There were so many places to quote I could have just copied the whole story! I struggled to pick a favorite line, there were five that made me gasp they were so powerful. It always amazes me that people like you and Destri have access to the same vocabulary I do, but you can turn out masterpieces with it! AWESOME Write! Here is my favorite line:

I concur with everything that has already been said (except the part about me turning out masterpieces). I wonder if you have purposefully forced Firen into more and more self-reflection the longer he goes without skooma. It has gotten to the point where it seems that the drug was the only thing that made Firen able to tolerate himself.

It is a subtle thing but one of the things that I enjoy most about this story is the difference between who Firen is now as opposed to who he was when he was interrogating people looking for clues to Varnan’s whereabouts.

As always, excellent work.

Cheers for the comments.

Haute - I think shades of grey sums up the orginal concept of the character fairly well. I'm glad you still like him, but I can imagine that most of Morrowind doesn't much... As for chemistry dreams I know boat and chair well enough, even the dreaded curly arrows if memory serves. I'm a chemical physicist so did a year of organic before I was allowed to drop it.

SubRosa - I'm glad you liked it.

mALX - you're turning out quite a masterpiece as well. I'm glad you like some of the lines.

Destri - the development of Firen is deliberate, one fo the reasons Yesterday's Shadow was somewhat dissatisfying was that he didn't really develop enough. It's good to see his change has been noticed

All - talking of Yesterday's Shadow... well read on...


43. The Gathering Past

The hair crawled on the nape of my neck and the scroll trembled in my fingers like a small creature trying to escape. I sighed, you did a long time for murder, but I was already past that, if they caught me it would be a short drop and a last jig. What was another murder but another challenge for whatever deity oversaw the creation of my place in hell. It was for the greater good. The stale sentiment had worn a trench in my mind. I looked at the first symbol and began to read.

But I could not. When I opened my mouth no sound would go forth and the magic remained dormant. I gagged a little when I tried to spit the words out with more force. A glance behind showed that I was electing some interest, but Okun and Varnan had rejoined the main group leaving me out in front. I was about to try again when a voice spoke from my right.

"There are more subtle magics than you can imagine," it was an old voice, but with the harshness of an argonian. The slaves were all behind me though. Then from the shadows stepped Skink.

"You n'wah," I said, the power of my voice returned to me.

"If you would be calm for a moment," he said. I didn't reply. "Good. An... interesting little stunt you managed here. Cost the Dres a fortune, you're already major news. Even got orders asking of you from the Arcane University itself."

"Come to finish the job then? Make a bit of money along with it," I gripped my sword ready. He had to have something planned to stop me using it, but I had no idea what.

His frown was full of festering hackle-lo stained teeth. "If only. If only... It would appear that your little accident in the cave was more problematic than we had feared."

"And you want help? Okay I'm sure I ca-" I exploded. There is a skill in the perfect burst of motion. Going from relaxed to a killing blow in an instant without warning. Even strung out pretty thin for want of skooma it was a skill I had. The blade sailed up from my side, my foot pushing to my hips and back, all lending power to the sword point. A point aimed straight for Skink's throat. This had all been his fault, and now he would take the punishment. He sent us to the ruin where whatever nightmare had befallen us, I still did not understand fully, he tried to keep, and probably kill, me, and managed to enslave Varnan. My rage flew red hot with the blade's sharp edge, needing his lifeblood to quench it. It was a mere inch away when my arm fell away, limp and useless like so much meat. I teetered then regained myself, the blade hovered for a moment then clattered to the ground.

"That was quick," Skink nodded with maddening calm, "but as I said magic is a subtle art. Perhaps now you will listen? I understand as well as anyone that a deal must work both ways."

I nodded my assent.

"From what we've pieced together that ruin contained some vast magical source and an ancient necromancer who had used it and become stuck. It is clear it is exceptionally skilled, but it also appears to be weakened compared to what it will be. Does this sound right, you were... ahem, a little under the influence, or rather influences, when we had you report."

I glared at him, I didn't remember any report and wondered if there might be more influences than I already knew. "Yes, the necromancer killed two of my party and briefly inhabited Varnan before moving onto Renera."

"The mercenary?"

"Yes."

"That explains much, you hunted her briefly I think-"

"She escaped, no thanks to your fools."

"Quite... I will admit we were a little confused in our actions at first. However it is a threat, and that it first controlled one, maybe both, of you explains much. It's been following you since you lost him."

I looked blankly at Skink. So I could not even run from whatever nightmare had happened in that ruin? The second hand light was greyed by smoke now, its sharp tang lanced my nostrils, "What do you mean?"

"I've been directing considerable guild resources to containing this... accident. Following news from our informers of travellers being ambushed, villages burnt. The group we sent to deal with you-"

I cut him off. "You mean murder?"

He ignored me and continued. "They realised that we could be sitting on a disaster. Anyway the boat it commandeered washed ashore on Indoril lands with all the crew dead and the, not so mysterious, killing continued from there. We tried to deal with it but it was fast and unpredictable, and, above all, dangerous. But it ran rather than destroying you, and after a few days it always went one way: south. And as it drew further south it became clear it was towards certain disturbances here," he gave me a mock bow, "or Tear. That is towards the ones, which if what you tell me is correct, who were inhabited."

I needed a moment for it to sink in, "It never inhabited me."

"Really?" Skink shrugged his head frills. "So Firen Varian, one of the Fighters' Guild's more prolific members would have shown the ruthless single mindedness you have on the way here? Drawn to Tear and Varnan?"

I thought about it. Put simply the answer was no. But surely it hadn't affected me, I'd never even pondered that it might, but it had the mages at the ruin and it most definitely had Thyra, but even so events could just as well have changed me. I had changed though, and Renera, or whatever was in her, hadn't wanted to hurt me. It wasn't a nice thought. "I'm guessing you didn't come to spread the news," I said to Skink, "so what do you want?"

"I want to catch it. It must be driven from its host and destroyed. I bent most of the resources of the guild into this but I've failed. And you've seen more of it than the rest of us."

So I was to be bait. "If the guild is on this why doesn't the guild-master speak to me?"

"What old Geontene? He's a fool, barely knows what's happening. After Trebonus had that... incident with the fruit bowl, retort and the golden saint we decided that an archmage who's incompetent is the best kind: he leaves us to it and only has ceremonial power. If anything I have more sway than he does, so will you help us?"

"No, I have my duty here," I waved to the assembled slaves. They were becoming restless but hadn't the gut to move themselves. Skink looked surprised, but before he could reply I continued. "Not that you'd understand helping your fellows, or anyone for that matter."

He frowned, "There are greater matters. The guild cannot be seen to meddle, but I have in the past given aid to the Twin Lamps. Perhaps I can here, I will see to it that they are rescued."

"Guild first, brethren and justice later?" His eyes widened and the frown deepened, I had spoken in argonian and it was clear I spoke it better than he. I returned to cyrodiilic. "It is not enough. The Guild has power. Use it against the Dres and against slavery."

"No. As soon as I suggested it my influence would dissolve, just as would the Guild's were it to be passed. The days of forced imperialisation are over, the dunmer will do as they will."

It was true, the Guild was tolerated, much as with the Fighters Guild, as long as they stayed away from politics and remained useful. "True, but you do have the power to see that those involved in this escape are not punished excessively and to funnel your resources into the twin lamps, and other groups."

He shook his head, "This group, no more."

I met his red eyes, they were clouded with age and depth. "Then it appears we do not have a deal. The necromancer was a problem of your making. It remains yours to undo."

"I am a powerful mage," he said darkly, "you would do well to consider this. This group will get to the marshes, that I guarantee you. As will another if they can get far enough from Tear for me to pick them up. This I also guarantee you. I will see to it that a motion passes allowing our members to deal with all other organisations. The hint will be clear enough, indeed as clear as I dare. In return you help us."

The threat was clear, one way or another I would be bait and I preferred to be bait which could still run. That didn't mean I wasn't going to draw for more, if they wouldn't be the hammer to strike a blow to the whole then they would be a scalpel to sever some links. "That I will. But I would like it if the leader of the pits here met with a little accident, and also the grandmaster of the Dres. You have considerable resources, lets hope those accidents happen. And Varnan, get him out and cure him, I don't know what's happened, but you will help."

He frowned but nodded. "The leaders will find themselves unlucky if my aims are achieved, as for... your friend?" I nodded, "I suppose you will suffice alone. I shall see he is cared for."

"Then," I said, "we have a deal." My hand weighed a ton, the shake which sealed the deal a thousand, the crash of change.

Skink called out another two mages who had been hiding in the shadows, no doubt aided by some wizardry. As one marshalled the argonians I drew Okun aside. "You heard us, the Guild will see you and the rest back to the marsh."

His nod was slow, "I didn't understand much but yes. And I thank you, but what do I do when I get there?"

"I'm not sure you want my advice. Just..." I fought for words. Know your aim? That had lead me here. Do what you want? Not my best moment. "Follow what's right." I finished weakly.

"Thank you," he said, and meant it.

I only nodded. "I suppose this is good bye. Look after Varnan until the guild takes him for healing." I put out a hand.

"I will," he said and ignored my hand putting his arms around my shoulders. "Good luck," he said breaking away.

I watched his retreating back for a moment. He paused to help an elderly slave before vanishing into the group. I turned to Skink, and to that future. What lay there? The tunnel was dark, and though the ghost of hope remained that I might see Renera again that light was far off and weak, like the half-imagined afterimage of a bright wish.

I do love dark stories and this one just rocketed upwards in my favourite list. Awesome Olen. Words fail me to properly describe it.

Interesting turn of events with Skink, and the news he brings. A shadow from Yesterdays Shadow. I have been expecting something like this since we first saw Renera. We also see the reason Firen was simply dumped in the bar and his tab paid up ahead of time. I have always wondered why the Mages Guild would do that, rather than just sell him into slavery as they did Varnan. Now we see he was bait all along.

We also see that this mysterious force, the necromancer?, was perhaps influencing Firen earlier in the story? It does explain his change in attitude later in the story, how he could be so ruthless earlier, and becomes more and more conscientious later. Personally though, I have never been a fan of "the Devil made me do it." But that is an entirely personal observation.

After Trebonus had that... incident with the fruit bowl, retort and the golden saint
Now this begs the question of what on Nirn happened there!

nits:
when we had you report.
I believe that is your there

The first time I read the name Skink-in-Trees-Shade in Morrowind I knew that he was going to be one of my favorite characters. It is nice to see him brought so effectively to life here. The mysterious quality of whatever spell (burden I assume) he used to stay Firen’s hand, coupled with his cryptic explanation of magic as a ‘subtle art’ went a long way toward establishing his character. While he unabashedly proclaims himself a powerful mage, he also laments his impotence when it comes to imposing change amongst the Dunmer. This makes him three dimensional. I was absolutely riveted by both the discussion of Guild politics and by the insight that Firen gleans into his own motivations. I do think that Firen’s actions are more complicated than can be accounted for by the explanation that Skink gives him (as SubRosa so eloquently put it, ‘the Devil made me do it’).

