointed out. "What about you? Are you a character in the game?"
"No," Tamsyn replied, shaking her head vehemently. "I'm just as displaced as you, and I can't figure out why I'm here at all. Anyway, that's not important right now," she continued, waving her hands dismissively. "Getting back to the game, when the dragon attacks you're given an opportunity to escape, and to follow either Hadvar or Ralof out of Helgen."
"Hadvar works for the ones who were trying to cut off our heads, remember?"
"Yes, I know," Tamsyn replied, "but he's not a bad person. And depending on the choices you make, you can either join the Stormcloaks or the Imperials. If you join the Imperials, they admit later it was a terrible mistake."
"Yeah," Marcus murmured, still shaken over the events of the previous day. "That 'terrible mistake' nearly got me beheaded!" His eyes were haunted as they stared unfocused across the water.
"It wasn't ever going to happen in the game," Tamsyn soothed. "The arrival of the dragon prevented it. The fact is that you could have been any race, from Imperial to Nord, from Altmer to Argonian. There's a lot of back history created for the game that's apparently very real here."
"Oh?" Marcus perked up a bit. He loved history. "Like what, for example? What's going on right now that those Stormcloaks and Imperials are at each other's throats?"
The shadows lengthened as she filled him in on the conflict between the Empire and Skyrim, and how the Aldmeri Dominion fit into it. Marcus tried to absorb as much as he could, but there was far too much for him to take in all at once. It was rather like trying to cram for a final exam after not studying all semester. He shook his head at several points, finally saying, "But this really isn't our fight, is it? I mean, once we figure out a way to get home, none of this will matter."
Tamsyn hesitated. Marcus felt his stomach plummet. He had the distinct feeling she knew something she wasn't telling him. Her face was like an open book.
"Tamsyn?" he queried. "What is it? What aren't you saying? Come on, give."
"You're not going to like it," she hedged.
"I haven't liked anything I've seen or heard since I woke up with a mammoth hangover in that wagon yesterday," he said sourly. "Out with it."
"I think the only way out of this is to beat the game."
He blinked. "Beat it? What do you mean, 'beat it'?"
Tamsyn shrugged helplessly. "I think we have to go through this to its final conclusion. It's the best I've got. At least I know enough about the game to know what's ahead. There's just one thing I don't know."
"What's that?"
"The player in the game is supposed to be a hero of Skyrim known as the Dragonborn."
"I repeat my previous question," Marcus said unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice this time.
She sighed in exasperation. "You know, you're acting like this is all my fault. I'm just as much a victim here as you! It doesn't help when you get snide with me."
Immediately he felt ashamed. She was perfectly correct, and he had been acting like an asshole.
"I'm sorry," he said contritely and sincerely. Where had his manners gone? His mother would have been ashamed of him! "Please tell me who, or what, a Dragonborn is."
So she told him, and Marcus wondered what the writers of the game had been smoking when they created it, but he held his peace while she told him about being able to Shout and having to slay dragons. He still didn't really understand a word of it, but held onto his frustration.
"And you think one of us is this Dragonborn?" he inquired finally when she was finished.
"Pretty sure," she said. "After all, I knew Lokir would die, so I knew he couldn't be the one. I thought I could change that much, but he panicked and…well…you saw what happened. And Ulfric isn't the Dragonborn in the game, because he's one of the two combatants in the Civil War conflict. Although he was trained by the Greybeards, and he does know a couple of the Dragon Shouts."
"What about Ralof?"
She shook her head. "Ralof is one of the ones who helps get you out of Helgen. He's not the Dragonborn. Quite honestly, it has to be one of us."
"So how do we find that out?" In spite of himself, Marcus found he was curious to know where this would all lead, and Tamsyn seemed to know.
"Well, a chain of events happens from keeping our promise to Gerdur, to alert the Jarl in Whiterun about the attack on Helgen."
