Andante stepped through the door and slowly lowered his weapons, his eyes widening in astonishment. It was a huge space, with a balcony running along the north wall. Almost the entirety of the wall space was lined with bookshelves or cabinets, filled with books or alchemy ingredients, loose or in bowls. There were cobwebs everywhere, and it was dusty, but it was clear that this had once been a well-used space.
Most impressive, though, was the large circular construct in the center of the floor. Concentric circles, in a bowl-like depression, were surrounded by candles which were, inexplicably, burning in spite of the area being empty.
“I think we found it,” Andante said, turning to Serana.
“Finally,” mumbled Brynjolf from somewhere behind her.
It had been a long and tiring journey from Harkon’s hall to this place. Serana had approached Andante within moments of Harkon leaving. The second part of her mother Valerica’s plan, after sealing Serana away with one of the Scrolls, was to take the other to a safe place, she said, a place Harkon would never have searched for it. But it had been so long, hundreds of years, that she couldn’t imagine where he might have overlooked, driven as he was by his obsession with the prophecy. The only place left, they decided, was right under his nose – in Castle Volkihar. The castle was enormous, and at this point the greater part of it was unused or in ruin; but Valerica had once maintained a study in another part of the castle and that might be where she had gone.
The problem was that they needed to get there without attracting Harkon’s attention. They couldn’t just stroll up to one of the unused exits from the main castle and ask for it to be unsealed. Serana, though, knew of a back entrance from the northern side of the island, an entrance that might get them into the Undercroft. It had once been a way for supplies to be brought in.
“I’ve seen it before,” Andante told her. “When I first came to look at the castle. There was nobody here at the time – or at least nobody that I could see – and I didn’t feel like tangling with the skeletons outside but yes, I know where it is. Let’s go. The worst that happens is we can’t get in.”
Brynjolf laughed at him. “No, lad. The worst that happens is that we all die. But that doesn’t seem likely.”
And so they went there. They battled their way through skeletons, both inside and out. Inside they found a stench so foul that even Andante was bothered by it, coming from mountains of bones and old blood that had clearly been festering away for eons, their scent accentuated by the pools of stagnant water that had collected over the centuries. There were skeevers and Death Hounds and traps, as well as a lone vampire who had been living in the Undercroft by herself for ages, having been rejected by the Volkihar clan according to a note she left behind. Serana was, at least, able to tell them how to navigate the area, to release the gates and locks implemented by Harkon when he’d become “paranoid,” as she put it. By the time they emerged into an abandoned courtyard he would have been grateful for the fresh air even if he’d been starving and the sun had been beating down on them.
The garden, Serana told them, had once been beautiful, her mother’s pride and joy, and the source of many of her alchemical ingredients. Now, though, it was overgrown, untended, and full of dead or dying plants. Andante could still see patches of nightshade flourishing where many of the other plants had died. In the center of the courtyard was a moon dial, a beautiful sculpture that Serana insisted worked when it was intact. Right now, it wasn’t. The phases of the moon were represented by circular plaques set into the dial’s base, but several of them were missing.
While Serana nattered on about her mother, and the former glory of the garden, how one of the doors leading from this place had been blocked off by Harkon and how Harkon’s finding the prophecy had ruined their family, Andante wandered about the area and found the three missing plaques, and grinned at Serana as he placed them back into their appropriate positions on the dial.
Slowly, with the sound of stone grinding on stone, the dial’s great pointer rotated to face one of the castle’s towers. The base of the sundial sank down into the ground, forming a short stairway to a hidden door.
“Very clever, Mother,” Serana murmured. “Very clever.”
And they’d been off yet again.
“I’ve never even seen this part of the castle before.” Serana told them as they raised a chain-operated false wall into a small room splattered with blood, its table covered with human bones. “Be careful. I don’t know what might be around.”