I am glad to see updates to this coming more frequently, because now I am completely hooked.

Amazingly powerful writing!!! The paragraph with Skink has to be my favorite, but the first paragraph is such a close second - WHEW !!!! Your writing never ceases to amaze and inspire me!!!

All I can say is that I echo the above.

This is getting more and more powerful!

Remko - thanks, I only hope it stays good...

SubRosa - hmm I'm almost tempted to take out the necromancer having changed him part, it was never meant to be so cut and dry as that. I wholly agree 'the devil made me do it' is wrong but he would have been happy enough to do the same during Yesterday's Shadow so it was never meant as that.
As for the incident... I'll leave it to your imagination (though perhaps not to Foxy's)

Destri - I'm glad you like Skink, he was an interesting character to flesh out. I agree completely with your comment about Firen being wholly more complex than Skink might think.

mALX - thanks That's high praise coming from the genius behind Maxical

Haute - thanks more high praise

All - unfortunatly I move house on june 2nd but my stuff all disappears tomorrow so I'll be without computer (or guitar, or wieghts, or books, or baking stuff...) until the 2nd. This seems a perfectly good place for a pause then the post rate will rise for the next bit


44. Baited Trap

We didn't speak as Skink and another mage lead the way through the chaotic and often smouldering city. We went east, towards the docks, and fast. I was out of breath when we came to the edge of the dark channels between the cantons and the light seemed bright and new through the torn down gate. The breeze held the strong scent of dockyards. The last section of the pits hadn't been slave pens, rather it was devoted to trade and goods. We emerged onto the quay, gantries jutted from the canton sides like gallows fit to hang countries. Most of the ships had put out to sea to escape both the troubles and the threat of windblown cinders. Skink ran to the left.

"We have a wharf set as the trap," he said, "not far now."

A short way along the quay we came to a pair of guards standing ready. Most seemed to be running around in disarray, the organisation flailing like a headless snake, but these had clearly decided to watch the docks. There was no avoiding them. I slowed by the mages did not, the breton whose name I didn't know nodded to Skink who cast a spell. They ran on and I followed. The guards saw us but took no notice. Something about that made my skin crawl, such beguilement of the senses had no place in nature. Might I be being so deceived? How much had the ruin affected me? I fell back on my standard answer, at least when there's no spirits to be had: it didn't matter. To ponder the unanswerable was futile so I settled on maybe, but assumed not. Either way it made no real odds, and to pretend not was quite likely and unsettled me far less.

We passed into a district of warehouses, wharfs and cellars, interspersed with grim taverns and cheap brothels. My sort of place, or at least it had been. As we ran through it all I felt was a twinge of disgust, there would be skooma here but I didn't try to find it, the moment was too important to flee. A few turns through the maze brought us to a dark wooden building. The overlapping shingles were warped and rot had set in leaving white stains against the black timber. We avoided the front door and wandered up behind it, Skink glanced around, his anxiety so obvious as to be infectious. There was something compelling about the warehouse, as if fate focused there, hot like the point cast by the sun through a lens.

Round the back a ladder went to a door on the second floor, from the platform at the top a rope was strung from a gantry higher up. The bottom was a wide loop. "Put that round you and they'll haul you up," said Skink.

I went to but didn't fancy the wound in my side against the hemp. I pointed to it. "Not with that cut."

The breton witch stepped forward, "If I may?" She didn't wait for an answer but put her hands over the top of it. I felt a cool itch along the seam where the sword had landed. When she withdrew them it looked a few days healed and my hand moved better too. She regarded it momentarily. "That'll do," she muttered.

I didn't reply, I don't like healing magic, but it's effectiveness is undeniable. I looped the rope around my chest and gave it two quick tugs. A moment later my guess was confirmed and the rope jerked up pulling me from the platform, even with my wounds healed it hurt. The breton witch passed me flying straight upwards. It was probably for the best she wore trousers as, even though she was a little old, my glance upward was reflexive. At the top I was surprised to see a pale weed of a man had hauled me up, I lifted the rope from me and threw it back over the edge. As I passed him I noticed an empty potion bottle behind him. It raised questions if the rich could buy such and be what they want with no effort... But I had neither time or inclination to follow the thought. Such was life.

I crept to the edge of the high walkway which encircled the warehouse. A similar walkway was on the opposite wall lower down with a steep stair between them, below where I stood it joined a mezzanine at the level of the loading bay, more mages crouched behind a pile of dilapidated crates there. Another loading rig stood idle at the end, the ropes descending to the gloomy depths made it seem more like a pit with the heavy rotten air of a cave than a towering wharf. The deep bottom was stone-floored and piled with more crates, a single guard sat near the door with a steaming mug and a hackle-lo. I drew back and turned to see Skink had joined us at the top.

"This is the only property in Tear owned by a mages guild front," he said quietly, "we intend to draw the lich here. It seems to be drawn to powerful enchantment like a moth to a candle, and to you and Varnan like a lodestone to north. Varnan would have been a better lure perhaps, but there is something..." he tailed off but I waited. "Unsettling about him." Skink said at length.

"The guard?"

"We pay enough to see that this is well guarded. It took a significant bribe and some misdirection to have him stay here in the chaos but he should keep it occupied for long enough for us to move." He said it in such an offhand way I felt it necessary to ask.

"Occupied, she... it, won't kill him?"

Skink shrugged. "Oh possibly, but isn't that what you want?" There was something appalling in the lack of emotion. How many had he killed?

"No," I said, "there must be a reason."

Skink raised his eyebrows, "We're catching a dangerous necromancer, maybe the most dangerous of our times. Surely that fulfils your definition of reason?"

I thought but had no answer. Maybe it was necessary, or maybe many of my own murders, I used the true term, had not been so. Neither pleased me though why one more should matter I knew not, just that it did and my conscience, that deformed and shrivelled thing like a corpus monster, had finally found north again. I was tired of killing. Soon Renera would be back, the necromancer driven away just as she had attempted to draw it from Varnan, and where she had nearly succeeded Skink would. He was, for his many faults, a famous mage and had several retainers backing him. Would Renera be like Varnan, a mad thing, or how much worse for the longer infestation of her mind. The thought of what might remain terrified me.

I returned my gaze to Skink who was looking carefully at the set up below, the line of mages, spells primed and to whatever lure lay within the crates the blissfully ignorant guard smoked by. "It isn't right," I said, "that is all."

Skink didn't take his eyes off the scene below. "Right and wrong," he said only half paying attention, "Justice. Honour. What are they but shadows which flicker when the fire changes? They are but the shade of the constructs of man and mer, they are built by the strong in their own image. Today we are the strong, and it is necessary and just that he die... Soon now."

The final two words were breathed, I think he didn't mean to say them. But I had time neither to challenge his nihilistic beliefs nor question further. With a mighty crash the door opened and measured clicking footsteps drew in.

So you go away for a week or more, and leave us with a cliffie? That's torture, Olen!

I'm going to get even with you by leaving you a boat-load of posts to catch up on my thread!

Again, good story telling. The revulsion Firen felt at the healing process is very interesting. The ability to heal self and others is very important to all of my characters. Guess it's the vet in me talking.

Have fun moving! Having done it ten times in five years, I know all too well whereof you speak!

We are hurtling toward the final showdown with the necromancer/lich I see! And in a city torn apart by a slave revolt. You certainly know how to build an exciting scene! I cannot wait to see what happens next!

I liked Skink's amoral musings at the end. Good and evil, right and wrong, moral or immoral, are terms I always try to avoid myself. The reason is that everyone insists that they are good and right, and that the other person is evil and wrong. They are simplistic, convenient labels people throw around to justify their actions. Reality is far more complicated, and usually much less self-aggrandizing. That muddiness is something you do a good job of bringing out.

Sorry to hear you have to move. I hate doing that.


nits:
How did Firen and company get past the group of Dunmer? They had no other way to go but through them, and Firen was just about to use the frenzy scroll on all of them before Skink turned up. Then afterward they are moving on, but no mention of whether it was forward through the Dunmer civilians, or back the way they had come from, or in some other direction. Were they somehow obfuscated as the mages did on the docks?


I slowed by the mages did not,
I think you meant but?

Good luck with your move, I came to hate it, lol. Awesome Write, as usual !!!! Your updates will def be missed!!!

An interesting summation of two disparate moral philosophies, I think that Skink and Firen are a lot more alike than Firen would like to admit. After all, he did commit a number of murders and sacrificed a number of lives to achieve his goal. Just because he feels bad about it doesn’t excuse him from the acts committed. As the great Homer Simpson once said:



Again I am really enjoying your take on Skink in this story. And now the slowly drawing footsteps . . . thanks a lot for the cliffhanger!!!

Well I'm moved now, at least for the next three months when I get to do it again so the parts should be appearing as before (barring work and holidays which I seem to be developing without really meaning to).

Haute - Cheers for the comment. Less of a cliffy this time.

SubRosa - I'm glad you like the setting, originally Renera was dealt with seperatly but I just culdn't resist continuing in the ruins of Tear because they're fun to write. As for Skink's comments on morality I'd say they largely reflect reality (even if embracing them is a bit iffy). The nit... well I'm not sure to be honest, it didn't strike me as particularly important though I suppose a throw away line would have cleared it up.

mALX - more update

Destri - as ever you hit the nail on the head... but more on that later.

All - just a short bit today seeing as the next piece is a bit longer.



45. A Hint of the Past

Silence gripped the room like a murderer's hand. The clicking footsteps were shards of glass bristling into my mind. I peered down into the warehouse and in the gloom by the door saw her. Renera, but not quite, it had her body but not her movement or grace, rather it walked in a series of jerks like a stiff puppet. The more I looked the less it was her, everything was wrong. She had been smart, the thing below had a tattered robe which had been dragged across Morrowind. It stepped closer to the guard. He muttered something unintelligible, his fingers crawled in an ecstasy of fear. He quivered like a cornered rabbit. I'd felt that magic on me, a crippling fear of horror unknown.

Skink drew alongside me, "Go down to the middle floor," he whispered, "it's not feeling you acutely enough."

"How?"

He pointed over the edge and down. I crawled forward, gripped it and slipped my legs off. Then I lowered my body until I hung by my fingertips and let go. I landed with a thunk on the uneven planks of the floor and fell prone to avoid it seeing me. How much did it already know of the trap? I wondered if it was so easily led or if Skink had underestimated it. I returned to the edge to see it peering up with Renera's startling green gaze, memories stirred but it wasn't the time. It was looking directly at me, but it was too dark for me to be seen, at least I hoped. I told myself it was just looking at noise my fall had made. But I knew it wasn't, the chance of its gaze meeting my eyes and not falling slightly to the side was too minute. After a time it returned its attention to the guard and menaced him until he fell back from his chair to lie on the floor.