"Won't they already know?" Marcus asked. "That happened yesterday. I figured there's no form of mass communication here, but people had to have noticed a huge frickin' dragon flying overhead. And it went off in the direction we're supposed to go, to get to Whiterun."
"There were very few survivors of the attack on Helgen," Tamsyn pointed out. "General Tullius and the Thalmor who were with him get out alive, because you meet them later in the game. But they're not going to make a special trip to Whiterun to inform the Jarl. Ralof can't, because he's a Stormcloak, and while Whiterun Hold is neutral in this Civil War, the Imperial soldiers are freely able to come and go there, unlike the Stormcloaks."
"There's got to be other people who made it out alive," Marcus protested. "I mean, after all, we did. Isn't there?" But the red-haired girl shook her head, tendrils of deep auburn slipping from the braid down her back to dangle around her face.
"The only other one to survive is the Dragonborn, except at that point in the game, they don't know they are yet. I'm not even sure how I managed to be there, because in the game, there are only four people in the cart."
Marcus mulled this over in his mind. To beat the game they had to play along. There was a distinct advantage to having someone along who knew what to expect, but if it turned out she was the Dragonborn, she certainly didn't need him along for the ride. So why was he here?
"Alright," he said finally. "Let's just say for the sake of argument that I believe all this…this fairy tale. One of us may be this Dragonborn. What if it's you?" he demanded. "Why am I here if you're this Dragonborn character? How does that get me back home?"
"Well," she replied slowly, "it's possible you're here to protect me; to make sure I survive long enough to get to the end of the game. A sort of…bodyguard, if you will. But Marcus…" Her voice dropped off and he knew she was about to say something he wasn't going to like. He hadn't known her that long, but she was so easy to read. The sun had set by this time, and he couldn't see her face in the growing darkness.
"Marcus," she continued softly. "I don't think you can get home. I think you died. I think your car crashed and you died."
As soft as her words were, they still didn't brace him for the impact, and something inside him snapped. "That's a lie," he barely whispered, shaking his head, as if denying it would make it untrue. "That's a lie!" he roared, leaping to his feet. "I'm still very much alive," he gritted out, "in spite of the fact that people are trying to cut my head off; in spite of the fact that a fucking dragon—a mythological creature, mind you—drops down out of the sky and decides to flame-broil me; even in spite of the fact that wolves and bears attack out of nowhere and they've got spiders here the size of Volkswagens!"
"You don't need to shout at me," she said stiffly, her brow knit with righteous anger.
"And that's another thing," he said, really getting worked up now. "How can anyone shout someone to death, like Ralof and Hod were saying last night? How could either one of us be this Dragonborn character? You said he's supposed to be some Nord hero, but neither one of us is Nordic. We're both Americans, apparently, but here I'm an Imperial and you're…what? A Breton, whatever that is!"
"Marcus, I'm trying to explain it to you," she protested.
"Well you're not doing a very good job, honey," he sneered, hearing himself and hating himself for it at the same time. All of his fear and horror at this macabre situation came spilling out, and he couldn't have stopped himself now if he wanted to, and deep down inside, he very much wanted to. This was not who he was. "I've had enough of this. I want to go home, now! If you've got anything to do with this, you'd better do something now and get me out of here!"
Tamsyn shook her head sadly. "I told you before, I'm as much a victim in this as you are. The only difference is that I know I died." She got up, brushed herself off and turned to walk back to the main street. "When you've calmed down, come to the Sleeping Giant Inn. I don't want to impose on Gerdur and Hod again. I'll rent us a couple of rooms." She walked away and left him standing there. At the corner of the mill she turned and called back, "You might want to turn in early. We're going to have a busy day tomorrow."
Fuming, Marcus stayed where she left him, clenching and unclenching his fists. He wanted to punch something, but there was nothing nearby he could hit that wouldn't end in fractured knuckles. This whole situation was ridiculous! Somebody, somewhere, knew what was going on. If it wasn't the girl, then he needed to start asking people, even if they looked at him strangely. Someone was bound to break character and admit this was all some weird, elaborate hoax. Well, he wasn't going to fall for it!