There was nothing threatening in the room itself, for which Andante was grateful. A short flight of blood-stained stairs led through a small wooden door. Andante stepped around the corner into a large banquet-type room with seven or eight skeletons sitting around a table. Nothing happened until Andante, Brynjolf and Serana were all inside the room. Then everything exploded into chaos as all the skeletons – some, very powerful, wearing armor – rose to attack. Andante found himself fighting multiple skeletons simultaneously and snatched anxious glances of the others between blows, but he shouldn’t have been concerned. Brynjolf shouted and slashed, and bashed several opponents apart with his shield. Serana used a lightning bolt spell so powerful that the dark space suddenly became vividly bright. Andante struck with axe and Razor, and was grateful for the other two as he plucked multiple arrows out of his arms once the battle was done.
Beyond that room was a dizzying series of spaces, small and large, some in good condition and others partially-collapsed, many of which held gargoyles and more skeletons as well as a few Death Hounds. Stairways were partially blocked by debris, stone beams leaned at alarming angles, and everything was covered with dust and cobwebs. It was a slow, painful spiral; they would clear a room, perhaps open a gate or find a secret door up and into the next space only to find more gargoyles, more hounds. Andante was nearly exhausted by the time he had opened this door, into this space.
And still, after all of that, after all of the battles, Serana would not stop talking. Even Brynjolf, who seemed to like her well enough, was flagging; he sank onto a bench and rubbed his eyes while Andante stepped to one of large bookshelves at his right hand.
“Look at this! It must be the place.”
Serana was going on about her mother’s necromancy skills, her alchemy skills, and how astonished she was to see the extent of this study, when Andante found the journal. It was nothing special from the outside, merely a simple, slim volume with a brown leather cover, but it stood out amongst the sizeable collection of thick tomes arranged around it. He flipped open the cover, saw the name Harkon on the first line, and began to read.
The first paragraph might have been only a typical annoyed rant of one spouse about another but for the sentence reading: “I’ve warned him time and again that his foolish prophecy would cast too much light on our people and yet he refuses to so much as listen to a word I say.”
Too much light? I thought the goal was to turn off the light. On the other hand… I wonder if she’s right. I wonder if all of the searching might be what has attracted the attention of the Dawnguard. The people had to feed while they travelled, after all. Hmm.
The next paragraph was puzzling. He almost understood it – felt as though he should know what it meant, might have once known what it meant, but couldn’t quite remember. It said “I’ve had a breakthrough today. I was able to attune the portal vessel to the Soul Cairn properly by using a small sample of ingredients.”
Andante looked back at Serana, who was still talking about the circles on the floor, how they must be something important. He sighed and flipped the journal closed, then turned to hand it to her.
“Do you think this would help?”
“You found her journal! Wonderful!”
“What’s this ‘Soul Cairn’ that she mentions? Is it truly the plane of Oblivion I think I remember reading about?”
“Yes. It’s home to very powerful beings. The Ideal Masters. Necromancers send them souls and receive powers of their own in return. She had this theory about soul gems. That the souls inside don’t just vanish when they’re used. They end up in the Soul Cairn.”
“And your mother wanted some of those powers, it would seem. At least the power to disappear from your father’s sphere of influence.”
“My mother spent a lot of time trying to contact them directly, to travel to the Soul Cairn itself. She was hoping to thwart my father’s plans to use the prophecy by going somewhere he could not follow.”
Andante nodded. “So that’s where the Elder Scroll will be. I have to say, it’s a little unnerving. The same way I’d feel if we were actually going to visit Nocturnal in…”
“The Evergloam,” Brynjolf murmured, not looking away from the bookshelf he was examining.
“Exactly. Like that. Or going to visit Sithis – except that that’s the Void and, well, never mind. At any rate, if she’s there, we’ll find her.”
Serana nodded. “That circle in the center of the room is definitely some type of portal. If I’m reading this right, there’s a formula here that will give us safe passage to the Soul Cairn.”
Serana started reciting the components that they needed to find: finely ground bone meal, purified void salts, and soul gem shards. They needed to find them and place them in a vessel that overlooked the circle. Andante started searching immediately, rummaging through the impressive collection of alchemy ingredients that lined every horizontal surface in the place, and had just scooped a handful of soul gem shards from a large silver bowl when he heard Serana make a disgusted noise.
“Ugh. Damn it.”
He turned to look at her. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re also going to need a sample of her blood, which – if we could get it, we wouldn’t be doing this in the first place!”