I waited like a coiled spring for Skink to act. It was playing with its prey like a cat with a mouse. He had drawn it out so why did he wait? Because there was to be a better moment, it had to be that simple, but I didn't like what that better moment might mean. It stood over the guard and I made my decision. I slipped away from the edge and scurried across the mezzanine to the wall where a low stair descended. I went down it a little and peered out across the bottom floor. My movements had disturbed the necromancer again and though it still loomed above the prostrate guard it had done no more. Another few tense moments passed before it returned its attention to the wide-eyed dunmer. I couldn't imagine the terror he was feeling but his jumpy attempts to shrink into the floor gave me some idea. It raised its hands and began to weave magic. The mages still did nothing. Something in me gave way. I couldn't stand by and watch any longer waiting for the guard's death, I didn't care that Skink's accusations of hypocrisy were justified. I knew this was wrong.

The spell was a killing blow, with a final flourish it went to deliver it. I jumped down from the stairs and annihilated the crate I landed on. It looked at me. "Renera," I projected my voice to fill the space as well as I could, "stop." I started forward and the room exploded.

Blazing fireballs rained down shot through with blinding flashes of lightning, beating globes of poison flew like amorphous hearts a deadly game while multi-hued magics filled the air and left a crisscrossing pattern etched into the darkness. The heat and smell of it was immense, like some crackling tinworks in hell. Smoke and dust filled the air and grated on my throat, afterimages of the bursts and flares scintillated in my eyes like the skooma filled dancers of the Khajit. I shrank away from the assault on my senses but even as I did the initial burst was cleared and through it I saw the necromancer stood amid the raining spells in a furious weave of counter-magics, dispels and shields. It was bowed under the weight of the attack but it still stood.

Even I could see it was losing though. The barrage continued for a moment, the necromancers robe smouldered and was full of tears, Renera's long black hair was scorched and stood at strange angles, pushed up by the charge of magic. Then with speed like I'd never seen it shot a spell down at the guard and leapt away. One instant it was breaking under the hail of spells, the next it was halfway to the door. Before I could stir myself it had run away into the night. I paused a moment to regain my senses then ran over to the unmoving guard.

He was dead. By the look of it a cleaner end than he might otherwise have had, but nonetheless I'd failed. As had the mages. I hadn't expected them the try to kill the necromancer by killing Renera as well, and I didn't want them to. Now I'd seen her again I realised I still did hope, if she could be cured perhaps the past could repeat itself, but work out this time. My train of thought was broken by the arrival of Skink whose red eyes blazed rage.

"What in oblivion did you do that for?"

"She... It was going to kill him," I replied.

Skink kicked the corpse, "Looks like it did, and because you distracted it we failed."

"You shouldn't have betrayed the guard," I replied.

"You've killed enough, what was different about this betrayal?"

"That exactly," I said in a calm voice, he was angry but he needed me. I knew it. "He was in your employ so you were responsible for him. I never went out my way to kill any, I simply killed those who stood between me and a greater end."

"A greater end? Burning half a city and killing thousands anyway, maybe more. Definitely more by the time it blows over."

"It was necessary. There were no betrayals."

"The slaves who are recaptured wouldn't agree."

I fell silent, but I think he did see the difference, however subtle. After a time I spoke again. "You tried to kill her."

Skink gave me an incredulous look, "Yes. I've spent enormous effort and resources on killing the lich, what did you think I was trying to do?"

"Kill the necromancer, not Renera."

"They are one and the same now, its mind inhabits her empty shell. There is nothing left of whatever woman used to be there. It must be killed for the sake of all."

"She drew it out of Varnan did she not?" I replied.

"And look what she left, that was after a day, two? Before it had even taken control. There is nothing left of her." There might have been a hint of pity in the tone, but not enough to detect its sincerity.

Before I could continue the argument a mage ran to us. He didn't wait before saying, "She's escaped us but she was after the other one."

Now this is nail-biting suspense!

Still a cliffie, but better than the last time!

Good to see you again, Olen!

Phew! That was intense! You definitely delivered on the excitement, and left us with more to come!

More please!


nits:
One instant it was breaking under the hail of spells, the next it was halfway to the door.
I think you want at least a comma where I placed it in the middle of this sentence, perhaps followed with an and?

My favorite thing about the last few chapters is the way that Skink’s ruthlessness seems to push Firen ever closer to his better nature. It is almost as if, with the rescue of Varnan and the skooma withdrawal receding, Firen sees in Skink the reflection of the man he no longer wishes to be. There is an amazing transference of character happening here that only comes from a writer working at the top of his form.

A miniscule nit:

Given the setting, do you not think that ‘oblivion’ might be a better term here than ‘hell’?

MORE!!!

Holy Cow!!!!! (edited for content) Awesome Write Olen!!!!!! WHEW !!!!

A longer bit this time, with just a hint of horror.

Haute - More suspense to come and the bits should come at a reasonable rate (every second or third day now the home straight is near).

SubRosa - I'm glad you're finding it exciting, I'd say with fair certainty that the last sections of this are some of the best things I've written. As per the nit, agreed on the comma, cheers for pointing it out.

Destri - Thanks, its always good to read what you think of the characters, you nail it down so much more elequently than I manage in my notes. As for using oblivion instead of hell there's a few reasons. Firstly I prefer to use less lore friendly words if they come with better connotations but also most of oblivion isn't very hell-like with the exceptions of Dagon's Deadlands and Molag Bal's Coldharbour (though this is cold not hot) so it wouldn't fit so well anyway but saying 'like a tinworks in the Deadlands' doesn't work.

mALX - thanks

All - this piece is a bit longer, any thoughts on length/ frequency are, as ever, welcome.



46. A Mistake Made

Tear was ablaze. The clouds of choking fumes glowed from within with a hellish light and rained tiny sparks which spread the fires, some of the wharfs nearest the city now burned as did the slums, their wooden walls providing brighter flames than the stone blocks of the cantons. We took to the deserted streets at a run, a face would appear at the occasional window but generally they looked empty. We didn't speak, two mages had been killed in the wharf but there were still five with me. That alone was the most convincing evidence of how worried they were. Nearer the cantons and slave pens was more evidence of the havoc which still raged in pockets of fury, the guards Skink had bewitched on the way to the failed trap both lay dead and the sharp smell of blood mixed with the smoke and the grotesquely pleasant smell of burning flesh, like roast pork at a good inn.

In the pens was an aftermath of hell, Molag Bal himself could not have wished for better. We still ran, and fast. I began to flag and couldn't understand how the bookish mages were able to hold a pace I could not. Explanation came when I was clearly struggling and had slowed a little, the man behind me put his hand on my back and I felt the tingle of magic. A moment later I felt as if I had rested an hour and was fresh again. With magic like that what value is skill? Still I was grateful for it in the circumstances. Skink led us through various culs-de-sac running a door at the end through the back of a shop or finding some tiny alley, he seemed to know the place by memory. Always we went southwest, we knew where Varnan would likely be, the necromancer did not. We had that much advantage at least. There was a crash to our right and fumes and sparks billowed from the lower windows of the canton. Two wild eyed dunmer burst through a low one tailed by grasping fingers of smoke. They saw us and ran in the other direction.

We passed a makeshift gallows on which hung the maggot filled corpses of half a dozen slaves. The fighting here had been fierce and I nearly stumbled on the corpse of an argonian who had crushed a guard against him. They lay together in death. Who knew of wrong or right, slavery could not be tolerated, but was all this destruction a suitable price to strike against it? It was done now, questions had no meaning. Around the next corner we came to an abrupt halt.

I moved forward beside Skink to look. We had come to a wide path within the cantons with many hatches and gantries on either side and piles of rough bowls, like the one I had eaten from, lying smashed here and there. A couple of cauldrons were upset by their fires, rats gnawed at the thin gruel within, or feasted on the richer pickings of the dead. This was where all the food for the slave-pens was produced. It was also a maze of crates, high gantries between what must be stores, crude roofs over burnt out fires and small sheds. Further down a scrap of movement caught my eye, a small group, maybe four or five, dunmer huddled in one of the lean-tos.

I looked to Skink. "You know Tear awfully well," I didn't bother to hide my suspicion.

"Alas not, I memorised the best map we could obtain on the way here, but one cannot get the feel from a map. Still fortune favours us with a second chance."

I didn't like his tone, "What do you mean?"

He gestured to the wider channel between the cantons, "This is ideal. We do not know where the lich is, but you are a warrior, you can see how good this is for an ambush. And those dunmer should keep it occupied and help attract it. It has a certain... affection for murder. We can draw it here and destroy it, your... friends... need never know and will be quite safe."

"And those dunmer?"

"A couple of hours ago you were killing them. But I realise you seem to have given up on that, Mabrel would be most disappointed. Still you have seen what this necromancer is capable of, you were at Irrith when it visited. What are five lives to the saving of hundreds, maybe more."

He had a point, the end would justify his means. I would not even have to act, I would simply be a bystander free from blame. But I knew that was untrue, he needed my cooperation, and by allowing the ambush I condoned it, could I sacrifice five, possibly innocent, strangers to free Renera? "What will you do?"

"In short? Wait until it's busy with the dunmer and roast it."

"What of Renera?"

He gave an exasperated snort, "I told you, she is dead, gone. Look at Varnan."

"He is himself sometimes, maybe even improving. Could none of her survived?"

He paused for a moment, doubt flickered behind his eyes and that was answer enough. "The chances against it are enormous. Even if there was any left it would be so far buried you'd never see it and she would be utterly divorced from reality. Killing her would be a mercy."

"No," I said, "and no, the ambush does not go ahead. She is making for Varnan yes? Then you have an idea of where she is, and know where she will be. We know roughly where he is, she does not. You have your ambush there, free from the blood of strangers."

"This is not about strangers Firen," replied Skink with a heavy tone, "but very well, let us go." He ran on between the stained walls of the cantons.

When we passed the huddled dunmer they shrank back away from us. I couldn't blame them for what must we have appeared? At the next corner another monument to the cruelty of the Dres and again I thought that perhaps the price had been an acceptable one for the damage we'd caused them. A row of cages suspended above the crossroads, barely big enough for a grown man, the corpses inside were emaciated and pecked by crows. I hoped that some effect of the hot climate on death had given them their final expressions of agony. Below was a whipping post, the wooden boards before it stained dark with dry blood. It had needed stopping. I had stopped it, or stalled it anyway.

The next alley was more of the same. The dead lay amid their monument to pain, master and slave equals in death. I barely saw it, just another street in another place. Half way down it Skink paused again, this time, however, his look was of alarm rather than thought. He glanced to the breton witch.