Except it seemed so damned real.
Marcus went back to the chopping block, and in spite of the memories of the previous morning he began to chop wood. As a boy in Illinois he had often done so for his grandparents who lived in a rural area and still used a wood-burning stove for heat. As he worked, he turned the whole situation over and over in his mind, but he just couldn't figure out a way to get out of this so-called 'reality'. Finally, weary in both mind and body, he turned his steps towards the inn, The Sleeping Giant, Tamsyn had called it.
Inside, several faces turned to him as he entered, before resuming their evening activities. Alvor was there and waved at him, but Marcus wasn't feeling very sociable. He waved back politely, but turned to find out who was in charge of the place. He didn't see Tamsyn anywhere.
"Are you Marcus?" a tall, slender blonde woman in a blue dress asked him. She looked to be in her early fifties, judging from the lines on her face and the streaks of silver in her hair, which was pulled back severely from her face and secured with a strip of leather.
"Who—" He'd been about to demand, 'Who wants to know?', but pulled himself up sharply. Admittedly, he was in a surly mood, but the woman had done nothing to deserve his temper. "Yeah, I'm Marcus," he finally sighed. "How'd you know?"
"I'm the innkeeper here," she said smugly. "It's my business to know. I'm Delphine. You came into town yesterday with that red-haired Breton girl, Tamsyn?"
Marcus nodded. Busy-body, the thought came to him, but he wasn't sure where it originated from. It didn't sound like his private, inner voice.
"She's already retired for the night," Delphine told him. "Your room is right next door, the one on the left. If you need anything, just ask."
"I need a stiff drink," he muttered.
Delphine smiled. "Orgnar can fix you up with one of those," she said. She nodded to a large, hairy man behind the counter. "Just don't ask for ale; it's off, and I need to get a new shipment in."
"Thanks," he replied as she moved over to some kind of strange table to one side of the hall and began crushing herbs in a mortar and pestle.
Deciding against the drink, Marcus opted to just hit the sack. It had been a troublesome day, and his muscles were still sore from pounding on metal, scraping leather, and chopping wood. He closed the door of his room and fell into bed without bothering to undress. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Everything seemed to swim in front of his eyes, and he heard Lynne's tinkling laughter as he tripped over his own feet.
"Had a little too much tonight, have we?" she giggled.
"I losht count, so it doshent count," he slurred.
"Here we are," she encouraged him. "Into the Rover we go."
"Yall haf ta pour me in," he grinned.
"You're too big for me to do that. I could get Dave out here to help me."
"Nah," he shook his head, and immediately regretted it as everything whirled around him. "He'sh had moren me."
"Easy does it!" his wife exclaimed as he launched himself into the passenger seat and crawled around to a sitting position. He fumbled with the seat belt, but she laughed again and playfully batted his hands away.
"I'll do it," she said. "Or we're never getting home tonight."
He must have passed out for a bit, because the next thing he remembered they were driving down Route 80 toward home. The glare of the oncoming headlights hurt his eyes, and he gave a soft moan.
"Awake, sweetie?" Lynne asked.
"Barely," he mumbled.
"You were out for an hour. We're almost home."
"I don't feel sho good," he complained, his stomach fluttering dangerously.
"I can imagine," she sympathized. "You know you should never mix the grain with the grape—" Her voice broke off as she exclaimed in horror, "What is that idiot doing?"
There was a jolt and he was thrown forward, crashing against the seat belt and the door as Lynne screamed and slammed on the brakes. Everything after that seemed to go in slow motion as twin beams of light flooded their car. The front end crumpled up to the dashboard, glass splintered everywhere and a searing pain filled him. The last thing he heard was a bang as the airbag deployed.
When awareness returned, he realized he was floating somewhere above, looking down on himself. The Range Rover was a crumpled piece of metal compacted against the front end of a semi-truck rig. Red and blue lights flashed all around, and men in black raincoats with fluorescent yellow stripes were taping off the area.