A deep, quiet voice arose from a dark corner of the room.
“You share her blood, lass.”
Andante grinned. “Brilliant.”
“Hmm,” Serana said. “Not bad! We’d better hope it works, though. Mistakes with this kind of portal can be… gruesome.”
“Well that’s alright. I can be gruesome myself. I’ll keep looking for the rest of the ingredients.”
He wandered around the room. There were so many bookshelves and cabinets that searching them all took some time, some of which he spent picking up a few rare ingredients for his own use. I don’t know whether we’ll really find Valerica. If we do, maybe I’ll give these things back. Maybe not. She probably won’t even remember what she had in here. Eventually he located two other large silver bowls, each of which held samples of the ingredients listed in the journal.
“Your mother was clever, Serana. Even here in her own laboratory she separated the ingredients far enough from each other that someone wandering in here casually wouldn’t find them without some serious searching. I think I like her.”
“She was always smarter than I gave her credit for, it seems.”
Andante returned to the platform on which the large vessel lay, and dumped all of the ingredients into it. “Your turn.”
“Are you ready to go?” she asked.
“May as well. But let me ask you something first. What will you do if we find your mother?”
Serana’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She frowned and crossed her arms. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing since we came back to the castle. She was so sure of what we did to my father, hiding me and planning to escape herself, that I just went along with it. But honestly, she wasn’t the same person after she started hearing him talk about that prophecy. She always seemed happy before that. Afterwards, it all changed. They both became… different people.”
I can appreciate that. I’m a different person, too. I’ve been a different person twice just since I woke on that hillside. He frowned, thinking of the odd experiences he’d had since having Falion cure him. Maybe three times. It’s strange and uncomfortable, and I can only imagine how odd it must seem to be the child of such a person.
“I’m… sorry. But we won’t know how she is now until we find her.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Let’s get that portal open. I just didn’t expect anyone to care what I felt about her,” Serana added, one side of her mouth quirking up into a smile. “Thank you.”
Don’t start thinking I care about you, Serana. You are to me just what you said you are to your father. A means to an end, nothing more. But that doesn’t mean I can’t understand a little of what a strange situation this is.
Andante walked away to examine the bookshelves further as Serana bared her arm to draw her own blood. He had just slipped a black soul gem into his pocket when a great grinding noise began, and the room shook.
“By the blood of my ancestors!” Serana breathed. “She actually did it! She created a portal to the Soul Cairn.”
The circle moved, sank down and down into darkness, a purple glow like the one that had surrounded Serana’s resting place in Dimhollow Crypt rising up into the room around them. Rough stairs extended from the edge of the platform down into the portal, down into the glow. Andante stepped eagerly toward the edge, ready to descend.
One step closer. We’ll go get the Scroll and then Brynjolf and I will be one step…
Wait, where is he?
He realized that he had neither seen nor heard Brynjolf in some time, and looked around in alarm.
“Bryn?”
“Down here, lad.”
Andante’s head snapped around to his left, and down. Through the arched banister he could see Brynjolf seated just below them, next to a bookcase. Something about his posture, the sound of his voice, raised the hackles on Andante’s neck.
“I’ll be right back, Serana,” he told her as quietly as he could. “I need to talk to him.”
She nodded.
“Take your time. We’ve waited this long, we can wait a few minutes more. I hope. I don’t think this portal is going anywhere.”
He hurried down the stairs and around the bookshelves, approaching the seated man. Brynjolf was hunched over, leaning his forearms atop his legs, his head hanging and his eyes hidden beneath the dark hood. Andante slid onto the bench next to him.
“Andante,” Brynjolf said quietly.
“Yes? What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to you, before we go in there. It… might take a bit of time.”
“It’s fine. Serana’s ready when we are but she’s not going to push us.”
Brynjolf nodded, and then sighed deeply. “It’s about the Soul Cairn.”
“Yes? Is there a problem?”
“There … might be.”
He turned to looked Andante in the eyes, and Andante nearly jumped.
He looks like he’s in pain.
“I never told you how Dynny died, and it’s time you know.”
“Uh-oh.”
Brynjolf nodded, and rubbed his forehead.