"Did you feel that Aurnelle?" he said, his eyes were wide.

She nodded, "Yes," her tone was that of a constipated headmistress, "east, it was big."

"That it was," agreed another mage.

"B'vek! Run." Skink was already pounding down the narrow street.

I followed in bemusement. With some effort I drew alongside the witch Skink had called Aurnelle, "What is it?"

Her harsh tone was breathless with running. "You are really so unattuned, I should have expected a mere apprentice to notice something. Magic, powerful magic."

"The lich?"

"It is likely." I didn't reply, I wasn't sure how much longer I could take a tone like hers.

Skink's memory was as prodigious as his reputation and he led us thought a maze of alleys, closes and vennels, even through a smithy. We burst through a narrow gate onto a wider road. He immediately turned right. "The secure holding," he said and turned to me. "Did you release any there?"

I shrugged, "What secure holding?"

"Fetcher," he muttered shaking his head. "Slaves they expected to escape were held in a more secure building. I think that was the source, if nobody released them..."

The secure pens were housed within the central canton, there were no windows, just an expanse of blank wall with a squat and heavy-looking iron door hanging on a single bent hinge at ground level. We stopped just outside and the mages rolled up the sleeves of their robes, two readied staffs covered in iridescent lines of magic, like a dewy spiders-web. I loosed my sword a little and checked that it moved well, both were pointless for it was a well made weapon. Skink went in first and I followed him.

I was glad I hadn't eaten for I felt bile claw at the back of my throat. The bitterness was matched by the scene and the smell of flesh. I've seen many things but this was worse than even that most imaginative production of The Horror at Castle Xyr the Telvanni magister had preformed using the previous archmagister. The entrance was little more than a corridor but the only way to tell how many had been hiding there would have been to weight the blanched mince which coated the walls floor and ceiling. I gazed in horror as the other mages entered. Most of a set of lungs splatted to the ground from the ceiling they'd been stuck to. One mage bent over and vomited.

"Now you see," said Skink holding iron composure, "what we are against. The lich is ancient, and it is utterly insane but for all its madness it retains far greater strength than we individually can master. Such is the effect of thousands of years of practice."

"Then shall we continue together?" I asked, he was not the only one capable of looking unphased. I started down the narrow corridor and was glad he followed close behind. The feeling was only a thousandth part of that of the ruin, but my every fibre still screamed to run, but I had pride to goad me forward and so continued.

I wish the doors of the cells had been as solid as their bleak stone walls because the cell behind each set of thick iron bars was a gallery in that museum of repugnance. The first made me recoil into Skink, its former occupant lay dead, his intestines burst from his belly and wrapped about his throat. His blue lips and bulging eyes made me shudder. I steeled myself and continued through the dark corridor, the floor was slimy with fresh blood laid over decades of old terror. In the gloom I stepped on the hand of the next guard with a crisp crunch. This time I leapt. He looked a hundred years dead, like the desiccated remains which are seen in tombs, the translucent yellow skin stretched over bones giving him an angular appearance, his eyes stared from oversized sockets like prunes. I stepped over him, tense as a humming lute string. I wanted to run. To hunt the lich which did this was madness beyond words, but it needed doing. How close we had been in the wharf, how sweet an opportunity that now seemed, safe, blameless and certain. How Skink must have raged, must now be raging that I let such an opportunity slip, but I was only doing what was right by what I knew.

The next cell sent the bile to my throat battering to get out, but I held it in. A Khajit this time, blessedly the fur hid most but I could see the look of anguish on his face, the blood on his torn claws and the gashes he'd gouged in the walls. Now he lay in heavenly peace on a white cloud of maggots. They clustered around his mouth and poured in a syrupy waterfall from a wound in his chest. As I watched one fell from inside a closed eyelid. Quickly I turned away and continued. The fear that the lich might lurk in the darkness ahead helped focus my mind to a point which hid away inside itself and away from the odious visions my eyes blindly passed to it. I quivered and jumped at every sound or shadow, as if of its own volition my sword found its way to my hand and I advanced. I don't think any of the mages were any better, save perhaps Skink though he looked troubled beyond words. It can only have been minutes but I could not say how long the ordeal continued, or, thank all the heavens, what else I saw. My mind was folded in on itself again and again like those rare puzzles left by the dwemer, packed away into a tiny box away from harm. Eventually I saw a light and hurried towards it.

It was a hole in the wall, rough blocks and mortar lay across the lane outside. I stepped through, glad to escape the horrors of the holdings and to breathe the open air and bask in the half light of the slave pens of Tear.

Oh my...... gruesome! Clive Barker eat your heart out
The amount of detail is staggering.

Yes, quite gruesome.

And yes, enough to beat Clive Barker.

However, one little detail is nagging at me - that Khajiit. I gathered that the lich had gone through the secure holding pens literally moments or hours before Firen did. Yet the Khajiit is crawling with maggots. It takes about a day for maggots to appear on a corpse (18 - 24 hours). Perhaps my time sense is wrong? Perhaps the lich went through the secure holding on its way to the wharf? Is that what you are conveying?

Just the vet/CSI/scientist part of my brain pounding the reader part of my brain into submission.

It does nothing to diminish the compulsion I feel to read this fiction!

Bleah! There goes my breakfast! GAAAAAAH! You have an uncanny (URP) ability with (GULP) descriptive phrases that help the reader (ULP) visualize the (GACK) scene! Awesome Write !!!!!!

Bile is clawing at the back of my throat and battering to get out. - There is no way anyone could read this and not experience it with the characters, nor the horror of their finds. You put your all into your writing, and that is always great, even when the content is gross.

Well that scores a 10 on the ewwww! factor! You used this segment to great effect, building an incredible amount of tension with it. The scene in the secure pens was extremely gruesome. Jalbert would feel completely outclassed (and be taking notes...) At the same time we see more of Firen's sobriety-found morals battling with his pragmatism (as always happens with everyone). As much as Skink is hard to argue with, I do hope that Firen has the opportunity to kill him before this is all over.


haute: My impression was that the lich summoned the maggots within the Khajiit, and they ate him from the inside out to kill him. My understanding is that maggots only eat dead flesh, hence their use in treating wounds, but I think an exception can be made for ones summoned by a millenia-year old necromancer...


nits:

but was all this destruction a suitable price to strike against it.
I think you want a question mark to end this.


barely big enough for a grown man, the corpses insider were emaciated and pecked by crows.
I think you wanted a comma in there after man, and for that be inside.


two readied staffs covered in iridescent lines of magic, like a dewy spiders-web.
I think you wanted an of in there, as well as a comma.

And I thought my stomach got sick watching the Unborn; the scene in the club bathroom.

I need some crackers and sprite....

With eight words you perfectly illustrate the resentment and fear that must exist in the uninitiated of Tamriel towards the mysteries of magic. To be fair the attitude of the practitioners (which, again, is perfectly illustrated) doesn’t do much to assuage that fear.

I love how Firen questions whether the price paid is worth it to stop the sin of slavery. I imagine that the same question was being asked in America in the mid to late 1860's. I also love how it is Firen’s pride instead of his courage that forces him onward. The others have been quite effusive in their praise of this chapter. You can add my voice to theirs. Just great!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and address my ‘battering bile’.

Remko - Glad you liked the gore. IMO horror is like salt, a bit of it makes anything better but you wuldn't want it just on its own...

Haute - SubRosa was right about my intentions about the khajit, I had meant it as some sort of magical rapid onset gangrene complete with being eaten by maggots. I know they only eat dead flesh but the image was too good to miss. As for timescales of decay I haven't even tried to get that right for a climate like Tear's...

mALX - glad you liked it (if not you're breakfast after)... Gangrene has always struck me as one of the least pleasant ways to die.

SubRosa - you hit the nail on the head with the Khajit. Cheers for pointing out those nits, they're fixxed now. As for Skink... well...

Verlox - I haven't seen unborn. As far as nasty goes Lucio Fulci is an expert, I've seen a great many zombie films and some of his are just nasty. As far as writing goes not many beat King for the occasional stomach turning line.

Destri - As ever thanks for the comment. The general feel of magic and its practitioners in the games matches all that's worst about academia, I spend enough time stuck near academics that writing the mages isn't too hard...



47. Second Attempt

In spite of our hurry we took a moment to recover from both the horror we had passed through and the fear of meeting the lich. A few deep breaths smoothed my tattered nerves and I looked around again. Soon the late sun would disappear behind the cantons to the west. An invitation for sealing night to seep through the streets and envelop the day's conclusion under its mysterious shroud.

I looked to Skink. "She is ahead of us."

He nodded. "And we must run ever faster to ensure we reach your friend before it, and use more desperate shortcuts." I wondered at his enthusiasm but saved my breath.

I followed close behind him with the other mages behind me, the running had brought me a second wind and I kept the pace without magic. The streets were more of the same but the trial through the holding cells made it seem nothing. The group could not have made it so far and with Skink's navigations we were moving quickly in the right direction. We ran through another narrow corridor flanked by small storerooms and came out onto a wider street. The smoke was thick there and billowed from every vent in the opposite canton. Further up I could see flames issuing from windows leaving black marks on the white walls.

"We're probably just behind them," said Skink without pausing, "Anton will have lead them this way."

We passed a pile of splintered wood, perhaps the detritus from some crates or a row of cages, and saw the group ahead. I sighed relief - they were unharmed. We pounded after them and soon one glanced back and they stopped. The mage who escorted them came to the back and looked at us in concern.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It failed," Skink shot me a look, "it's after the man who's with you."

"You mean the lunatic?" The mage turned to the group and said something. I peered over his shoulder trying to catch a glance of Varnan or Okun, the former was immediately visible as he shakily walked towards us but I couldn't see the latter. Argonians all look the same though.

Varnan glared at Skink. "He comes," he said.

"What?" demanded Skink. I think his shock was as profound as my ambivalence.

"Through time and thought. Soon now, and near. Almost overlapping. Musting that we are here and not there..." his mumblings became unintelligible.

The mage shook his head. "Mad as a marsh rat. But if it's after him... B'vek! Take him away."

Skink nodded. "Varnan come here."

"Come whence. Here and now or just there. I'm there already but not any more. Maybe again. Maybe meet myself," he spoke as if lost in thought as he wandered over. I went to him while Skink and the mages connived.

"Varnan it's me Firen. Are you alright?"

He looked at me through dazed eyes. "Hmm... Firen. Yes," he said with an expression of concentration, "yes. The memories are so loud now, all disordered. He comes. Near now."

"Who?" He only looked confused, as if I had asked him to point to the tree in a forest.