At one side of the road a man was sitting with a bloody nose and a gash on his forehead. He was crying. "I only took my eyes off the road for a second, I swear."
"He's lying," Lynne said next to him. "He fell asleep at the wheel. He'd been driving for fourteen hours straight already."
Mark looked down and saw her broken body next to his. He felt strangely calm. "How do you know that?" he asked her, completely sober.
"I looked at his manifest," she replied. "Mark, I think we're dead."
"I think you're right," he said. "So what happens next?"
"I'm not sure," she replied. "I was expecting a beam of light or… or something—" she broke off as a rumbling roar shook them. The people below seemed not to notice.
"What was that?" Lynne asked, fear in her voice.
"I don't know," he said, shaken.
The roar came again, and out of the darkness came a palpable blackness, with gleaming red eyes.
"MARK!" Lynne screamed, clutching at him. He held her as close as he could, and tried to put her behind him, but the out of the darkness came an evil voice.
"Meyye!" it said. "I am Alduin. You cannot hide from me!"
Something wrenched his wife from his arms, and the last thing he heard was Lynne shrieking his name as her ghostly form was rent to ribbons.
He awoke gasping for breath. His heart raced, and he felt his blood pounding in his veins. A sense of urgency told him he needed to find a bathroom, but there was none here. He settled for the bucket under the bed, the unsavory encrustations telling him that was its purpose, as his stomach gave back everything he'd eaten that day.
What a horrible dream! Cold dread settled in the pit of his stomach, and he quickly reversed himself and sat on the bucket as his bowels emptied themselves as well. Weakly, he staggered to the washbasin to clean himself up, staring dully in the mirror at the wan face in front of him. A face that was not his. Clarity broke through, however, and the grey eyes widened in realization.
That was no dream! He remembered now! The bright headlights, the awful impact, and the sensation of being thrown out of his body. And then afterwards, the horrible roaring darkness which stripped his wife away from him. She was gone. Somehow, instinctively, he knew that, and the knowledge cut through him like a knife. Something had taken her from him and obliterated her soul. Something that called itself Alduin.
He staggered out of his room and into the main room of the inn. The bartender – Orgnar, was it? – was behind the bar, wiping down the wooden counter. Did the man never sleep?
"You look awful," Orgnar commented gruffly.
"I feel awful," Marcus mumbled in shock.
Orgnar rummaged behind the bar and brought out a blue glass bottle and a couple of small glasses. "Here. This one's on the house," he said. "Don't tell Delphine." He poured a small amount into each glass and pushed one towards Marcus.
The younger man managed to chuckle as he saluted the barkeep. "I won't tell her if you don't." He knocked back the drink, then gasped as the burn filtered its way down to his stomach. "What is this stuff?" he wheezed.
Orgnar grinned as he finished his glass. "Colovian brandy," he said, refilling the glasses. He waved off Marcus' attempt to pull some coins from the pouch at his belt. "I said this one's on me," he reminded Marcus.
"That was the last drink," Marcus frowned. "This is a new one."
"Still on me," Orgnar insisted. Then his face grew somber. "I heard you yell a little bit ago, before you came out. Must've been some nightmare."
"It was," Marcus admitted, unaware of the helpless, bereft look on his face.
"Wanna talk about it?" the dark-haired Nord asked.
"I don't know where I'd start," Marcus muttered. "You probably wouldn't believe it if I told you."
"What's to believe?" Orgnar snorted. "It's just a dream, right? Probably sent by Vaermina."
"Who's Vaermina?" Marcus asked, puzzled.
"Daedric Prince of dreams and nightmares," Orgnar said shortly. "Probably best not to talk about her too much right now. Don't wanna call attention to yourself."
Marcus decided not to pursue this line of conversation and instead asked Orgnar, "Do you believe in an afterlife?"