“Shor’s bones. It was so long ago and I remember it as if it just happened. I don’t think about it every day any more, haven’t for years and years, but when I do it’s just like it just happened. We were at Valtheim Towers.”
Andante nodded. “Full of bandits as usual, I assume?”
Brynjolf half smiled. “Yes, and that’s why we were there. Two great thieves, out to steal everything we could get our hands on. We did, too. The south tower was easy to clear out. Dynny was pretty good with a bow and I had these two glass daggers…”
Andante raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t believe in killing unless it was necessary, my dear.”
“Well… that was a long time ago, lad. I wasn’t necessarily as disciplined as I am now.” He grinned, just slightly, a ghost of a grin that had no real amusement in it. “At any rate, we did what needed doing and then slipped across the bridge to take out the chief. He was just loaded with coin. Lousy with it. We helped ourselves, and we looted the chest in his bedroom. You know the spot I mean, right?”
“Yes I do. I see it’s been used for the same purposes for a long time.”
Brynjolf nodded, and looked down at the floor. His voice dropped, quiet, sad.
“Yes. And I was so cocky. Look at us, we did it. That’s what I was thinking. Looking at him like he was the sun rising. If truth be told, I was thinking of the fine evening we would have in that very bedroom, celebrating our great accomplishments.”
Brynjolf raised his head and stared out across the room with a far-away gaze that focused on exactly nothing before him.
“I was trying to teach him a few things about being a good thief. He wanted to join the Guild. I thought maybe if he got some practice he could impress Gallus enough to get in but Gallus and Mercer Frey both had a keen eye for who was a good thief and who wasn’t. And Dynjyl really wasn’t.”
He sighed heavily.
“And neither was I, when you come right down to it.”
Andante snorted. “What do you mean? You were in the Guild already.”
Brynjolf frowned, looking back down at the floor. “Yes, and I should have known well enough to make absolutely certain we had cleared the area out before I let him go strutting up that last set of stairs to the lookout tower. We were just standing there looking at each other with stars in our eyes, like a couple of…”
Andante looked at Brynjolf’s face and watched the memory ripple over him.
“Like a couple of people in love, perhaps?”
Why did I say that? What a stupid thing to say. Why not just lay open his vein and pour salt in it instead.
Brynjolf swallowed hard, then smiled just a tiny bit.
“Yes. Like that. I always … looked at him like that.”
Dear gods that was stupid of me. That’s the way I look at you, Brynjolf. Every day. I’m sorry.
Some day maybe I’ll learn how to be a proper person.
“I was still just smiling at him when he turned around and bolted up those last few stairs. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘There’s work to be done.’ And that’s when the arrow caught him.”
Brynjolf closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. “From the side of the hill. I hadn’t checked first and there was still a lookout posted on the side of the hill, and this one a really top-notch archer. The arrow caught Dynny and threw him over the side of the platform.”
Andante gasped. He thought of how far above the ground that tower was, how many sharp rock outcroppings there were between it and the riverbank far below. A shudder that started in his core ran up his spine and he closed his eyes, picturing the fall, how Dynjyl would have struck rocks on the way down, perhaps being fortunate enough to lose consciousness instead of being aware of the end of his life rushing up to meet him. He could almost feel it himself.
Oh my love. I am so sorry.
He looked back at Brynjolf. Oddly, in spite of the sorrow showing on his face Brynjolf was reciting the events almost dispassionately, a man who had needed to fight these emotions down for so long that it had become second nature.
“I took the man out with my own bow, and then ran down to the river edge. I would imagine you know how little chance there would be of anyone surviving that fall. He didn’t. If it had been just the arrow he’d have had a nasty scar but he’d have lived. But that fall? No.”
He opened his eyes and looked at Andante, his eyes full of old grief, old guilt.
“It was my fault.”
Andante reached forward and laid a hand on Brynjolf’s shoulder.
“No, it wasn’t your fault. He should have been watching out for himself, too, you know.”
Brynjolf shook his head. His voice, when it came, was soft, barely above a whisper.
“It truly was, lad. I should have scouted ahead. Dynny had no caution in him, none at all, and I knew it. He’d have never been with me, if he had any caution in him. He never would have thought of it or known where to look for danger. He was just certain he was the best.”