Skink and the mages spilt from their discussion and the one led the slaves away almost at a run. Skink walked past me. "Come on," I said to Varnan and fell into step behind the argonian mage. Varnan walked along side me with a vacant expression, I wondered what was wrong. He had seemed almost normal in the morning, though he mentioned that he was sometimes mad. Now he was divorced from the arms of reality. The world in his head seemed to fill it pushing that without away. I'd seen those sad wretches touched by Sheogorath and knew that this wasn't it. They were wantonly deranged and wallowed in lunacy, he seemed more confused and struggling to separate reality from whatever worm coiled in his mind.

"What do you plan?" I asked Skink. The shock of seeing Varnan had reminded me of my vow not to be carried by events.

"The lich will be drawn to the two of you together like a dog to rancid meat, we will set up a second ambush and this time it shall not fail."

"Why is it drawn to us?"

"I don't know, I suspect it will have something to do with its touching you but I don't know."

"And how will you remove it from Renera?"

He closed his eyes, the gesture might have gone unnoticed but his fist also clenched. I realised how old he looked. "I don't know."

"What do you plan for her then?"

"We shall cure her and destroy it. Somehow we shall."

I nodded, I had my guarantee that they meant to drive it from her and not just destroy both together but I still didn't like it. They were desperate with too little plan for my tastes, and how much had she been following me? In truth I couldn't know but Varnan was in no fit state for an ambush. No more being driven by events, my old words echoed through my head. I knew what I needed to do.


It was a while before I got a chance though. We kept mainly to the larger streets both looking for a good place to spring the trap and to draw the lich away from the group of argonians, it wasn't a comforting thought and I kept glancing back over my shoulder. It was after us, and after what I'd seen in the secure cells I had quite a pressing urge not to be found. I wondered what madness had brought things to this and glanced over to Varnan who followed with a blank look on his face. What I planned wasn't going to be easy, or, quite probably, wise. We turned off the main street and into the bottom level of the canton. Thick smoke hung in the air but a gentle breeze wafted it away from us. I could hear the distant crackle of flames. We continued into the burning building and I stifled a grin, this was exactly what I needed. At the first junction things got better, the wooden ceiling on one side had collapsed so we were forced down the other lane, if that was the correct word, perhaps tunnel was more appropriate. We were a short way down it when the wind changed.

A wall of smoke descended on us and grasped us in choking spectral arms. The sounds of the fire became louder. Somewhere another ceiling collapsed. I fought the urge to cough, grabbed Varnan and ran. I heard choked shouts from the mages behind and threw myself against the nearest door which burst inwards. I hauled Varnan in just as a spell flew down the corridor. The room we'd entered was full of smoke, I bent low to avoid the worst of it and hurried towards a door which lead onward. A kick saw it off its hinges and revealed an inferno beyond. I heard the mages behind, there was no choice, I braved the flames and ran on.

The ceiling had come down in one corner and sagged ominously elsewhere. The furniture to one side was ablaze while elsewhere it merely smouldered. "Run," I said to Varnan and led the way to a small window. I put my elbow through it but the mages were already entering the first room, "Out. Now!" I said. Varnan obeyed. I grabbed a heavy chair and swung it upward with all my might. It hit the thin boards of the ceiling with a cloud of sparks. I swung again and some wood fell, the mages were too near. I hurled it at them and jumped through the shattered window.

The ground was further than I expected. Varnan didn't help me up, he stared into a distance which didn't exist in the dark underbelly of Tear and murmured something to himself. I hadn't time to find out what as magic erupted against the window. There was shouting from inside then a monumental crash and a plume of smoke fire and sparks. At least some of the ceiling had come down. I ran, enough corners would lose the mages. There were six of them. Would they split up? Probably not completely, the cells had shaken them too badly. So three corners at the most, then we might loose them, even assuming the room was passable and they had all survived.

The thought died as through the smoke and flames Skink emerged like a demon of oblivion, his robe smouldered but some magic seemed to protect him. He drifted down from the window ledge followed by another two mages. I ran onward. With every ounce of energy I still had I ran. The alley was straight and bare though, high windows, like the one I'd fallen from, flanked it but at the ground level there was nothing. They followed, not gaining, but neither being left behind. My mind raced, what could I do? Nothing. Fight, perhaps, but they would expect that and I'd failed before. That left being caught. For a moment it crossed my mind to give up but I did not.

For the corner of my eye I was vaguely aware of movement above. The whoosh of fanned flames made me glance back and I saw a barrel tumble from the window with a blazing cloth jammed on it. It fell as if in slowed time, then it shattered against the ground. Flames engulfed the alley behind me and the smell of cheap liquor wafted over me. Surely chance could not be so with us? Moments later a sack followed the barrel. It thumped to the ground with a cloud of dust which promptly vanished with a mighty whooph which left my ears sore and my head spinning. I staggered up and went to pick up Varnan when the side window in front of us burst open. I felt a moment of dread then a figure jumped from it and landed in a heap. I pulled Varnan up and ran to the figure. It was Okun.

Boy Olen, you sure know how to ramp up the tension and excitement!

I'm chewing my thumb in dread and anticipation!

Yay for Okun! I am glad to see that we have not seen the last of him. Although the fact that he is still around Firen does not bode well for his life expectancy.

I am glad to see Firen has decided to take the initiative, rather than going along with Skink's plan. I am sure that once he succeeds in killing the necromancer (and Renera), Firen and Varnan will not be far behind. They are loose ends after all, and he does not strike me as someone who likes to leave those laying around.

This was a particularly good metaphor:
whatever worm coiled in his mind

nits:
He had seemed almost normal in the morning
I think Varnan's sanity took an in here when it vanished.


I ran, enough corners would loose the mages.
That would be lose

WOO HOO !!!!! Okun !!!! Now you're talking!!!! The Alley reminded me of Fallout 3, really well done!!! Awesome Write!!!

An unexpected turn of events, I am curious to see what Firen has up his sleeve. Okun continues to surprise with his resourcefulness and devotion. I know what mALX means when she compares that alley to Fallout 3. Does that mean that Okun is Firen’s ‘stalwart ghoul manservant, Argyle?’

Sod all comparisons with FO3.... This sticks out by a mile.... Loved it Olen.
It's a tense as Koontz and as gory as Barker.

haute - that's high praise, I hope I can keep the excitment going for the next while at least.

SubRosa - yup Okun keeps returning doesn't he... as for life expenctancies... well that would be telling. As ever the nits you spotted were bang on, exactly how I managed to lose an 'in' is beyond me though. I blame the daedroth which seems to hide in my harddrive.

mALX - interesting you say FO3, it wasn't what I had pictured at all but, especially in the faster moving parts, I deliberatly keep description to a few details and let the reader fill in the rest. I was actually based on a real alley in Edinburgh (though post appocalyptic more or less covers that area).

Destri - again you catch Okun's character as well as Firen's, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Remko - thanks, thats major praise.

All - The next couple of pieces are short, it was that or one monster and I sort of wanted to break where I have I've now arranged parts to the end too.


48. Run and Hide

"What in oblivion are you doing here?" I asked, hardly believing my eyes.

He pulled himself upright and grinned. "You told me to watch over Varnan. That Argonian looks like a filthy easterner, can't trust them."

"That's Skink-in-Tree's-Shade, one of the more powerful mages in Morrowind."

"All the more reason not to trust him, and an even better one to run," he gave another grin. I wanted to tell him that he shouldn't have come, that he was safer in the protection of the group but I had never cared for tirades and wasn't about to deliver one. It was his choice and in truth I was glad he'd made it.

We turned and ran down the alley, apparently the flour explosion had knocked the mages as I couldn't see them as we rounded a corner. Okun went for the first side turn into the maze of a canton but I stopped him, "Next one, they'll expect us to go for the first." It was only a few more yards before we piled into a gloomy storeroom and collapsed behind some crates opposite a second door.

"How did you find us?" I asked.

"I followed you, but couldn't go through the fires so tried the next door. Magic isn't everything you know."

I nodded and idly kicked at the crates. "Well I'm glad you came."

Varnan had shrunk into the background and I'd ignored him in my happiness at seeing Okun again but just then he ceased his gentle swaying and looked at us. "Coming now. So soon." He spoke in staccato bursts like a military drum. His eyes wheeled. "Soon. Run chase. Hide find." His tongue flickered out like a snake's and he inhaled sharply.

"This is your friend?" Okun asked. I nodded. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know." I stopped, really I did. Okun had just saved us and would be with us. He had the right to know. "We were at a ruin. Some weird necromancy took him, another mind in him or something. He's been mad since, but he's worse now."

"Necromancy," his head crest rose momentarily, "and taking bodies. We have legends of the sload doing that."

I nodded. "It might be chasing us," I said grimly. Just then the side of the crate I'd been fiddling with fell away with a clatter. My heart leapt at the noise, even Varnan's perpetual swaying ceased for a moment. A pile of plates fell out. "We'd best be moving, there's rather a lot of mages chasing us now."

I led, the rear door opened into a corridor so narrow two men could not have walked it abreast. Years of boot-heels had worn the beaten earth floor into a trench. The reek of smoke drifted from my right, I knew nothing of the inside of the cantons so I went left. It was obviously a storage area, doors periodically opened right and left I entered the first couple to find more rooms full of dusty clutter, after that I ignored them. Some way down the corridor I could see something lying on the floor but was close before I could make it out in the gloom. It was a half burnt torch and if the scorch on the floor around its head was any guide it had been dropped while lit. Probably in the initial chaos, I thought. When I bent my guess was proven wrong. It was still hot, not more than a few minutes out.

"It's fresh," I said. Varnan tapped at the walls making a pattern, his eyes skittering back and forth. Okun shrugged. "It was lit until not long ago, perhaps the explosion. But why would anyone drop a torch when they ran to see what had happened?"

"They wouldn't," replied Okun, "but there's no sign of violence."

I nodded and let my hand crawl down to the comforting hardness of the pommel of my sword while I thought. Varnan tapped his pattern on the wall and delivered a litany of mutterings. I had no idea of what to believe, and because of that I didn't know what to do. Run seemed like a good choice but beyond that I couldn't plan. Rushing in on too little knowledge, being forced forward by the steady march of fate. A familiar feeling. As I considered my eyes followed Varnan's fingers as they traced their path of taps on the wall. The same spots, again and again. At first I didn't notice it, and when I did it took a moment for its significance to sink in. The points made an arrow. It pointed the way we were going.

I nodded to Okun who followed my gaze.

"The mad sometimes have insights the sane wouldn't see," he said.

"I don't doubt it. But is it suggesting a way we should go or a way something is? Or does it only relate to whatever place he is in?"

"It points the way we're going. Might as well continue."

I turned to Varnan and took his shoulder, "What is it?" I asked. His blind stare told me all I needed to know. His mind was not in the narrow corridor with us. He was getting worse. I ran a hand through my hair and turned to continue.