"What, you mean after we die?" Orgnar asked. At Marcus' nod he replied, "Yeah, sure, most of us believe in Sovngarde. Don't you? Oh, wait, that's right. You're an Imperial. I don't know what afterlife they believe in. Aetherius, I think?"
Ralof had mentioned Sovngarde on their way to Helgen, Marcus remembered. "I don't know what Sovngarde is," he admitted. "I've been…out of the country for a while." He drank the second brandy down, and had to admit it was calming the jitters he'd experienced from the nightmare. It was going down much smoother this time, too.
Orgnar snorted. "Every true Nord knows about Sovngarde," he said. "We're told about it from the cradle. Any Nord who dies bravely in battle gets a chance to go there."
"And it's a nice place?" Marcus couldn't help but ask as Orgnar filled his glass for the third time.
"Far as I've been told," Orgnar rumbled. "Have to say I've never been there myself. I've heard it's non-stop drinking and wenching, if you're into that sort of thing. Guess there's a lot of good men and women on both sides of this war finding out for themselves what it's like now."
Marcus nodded soberly, but could find nothing to say to that. He didn't know a whole lot about the particulars of the civil war that seemed to be going on here, though Ralof had urged them both to join up with the Stormcloaks. The only thing he knew for certain at this point was that he refused to take sides until he knew more about the issues that had brought it about. And if he managed to get himself home, he wouldn't have to deal with it at all.
Marcus sat in brooding silence, drinking brandy and listening to Sven play quietly on his lute. Finally, unable to prevent himself, he blurted out, "I dreamed I died, and my wife died with me." What made him say that, he didn't know, but Orgnar seemed the epitome of the sympathetic bartender, and he was sharing some really fine brandy with him.
"And where's your wife now?" Orgnar asked. "I take it that's not her in the other room."
Marcus shook his head. "No, she's not—we're just—we escaped Helgen together," he finished.
Orgnar's eyes widened, but all he said was, "Well, no wonder you're having nightmares." He poured them both another brandy, and Marcus was feeling a warm glow in the pit of his stomach where before there had been only a hollow emptiness.
"I don't know where my wife is now," Marcus admitted unhappily. "Something tells me she's…gone. That it wasn't a nightmare, but a memory."
"I'm sorry," Orgnar said quietly. "Maybe you'll see her again in Sovngarde, then, or Aetherius…or wherever it is that Imperials go when they die."
Marcus shook his head. "No, I mean, she's gone. Something big, dark and evil snatched her away from me, and I…I couldn't feel her there anymore. It called itself 'Alduin'."
The glass Orgnar had been holding dropped from nerveless fingers and shattered on the stone floor. His rugged face went pale behind the dark beard, and his eyes widened in fear.
"Don't say that name here!" he whispered harshly.
"What?" Marcus blinked. "Why? Who is Al—"
"I said don't say that name here!" Orgnar said louder and more forcefully. He dropped his voice to a gravelly whisper. "Don't you know? That's the World Eater! Everyone in Skyrim knows about the old tales, how he's the harbinger of the end times!"
Marcus just stared at the man helplessly. Orgnar was not a small man. He was tall, broad, one might almost say 'brutish-looking', and he certainly looked like he could hold his own in a pitched fight. But right now the big man was practically shaking.
"We won't talk about this again," Orgnar growled. "And I think you need to return to your room." He took the bottle and the glass Marcus had finished and disappeared into a back room. He did not return.
Marcus went back to his room, more confused than ever. Who or what was this 'Alduin'? And why did he have the huge Nord bartender shaking in his shoes? As he lay back down on the bed, he tried to get comfortable enough to sleep, though the smell from the bucket under the bed was noxious in the extreme. He thought about Tamsyn in the next room. He was certain she would know about Alduin, if she was right and they were truly inside some video game. He resolved to talk to her in the morning.
Sleep, when it did come, was restless, and filled with nightmarish shadows and a long, piercing scream.
14