Andante smiled a grim smile. “’And that’s why I’m the best.’”
Brynjolf looked up at him, startled, then sighed and nodded. “Yes. That was him. You can’t imagine how I nagged him about it. I knew to be cautious but that day, I didn’t do it. I was careless and I paid the price. And so did he, and so did his wife.” Brynjolf grimaced. “And that was the second-hardest thing I ever had to do, after carrying him to Whiterun so I could get him on a carriage to Solitude. I had to tell his wife. I’ll never forget the look on her face. She hated me so much right then. She… offered to give me a matching scar on the right side. I had to just leave him there and run.”
Andante chewed on the inside of his mouth.
What can I say? What can I do? You’re alive and that’s all that matters to me.
“Listen, dearest. I’m glad you told me this. You needed to get it out. But I don’t understand something. Why right now?”
Brynjolf looked back down at the floor and heaved a great, shuddering sigh that almost made Andante jump.
“Because just before I sank my own arrow into that archer’s throat I heard a sound that isn’t like anything else in the world. I know you know the sound. A sharp crack and then almost a sizzle…”
Andante’s mouth fell open. “Gods, Bryn. He was soul trapped?”
Brynjolf nodded, looking as miserable as he’d ever seen him look. “I don’t know where the gem went. It had to have flown out of the archer’s pocket when he fell, and landed somewhere out of reach. Maybe it rolled down into the river. I looked everywhere, for what felt like hours. But the archer had an enchanted bow. There’s no question in my mind. Nothing else sounds like that.” He met Andante’s eyes again. “So, lad, there’s a chance that…”
It took Andante a moment for everything to register. A ripple of horror crept up his back.
“By all the gods. He might be in the Soul Cairn.”
“He… most likely is. I’ve been thinking about it for twenty years, Andante. I don’t spend a lot of time on gods and religion and all that. Never did, and still don’t, to speak of. That’s the only time in my life I’ve ever prayed, lad, and I don’t even know who I was praying to, exactly. I just wanted him back. He didn’t die in battle. He didn’t go to Sovngarde like other Nords, to be with Talos or Ysgramor, or any of that. He was trapped and sent to the Soul Cairn. I’m certain of it.”
Andante sat staring at the floor himself, frowning, trying to make sense of it all. He closed his eyes and imagined Brynjolf’s shock and desperation, his pain, his guilt. He could almost see a young Brynjolf’s face as he tried to face his loss. To his complete amazement he found himself fighting back a sensation that wanted to break loose, a dampness behind his eyelids.
What is this? I don’t cry. I don’t remember ever crying, ever. I’m not even sure I know how. Is that what this is?
He couldn’t find it in himself to mourn for Dynny’s death. It had been so long before. If Dynny had been alive, he himself wouldn’t be sitting here now, with Brynjolf. But he couldn’t stand watching Brynjolf in pain.
Brynjolf startled him, broke the moment, by reaching for his hand and squeezing it.
“I just wanted you to know, lad. I don’t want you to be surprised, or angry, or upset if we run across him. If he’s really there.”
Oh he’s there. It couldn’t possibly be anything else. Damn it.
How unfair. I can’t find my memories and Brynjolf has to suffer with his. Surely there must be a happy medium somewhere between. Or maybe the gods are just that cruel.
Andante slowly leveraged himself up onto his feet. “Thank you, Bryn. I’m … overwhelmed. You don’t have to come, you know. You could stay here and wait for us if you’d rather.”
Brynjolf shook his head, and held his hand out for a boost up to his own feet. “If he’s there, lad, I need to see him. I hope you understand.”
I wish I didn’t. It would be easier just to be angry, and jealous. But I do. If something were to happen to Brynjolf I’d move all the planes of existence to get to him again.
It would be nice if someone felt that way about me.
“I do. We should get going. We have an Elder Scroll to find.”
Andante waved a hand to Serana, who had been waiting discreetly out of hearing distance. She nodded and headed to the top of the stairs.
Andante smiled at Brynjolf.
“Well, here we go.”
He stepped down the rough stone stairs and into the purple glow.