Shortly after we came to a junction and I took the path which went deeper into the canton. It led to a maze of passages with junctions seemingly after every room and the occasional stair. As we walked it got steadily nicer, the earth floor gave way to stone and then rugs began to appear. The labyrinthine corridors rarely had much in the way of distinguishing features. Most of the lamps which kept them lit had burnt out and the few which remained guttered and cast an uneven light which had me glancing back over my shoulder expecting pursuit. But it seemed unlikely anyone could follow my wild path through the passages, with every turn tracking us became harder and with every choice I became more aware of how utterly and profoundly lost I had become.

The twists and turns and bends had shaken any notion of direction from me but I kept walking. Okun's pace quickened with every glance over his shoulder. I too felt the weight of eyes on my back like the noon sun and a cold draught in one. I glanced back but saw nothing but shadows and Okun's wide eyes which flicked around madly. Varnan was unreadable, even his murmurs had ceased and his movements had taken the essence of a zombie, a body moving while the mind was elsewhere.

"Something's following us," whispered Okun.

"How could anything navigate all the corners?" I had to force my voice to be even, it came out rather loud.

Okun flinched, "I don't know. Something's wrong. Where is everybody?"

"I don't know. We're..." he must suspect that I was lost. His gaze still implored me not to say it, he wanted led. It brought the memory of our first meeting by the burning plantation, the smell of smoke just added details. "We're going to be okay," I said, accepting the burden.

I continued down the corridor, it had widened enough to accommodate some furniture and ahead it stopped at a wide door flanked by two low tables. It hung off its hinges, the first sign of violence we'd seen in the canton. Inside we discovered why we hadn't met any of the inhabitants.

Why do I get the feeling that Varnan has led them straight to Renera and the necromancer?

Wonderful tension in the journey through the bowels of the canton. The entire chapter was filled with a sense of ominous foreboding, like some dark and terrible fate was about to catch up with Firen and Okun at any moment.

"All the more reason not to trust him, and an even better one to run,"
Quoted for truth!

The whole chapter is so well written, yet again.

The detail and the deduction that follows just adds incredible depth to the description and to Firen's thought processes.

Awesome!

I just love the chapters in which Firen is set adrift. He has no idea how he is going to push forward, he just knows that he has to, so he does. You really do capture the tension of being chased by an uncertain, implacable foe. I am reminded of Kyle Reese in The Terminator talking to Sarah Connor:


After all of this build-up, I can’t wait to finally meet this thing!

SubRosa - thanks, more foreboding in this part (which could have been joined to the previous except that it would have been rather long).

haute - that's some high praise there...

Destri - I've always prefered the monster unseen, as soon as it's revealed to much it's simply not as effective as the unknown. Still I might have to rework the part where it get met to make it a bit better...

All - another shortish part. There's not much left of this now.


49. Terror

The journey through the secure cells the lich had visited had prepared my mind somewhat and it returned to the place it had lurked in that dark walk. I stepped through the shivered door in a daze and into the aftermath of hell. What had been a small hall with a table in the centre and some chairs was now the woebegone lovechild of a charnel house and a butchery. Bodies lay in a tangled mass of limbs, innards and miscellaneous fragments. The carpeted floor, walls and even the ceiling were spattered dark red. The smell of blood and death tore up my nostrils and bile climbed my throat.

Behind me Okun retched but he hadn't eaten any more than I and only managed a pool of bitter muck. He hawked and spat and shivered. I'd seen horrors enough, and the secure cells had been a crowning jewel in them. This paled and dissolved as only the most recent drop in a bleak sea. A few bodies were scorched, others had crumbled into a sickly mess, a sure sign of frost magic. Generally they had merely been torn apart though. I bent and looked at a mark on the floor. A small three toed footprint. I looked at the nearest corpse and saw claw marks. On examining other corpses I saw they had all been torn by sharp claws and now I was looking for them I saw dozens of blood red footprints among the dead. All small and all three toed. The necromancer had filled the room with scamps. On their own they may well be the laughable habit of apprentice mages but I couldn't fathom how many there must have been. Enough that the room had become almost a mincer.

Okun still stared in shock. I put an arm around him. "The necromancer did this and the blood is wet still. She is near, we have to move." He only looked at the bodies. "They're dead," I said, "ignore them. We need to go. Now."

He nodded. "I don't know. Is this what I wanted? All Dres, all dead," his mouth curled into an ill-fitting smile, "I dreamt of this. Why should I care after all they did to me? Outside there's all the corpses and destruction, and I know I was a part in causing it. I knew what would happen, I wanted it. Why does it bother me?"

"Because you're not like them," I answered, "the rest of the Argonian Defence Front were insane, I warned you there was nothing down this road. I warned you minutes after I partook in the cold-blooded murder of the noble and all his family. We dealt with the children first. But even they had some barriers, they were cautious and didn't act like they could. A hit here, some sabotage there. It took me to move them to these levels."

"But the Dres... They do this every day. It's justice," his tone told me he didn't feel like it was.

"Justice is merely the desire of the strong," I said. "They hate us with blind faith. An absolute hate. It is such incapacity to see your enemy as a person which makes war, strife and slavery possible. How easy was it planning a grand strike on Tear when we lived out in the fields? Now we stand in their houses infused with their hopes and fears and we see people. There aren't many men who can see the person and feel right in his murder, they are dangerous people." The irony of my saying it didn't escape me.

"Run," said Varnan suddenly.

"What?" I said in surprise. He was blank again. I glanced at Okun, "I think we should heed that." I jumped over the piles of the dead and out of the hall. As we turned the corner I heard a crash from the corridor we'd just walked down.

"What was that?" asked Okun.

"I don't want to know," I replied taking a left.

Smoke drifted from ahead of us. As we ran it became thicker until I could feel the rising heat. Then we found our way blocked by fire, the heat and light shone like a beacon through the choking smoke which filled the corridor and forced me to bend to find what air I could. But even over the crackle of the flames came the click of footsteps. I couldn't decide it they were real or just a phantasm of my tiredness and fear. At first I was sure they were merely in my head but slowly they walked towards the line between real and imagined and sat there like a waking nightmare. Click. Click. Click. Clear over the crackling of the flames. A deep dread weighed in my gut like hot lead.


"Run," said Varnan, his voice seemed to be his own.

Run I did, straight into the smoke and flames and away from the terror behind. It was only by providence that there was a door. I kicked it down and burst into a kitchen. A cook lay in a pool of blood, several knives were jammed into the body.

"It's been here," I said.

"Where is it now?" Okun's eyes were wide.

"Behind us," said Varnan and paused for slightly too long, "I'm struggling. It's near and I can think, the memories recede but they're still smothering me. I can hardly remain myself." His voice was beyond terror, it was full of a pleading desperation. "We must run. Anywhere. We can't hide. Run. Run." His breathing was ragged, his hair stood on end.

The words sent me over the edge. I swam in fear, the very air filled me with hysterical dread. I bolted like a spooked horse. The next door erupted into splinters under my boot to reveal an opulent hallway. I saw flames down a stairwell so ran up, heedless of the smoke and sparks which surrounded me and made me cough and burnt my eyes. I was infinitely happy that the other two stayed with me, I'm not sure I could have stopped to wait. A drawn out rumble interspersed with the clang of metal pots and shattering pottery came from the kitchen. Another door flew open before my foot, the lock shattering into a hundred pieces across the floor. A master bedroom. Flames licked one wall. A dead-end. We were trapped.

My panic was akin to the ruin. The need to run filled me pushing away all other thoughts. The necromancer was behind. The only thing ahead was a window. It looked out over a narrow alley which cut through. The slave holdings were below. A long way below. But it was a very narrow alley, the opposite building was only half my stretch again away. There was a large window. Madness. I went back towards the door even though every fibre of my being rebelled.

Click. A footstep. A stair groaned.

Terror hit me like a hammer. I ran across the room and leapt. Fortunately the window-frame was rotten and fell away before the thick glass broke leaving me with no worse than bruises. My leap was good. Unfortunately so was the next window-frame, I crashed through it in a fountain of razor glass shards but I was too full of adrenaline to feel the pain. The floor shook under my weight and the boards I landed on snapped leaving one of my legs through the ceiling below. I glanced back and saw Okun in midair following. He flew through the wide hole in the window which took up most of one wall and landed beside me with a grunt. More floorboards broke with loud snaps and a joist went with a pop. The floor sagged and another gave a tortured groan. Okun pulled himself from the rotten planks. His arm bristled with broken glass.

"That," he said, "was madness."

I wasn't listening. Varnan had just jumped. His was clumsier but the window was large and below the bedroom. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. He was going to make it, but that was only so reassuring. He burst through the edge of the window and landed heavily. The sound of rotten wood bending was like a wailing banshee, then there were thuds like an axe on a block as it cracked and broke. With awful lethargy the floor sagged and slowly dropped down to one side. I was sliding, then tumbling then half falling along with the few items of furniture the room had contained.

Fortunately one side fell first and the floor ended up at an angle half suspended from the less rotten interior end. A cloud of dust and spores rose around us. I sneezed but the air seemed fresh compared to the smoke of the other place, it was a warehouse of some sort, full of crates and barrels. I looked around, Okun extracted himself from the remains of a desk, now stained with blood. Varnan rose and shook his head.

"It's close," he said and winced, "I think my mind is mine again."

I gave him a quizzical look but he didn't reply. "At least we're away, but we should keep running." Okun nodded.

Click. From below. A harsh footstep on cold stone.

I caught Okun's eye. His look said all, but it was impossible so I spoke to ward it away, "Did you hear that?"

"Yes," he said, "But nothing can move like that."

"Hear what?" said Varnan.

"Another footstep."

"No."

I swore, colourfully. Was he still mad, or were we hearing things? I couldn't know. "What do we do?" I asked.

"Run," said Okun.

I nodded agreement and started across the deserted warehouse. The terror of moments before had faded like an old tapestry but its memory was enough. I passed through a door into a plain corridor.

Click. From the left.

I ran right.

"What are you doing?" shouted Okun, "It's that way."

"No that step was from the left."

"I heard it to the right."

"What... The docks are this way," I ran on. What was happening?

The corridor met another and ended. I slowed a little, the razor edge of the fear had blunted to a grey malaise. I chose right on a whim. The others slowed behind me and panted. We hurried along the corridor. It ended in some kind of hall with windows at the far end, with luck I could get a bearing there. As we neared its door I realised how opulent this new corridor was. The floor was a wood the colour of wine, certainly imported though I couldn't imagine from where, the walls were plastered smooth and painted with the bright pigments they favour in Hammerfell. As I stepped through the door at the end my eye was drawn to the extravagant marble fireplace and portraits which frowned down from the panelled walls. Grandiose plasterwork covered the ceiling and the floor was inlaid with a lighter wood, probably pine from Skyrim.

Before I could look round behind me the door slammed shut.

"Hello," said a voice.

You have done an outstanding job building up the dread and other soul-damping emotions in this chapter.

On an aside, your sig is especially appropriate following the last two paragraphs of this chapter!

Now that was intense! The entire flight just brims with terror, and that leap across the alley! That is right there with Julian's leap off the bridge in the sewer for cringeness.

And finally a cliffhanger ending!

Aaarrgghhh.... you........you-




GENIUS!!!

Back and with another part.

Thanks for the comments all.


50. Last Card

I leapt back and demolished a small table. My hand was at my sword. My pulse beat like a drum in my head. Okun had pulled a knife and Varnan's fists were up. One part of me relaxed when I saw three of them. Not her... it. Then I realised the hooded centre figure was Skink, two mages flanked him, one with a staff levelled at us. Magic glittered malevolence along its length. I stepped back and let my hands down. He could speak first.

"Quite a little stunt you pulled back there," he said with infuriating calm. I wanted to wipe the smug grin off his face, ideally with steel wool. He continued before I could savour the image, "but perhaps you're more inclined to believe me now. I suspect you saw some corpses?" Okun grimaced. "There are more now elsewhere. It is following you." Varnan nodded enthusiastically and Skink looked surprised, "You are with us now?"

"Yes," said Varnan. "Yes. I think."

"Interesting... you're better now it's so near..." He shrugged, "there is no time for such matters. Tear is alight, dozens of fires have sprung up and are raging through the city. They might save the docks, they might not. The necromancer must not leave Tear, you ruined our best hope but we may be able to spring another trap. It's less... pretty, but I think it may be our last chance. It must succeed."

I glared at him. "You need us."

He met my glare. "Really?"

"I'm not stupid, you wouldn't have come and found us if you didn't, though how you managed is beyond me."

"As is magic. You each wear an enchantment, these can be sensed. But I would like you to help draw the necromancer into the trap, yes."

Okun spoke up. "As bait you mean?" He said something in argonian I didn't understand.

From his face it was clear Skink didn't either. "It is following you. Come, we have a safehouse here where you shelter until this blows over, we will smuggle you out and get rid of those bracers as payment."

"You will pay us what you owe us and get whatever's in my head out as well," said Varnan in a suddenly lucid moment.

Skink nodded. "Very well. Will you come?"

Varnan stepped forward and Okun followed suit but something he'd said had struck with me. "You said it wasn't pretty. How so?"

He hissed impatience. "You messed things up with the guard, not that it did him any good. You tried to flee and it's your fortune I found you. No this trap isn't as nice. We're worn down, one of the mages who was in the wharf died an hour ago, we have no idea why. We need more to keep it... distracted."

I said nothing. Often people will fill the silence with what they least want to hear.

Skink was stressed and he did just that. "Look I don't like it. You're not the only bait, there are several innocents hiding from the chaos. Some might die. But a damn sight more will die if we don't kill the necromancer now."

"And what of Renera?"

"I've told you..." he shook his head, "look we'll do our best to stop it being in her head."

I closed my eyes. At least to an extent the decision rested with me. If Skink didn't like it I didn't even want to know, but he was right. I'd seen the holding cells, and the room in the canton, and the village up north. It needed stopping. If I didn't act how many more deaths would be on my plate? The fence had run out and I had to get off. Yes or no. Neither good. But one could get me Renera back, the hope was a raft among my troubles, a gleaming beacon drawing me on. Could I really refuse anyway, would he let me?

"I'll come and have a look," I said.

***

Skink had said it wasn't pretty. To my eye it looked more like murder. We were in a dockside canton, a whole floor had no walls, just intermittent pillars holding up a tar stained ceiling. Several loading hatches in the side provided a good view over the docks. Chains hung from pulleys and through trapdoors in the floor. I peered down the crack in one and saw to ground level. It was meant to be a secure store and none of the dunmer hiding there looked up. Their eyes were all turned inward, or else fixed on the door and the half-imagined terrors without. There were perhaps two or three families, I didn't want to count them but there were fifteen anyway, and by the marked shortage of men some were widows already. Tear had boiled over. I pulled my gaze away.

"They're the distraction?"

Skink nodded.

I shook my head, "It can't be right. Trap her in the wilds."

"I'd need more mages, even as it is..." his dark expression clouded and his tongue flickered over his dry lips. "How many more would it kill leaving the city? How many more before I get the force I need? No. This is a sacrifice for the greater good."

I sat on an overturned barrel. I knew that phrase. It was poison. How could murder be for good? The memory of the holding cell was still fresh and angry, could I allow her to do that again? There was no choice, she would, the choice was simply the victim. I closed my eyes and the knots in my mind tightened, all I wanted was the right thing but I didn't see it. The barrel stirred as someone sat on the other end. At first I thought the voice was Skink but then I realised it spoke Argonian. I opened my eyes to see Okun's red ones looking at me.

"They don't understand our tongue any more than they do morals. What happened here was necessary, even inevitable. You were just the spark. Its repercussions have not yet begun but for us it must already be in the past. I think he speaks the truth, these people must die, for the sake of their fellows if nothing else."

"They are not willing martyrs," I replied.

"How do you know, if they knew what you do would they not lay down their lives?"

"They do not know. I choose death for them, or for others."

"The answer is there. They are fewer, and now is best."

I nodded, "I question my motives."

"It is actions not motives which matter," abruptly he changed to cyrodiilic. "Is it not?"

I looked at him. He really believed it. I sighed and turned to Skink. "What do you want me to do?"

Awww, it was only Skink. Still you had the tension so ratcheted up that this chapter was a welcome bit of relief, a chance for us to catch our breath and take stock. We see more of the same questions that have dominated this entire story. Does the end justify the means? How many people can you murder in the name of the greater good and still have that mean anything?

I sense that a conclusion is near though. Everything is moving to a final showdown with the necromancer/Renera, I am guessing in just a few more chapters. After that, maybe you will write a quirky romantic-comedy?

Whew, what a relief, it was only Skink! I echo SubRosa in that the tension was unbearably high, and now you've given us a breather, though not much of a relief, since it/Renera is still out there hunting for Firen and Varnan.

Good writing, yet again!

The last two chapters were fantastic! Okun getting a first hand look at what they are up against, the leap across the alley, Varnan’s sudden bouts of lucidity, and the headlong run into Skink and the mages (why do I get the feeling that Skink steered them toward that meeting). Everything seemed to work to perfection.

Firen continues to torture himself with questions that are above his pay grade. It is nice to see Okun emerge as the voice of reason (in Argonian, no less). You have set the stage incredibly well, I am looking forward to the climax!


QFT!

My goodness, I can't believe how long ago I posted on your thread. It seems my own writing challenges of the last months have affected my reading as well.

I am catching up. I continue to be impressed with how seamlessly you weave action with internal thoughts - that is why I like first person pov so much.

SubRosa - you are correct that the end is near, in fact this is the penultimate part (though both this and the final are longer). The themes I've had are strongest in the final sectionbut hopefully not stiflingly so. As for what next... well there's a couple of options I'm considering (and given the first plan with Firen was a comedy it's probably best I don't try for dark).

haute - glad you like it.

destri - that's some high praise, I just hope I manage a convincing enough climax...

Acadian - glad you're enjoying it, and I agree about the 1st person, what it loses in versitility it makes up for in character and thought.


51. Hope's Reward

We sat in silence as the mages arrayed themselves, just by our existence Varnan and I were the most irresistible temptation. She was out there, drawing closer, drifting towards us like a leaf caught on a breeze. The thought was not comforting and didn't sit well with my feeling of uselessness. The best thing I could do was nothing, but I had my sword out and ran a piece of stone along the blade, the repetitive work stilled my nerves. Most of the mages were behind crates they'd moved near to the loading hatches. The citizens below were too wrapped within their fear to notice, or react; what could they do but hide and hope that no harm came their way? Three mages had gone down to rooms adjacent to the secure one which held the civilians, they had carried armfuls of scrolls and potions. The stone slipped and I caught my thumb on the razor edge. Another cut to my collection. Beside me Varnan had stopped fussing at his wounds and stared at nothing.

"I don't know whether I hope it's soon or not," I said.

He looked up slowly and took a moment too long to reply. "Yes."

"Are you okay?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a shake as if to clear dust from it. "They're coming back. I don't know how much longer I'll be here."

"What's back?"

"I don't know, it's like dreams, or memories. But so strange, places I couldn't imagine, things which I don't understand. Like that mage," he gestured to the nearest one, "skilled with fire. An aura of it follows him, he reeks of it even. How do I know that?" He shook his head.

"Perhaps destroying the necromancer will help it," I struggled to say anything nice.

He was silent for longer. "I have more control now, but it's more frequent." I waited for more and had opened my mouth when he continued. "But I don't want to go now. Not with danger so near but I can feel them overwhelming me." His breathing was ragged, he was panicking.

"I'll be here," I could think of nothing better to say.

"Do what you can..." he implored then fell silent. Well almost, I heard him murmur something in another language.

It was quiet again, barring the occasional in breath as Okun plucked glass from his arm. I wallowed in my own thoughts. Below the civilians stirred like restless cattle, unaware that they hid within an abattoir. It was not all my blame that they would soon be dead, we were all conspirators by inaction, the necromancer would cleanse the victims and the mages would cleanse it leaving us blameless outside our own conscience. Clean. Sterile like a soulless dagger. Skink thought in units and strategy, not in people and hopes and fears. At least I did them the decency of knowing it for betrayal in the name of some greater good. A few suffer so the many may enjoy life, it made sense. But how far removed was it from the Dres' own argument in favour of their slaves? I turned from the thought, it was too late for change and what would happen must.

It was a decision beyond right and wrong. They broke down under the forces to reveal the barren grey plane below, an infinity of choice and response, action and reaction through which I'd cut a blind swathe. It was too late to worry about gods, I'd ignored them thus far and whatever they made of my responsibility under Skink's suggestion was moot.

A door opened below and my thoughts shattered into the present.

Click. A footstep. A common sound. Warped fate.

I looked down through the gap round the trapdoor and I saw her. Her robe was torn and singed from earlier, her hair was shot with grey and the holes showed skin like battered parchment. It was strange to see foreign movement in one I'd known so well, she had a strangely birdlike walk. Her gaze shot around hovering for a moment before flitting on, her head cocked as she peered at the next piece. She took an abrupt step. Then another before she stopped and peered round, like a heron searching for a fish. The stare rested for a moment on the trapdoor I sat above and held me in its unblinking intensity, I felt small and exposed, as if the thick planks of the floor were no more than paper, or air that she looked right through to my innermost soul. I shrank back but could do no more as the unblinking gaze gripped me. Then it swept on to the sturdy door of the secure store. A child whimpered within.

She swooped upon the door and thumped a fist on it. The solid planks became dust. I glanced up around the room. Silence reigned, the mages I could see were statues, a spreading look of determined fear their only movement. Varnan was still and wide-eyed as if seeing a nightmare quite apart from the one he sat in, beside him Okun sat hunched and watching. I turned my eyes back down. She was among the people now. They cowered back, some with hands over their eyes, others with dark wetness spreading on their trousers. They curled like cornered mice into themselves, each vying to be the smallest. I didn't wonder why they didn't run, I'd felt the mind swallowing terror which emptied the heart in the ruin far north past Firewatch. Now on the other side of a kingdom it was ten hundred times more dreadful than before. An echo of their fear reached me and my gut writhed like a sack full of worms.

Her clicking footsteps rang death on the hard stone. I glanced around, the mages had not moved, only now their dreadful expressions were complete. They must act soon. They could before she did.

My own terror killed the thought. They alone could act, I was helpless against her magic, even the fear would freeze me. But would they just kill her? No Skink had said she would be cured.

A flash from below dragged my gaze back down. An instant later a scream followed and the smell of hot blood. It looked like an explosion in an anatomy lecture, the survivors were trying to run or scrape off fragments of their loved ones. One made a break for the door only to collapse, nails clawing at his throat deep enough to draw blood. Fat white maggots fell from between his lips and became a writhing torrent which hit the floor in a bloated wriggling mass. Bile hit my throat and my vomit splattered the wooden boards, but fear and curiosity held my gaze. Why had the mages not begun?

She turned slowly on another dunmer. There was something terrible in her slow movements, like a great tide rising inexorably to crush a dam and flood onward. She seemed calm. Perhaps if there had been madness in her eyes and wild cackling it would have been better. But there was only methodical silence and her eyes showed only darkness.

She raised her hands.

Pandemonium broke loose. The nearest mage stood, apparently unable to stand by any longer, and sent forth a blast of bright white fire. Skink shouted something, the words were lost in the noise as the necromancer's hapless victim burst like an over-inflated ball. But his meaning was clear and all the mages rose and rained down fire and lighting and clouds of poison and glowing magic whose effect I could but guess at. The room below was blinding light. As one they stopped and tore open vials of potion and drew forth scrolls and staffs. The light in the room below flickered and died to reveal Renera still standing there, a transparent barrier of some magic between her and the mages. Around her the civilians lay burned and poisoned and broken and profoundly dead. Hope flickered in me, was it done? Was she cured? Then she raised a hand which looked as though it had aged a thousand years in the last seconds and sent forth a stream of black vapour.

It shot for a mage opposite me and seemed to form into the shape of a snake which plunged its teeth into his chest and wrapped around him. He tried desperately to cast some spell but failed. He dropped squirming and fumbled a potion but before he had gripped the cork he collapsed to the floor.

"Attack with everything," screamed Skink. The scroll he held fell to ashes and a beam of light plunged down. The magical barrier bent under the spell but held. Another waved a black staff and some of the less damaged corpses rose making for the lich like puppets with tangled strings. It swept them aside and they fell to dust but even as its attention was diverted the mage nearest sent another ball of fire down. The wooden floor in front of him simply vanished before its heat and the barrier flickered and shrunk to little more than a foot from the necromancer, the ground around it glowed red and a immense heat washed over me.

An instant later this was replaced with cold as another spell froze everything then a spark of lightning burned shimmering afterimages onto my retina and I looked away in pain. The roar of spells assaulted my ears. They were not trying to cure, just to kill and they seemed to be succeeding. The air was sour like burnt tin and clawed in my lungs. Crashes and roars came from all sides like a diabolical carnival. Then suddenly the tone changed, no longer was it one of spells crashing like waves against the barrier. Now they hit their target with whatever effects they carried. A scream cut the air. Whether it was the necromancer or her I knew not, it used Renera's lungs. It was her scream. They were killing her.

Something in it struck deep within me and I knew my motive. I did want her back, that had as much to do with my agreement as any duty to save others. I was on my feet before I knew and booted open the trap door. The hoist rope left burns on my palms as I slid down it. I didn't care. Magic crashed in a maelstrom of light and shadow and colour before me. I hardly noticed it wane and cease as I ran forward into it. She lay on the ground in the midst of a circle of shattered flagstones like a broken doll thrown away. I went to her and bent looking at the body.

Then she moved. It was just the slightest twitch but it washed aside my despair and I dropped down and put her head on my lap. She lived. A thousand doors opened in my barren future and shone golden light onto my starving hopes. I ran my fingers through her singed hair. Slowly she turned her head up. I gazed down and she opened her eyes. I almost recoiled in horror. They were not the bright eyes I remembered. I met her gaze and saw two windows into an empty soul.

She was not there. In my arms I held an empty husk where I'd expected to see my future. My hopes closed in again to a barren waste without life or light. Even though the body drew rattling breaths she was dead, and by the blood which shone vibrant red against her funereal skin it would soon perish. I hunched over amid the dead and only then did I allow a tear to fall. It was over, put beyond the wild reach of hope to rot as a yellowed memory. I sat and looked upon her withered features and thought not of the dark past but of a glittering future lost. The rattling breaths stopped and there was stillness.


Darkness filled me. I stopped thinking. Slowly I realised that people stood around me. Skink put a hand on my shoulder and suddenly hatred sprung up bright and strong, if anyone had put this upon me it was him. I tensed slightly and considered. I wanted to kill him, the thought was sweet nectar as I looked up at his satisfied face and writer's hands, the inhuman teeth which poked over dry lips. I knew hatred, and I knew what I wanted to do. He had made me suffer, and now it was his turn to discover what it was.

I stood to make what would likely be my final act and I saw Okun standing with Varnan a short way off. His large red eyes looked at me with sympathy and concern. I saw with disappointment that there had been no miraculous change in Varnan either. But also I saw that I still had duties, and that to give my life to kill Skink now would perhaps be the worst of my crimes. There was no doubt that much of it was his fault, but Okun and Varnan still needed me and throwing that away on vengeance could not be right. I released my sword and walked over to them without a glance to Skink.

"Well," I said, "it is done."

Okun nodded slowly. "That it is. There is so much now, I don't know where to begin."

Varnan was silent, his eyes remained fixed on nothing.

"You must come to the safe-house," said Skink behind me. "Our work is done and already the Dres have an army of guards and retainers on the outskirts."

Okun waited for me to reply. When I didn't he stood and walked over to Skink. "Lead the way," he said.

We moved quickly through the ruins. I led Varnan behind Skink and two mages. Another two had remained to clear up what they could. The rest had perished in the battle. The streets were utterly empty and silent but for the wind and the distant fires which had waned to smouldering embers. We went quickly past broken cages and broken bodies, cracked walls and doors which hung drunkenly from twisted hinges. Everything was broken, including, I dared think, the ways of the Dres. Would this be enough the cause some change? Even the money lost would be vast, the change in people's minds vaster. Only the future would tell, and the future seemed a grim prospect to me.

At the end of the alley we were back in the docks but this time headed for a street of seedy hostels, taverns and brothels. They were crudely built and leaned against each other like sailors who had imbibed one to many. The smells of burnt food and stale beer marked the place as one I would once have felt at home in, but whether by its emptiness or some change in my perception I felt only vague disgust. Doubtless I could find skooma somewhere here, if I asked Skink he might even know where, but I just didn't want to. Not that I didn't feel a slight desire for some, but the idea of it conjured the same distaste as the rough inns and their greasy red lights. Skink stopped at a low door between a jug bar and a rancid eatery. It was stained from waist level down but the key he drew out belied its simple appearance. The lock was a complex one and turned smoothly. He opened it and went up a stair. We followed.

At the top of the stair was a simple room. A couple of chairs and a table below a set of arms on the wall were the only furniture, four bedrolls lay spread out on the floor and under the heavily barred windows were some flour sacks, a barrel, some potions and some liquor. A second door opposite led through into a tiny washroom.

"This," said Skink with an overly grand wave, "is our safe-house. No one knows we own it and on this street no one asks. You can stay here until the heat's off enough that we can get you out."

"So you don't just plan to kill us?" I said. He glared at me but said nothing so I finished. "It would be in character."

"We have things to do," said Skink. "There will be investigations and they must not point at the guild. If you stay here and don't attract attention you'll be fine." He turned and the other mages followed him back down the stair. I heard the door close behind them.

I had no taste for conversation so I went and sat at the table to be alone with my memories.

You are a cruel person Olen. For a moment I had a tiny sparkle of hope Renara and Firen would be together after they all went through but nooo..... Should've guessed. Happy endings are not your style.

While I love happy endings, I have to admit that tragedies carry far, far more power and emotional impact. After making Renera so horrible in her possession by the necromancer, it's difficult to believe that some tiny shred of her would survive. Possession (whether by demon or necromancer) is like the Ebola virus - it destroys every original thing. Ugh.

Olen, you have done outstanding work capturing the tension and adrenaline of the battle with the necromancer, and the loss that follows afterwards when Firen realizes that Renera is truly beyond saving. Very effective and very much a nail-biter!

That was outstanding! The magical battle was certainly epic in scale and brilliant in description. It was only equaled by Firen's tragic realization that Renera was indeed gone, long gone, and there had never truly been any hope of ever saving her. I had never really imagined there would be any saving her. With it goes his last, best hope of salvaging any kind of future for himself as well. All he has left now is his duty to Varnan and Okun.

Good touches with Firen sharpening his sword to steady his nerves. As well as more insight into Varnan's condition. Firen's contrasting the Dres' own argument for having slaves being for the greater good of the Dunmer with Skink's same argument for killing many of the Dunmer so more will live was also especially good. Those slippery slopes sure get, well, slippery!

my gut writhed like a sack full of worms.
This was a particularly good metaphor.

"So you don't just plan to kill us?" I said. He glared at me but said nothing so I finished. "It would be in character."
All in due time, I am sure. Why do I get the feeling that Skink may now be setting Firen up to be the fall guy for the murders committed by Renera/the necromancer?

I have never played an Elder Scrolls game as a magicka-based character. Through Morrowind and its expansions, and Oblivion and its expansions I steered clear of spellcraft and the Mages Guild (except for the enchanting services provided in Oblivion). I say this to impress upon you that the best compliment that I can give you after reading this chapter is that I am now inspired to play as a mage! Your description is how I imagine magic should be. Brutal, savage, and terrifying (people clawing at their own throats, maggots; that black spell serpent, whatever it was)! I am left speechless.

I do have a question: Did you rewrite a portion of this chapter after you returned from your camping trip? The description of Renera’s strange, bird-like walk and her peering around ‘like a heron searching for a fish’ are images that don’t just come to you, they are things that resonate from experience.

Dark, evocative and powerful. Very well done, Olen!