Sayma had no idea which abandoned fortress she was in. Old Imperial construction was largely the same everywhere and the rounded tower might easily have been anywhere from Solitude to the Rift – or anywhere else in the Empire. There was nothing much in the room holding the portal aside from cobwebs and furniture littered with junk.
As was common with these old towers, the wide doorway led out to a circular descending stair. A gate at the bottom led to a room with a wide opening in its center, and a narrow staircase leading down on one side of that. There were chests tucked in a corner on the upper level and at the very back of the lower level. Sayma shook her head at the contents of them and sorted out everything she had, leaving the heavier items in one of those chests and taking the small but valuable gems and rings along.
I’m a thief, not a pack animal. If this is going to continue all the way through this test of theirs I won’t be able to move, soon, unless I shed some of this weight.
Through a wooden door she went, into a short hallway with partially-blocked stairs at its end. At the top of these the corridor branched right and left, with a barred flight above. The right-hand branch, curiously, went in a circle but the left branch led to a tripwire. Sayma came within a hair of tripping it, windmilling her arms to keep her balance as she struggled backward. There was a swinging gate faced with deadly-looking spikes hanging from the ceiling just beyond the tripwire, and she would have had it in her face if she hadn’t been looking down at that moment and seen one of the pegs holding the wire.
Clever. They even mounded the dirt up under it so that you’d be more likely to scuff a foot and trip it. So. It’s to be traps, is it? I can do traps.
I hope.
She hopped the wire and descended the stairway on the other side. This one was half-full of dirt and partially-collapsed walls, just the sort of place that would be perfect for hiding more tripwires or pressure plates or any number of nasty surprises, so she moved very slowly, checking each step before taking it. Along a corridor, around the corner, and up another staircase she moved, grinning as she spied a not-very-well-concealed pressure plate peeking up from the rubble around it. Some pressure plates were obvious: the diamond patterns over flame traps, or the round metal plates here and there on the floors of old fortresses she’d visited before. This one, though, looked like a common stone and would have been deadly if not for its very awkward placement.
At the top of this passageway was another room with a large opening in its center. For a confused moment she wondered whether somehow she had circled around to where she’d begun.
This room, though, had not only a stairwell down but a corridor leading away from the opposite side at this level. She looked around for a moment and decided to investigate the stairs first. The gate at the bottom was firmly shut, with no visible mechanism. She nodded. It would be the upstairs corridor first.
Again, she was lucky. She passed through the doorway into the corridor and looked down just before stepping on another of the “stone” pressure plates. It would have triggered another spiked gate. She couldn’t help but shudder as she turned and moved past it. Around yet another corner and up a half-flight was a niche containing a lever, and Sayma grinned. She was sure that would raise the gate. But just above the niche was yet another spike gate waiting to be sprung. She examined the area carefully and found the pressure plate on the floor, just in front of the lever.
“Nice,” she muttered as she moved well to the side of the stone and threw the lever. “They must have had a good price on those gates that day. I wonder where I am.”
She returned to the spot on the lower level where the gate that had been firmly shut had, as she’d expected, been raised by throwing that lever. The narrow corridor on its far side led to a small chamber containing a single chair, a worn trestle table with old wooden dishes atop it, and a fireplace with a bust of the Gray Fox on its mantle. There were a few lockpicks in one of the bowls, and she took those gratefully; but she could see nothing else of note in the room and wondered why it had been so carefully guarded. There was barely enough room to turn around in; in fact, when she tried to do so she stumbled over her own feet and ended up plopping unceremoniously down onto the chair.
She snickered at herself for a moment, while examining the map of Cyrodiil hung on the wall over the table. There was only one location marked on the map: Sancre Tor, a city famous for the many near-mythical things that had occurred there. It was the resting place and perhaps birthplace of Reman Cyrodiil, for whom the province was named. It was the place where Tiber Septim himself was said to have died and ascended to become Talos.
“The fortress,” Sayma said to the air. “It’s where the four great Blades were sealed in and cursed with undeath during Tiber Septim’s reign.” She stood and stared at the map. Sancre Tor wasn’t that far over the border with Skyrim as the raven flew, although because of the mountains it was a very long trek by foot. “Is that where I am? Did that portal bring me to Sancre Tor?”
As she stood with her mouth open, pondering the enormity of that idea, she noticed an odd-looking rock to the left of the map. It was very similar to the ones mounted along the floor on the way in, springing traps. She looked up at the ceiling and checked the perimeter of the tiny space carefully but saw nothing obviously rigged to kill – no arrow slits, no spiked gates, nothing threatening. So she pushed the stone, and heard the distinctive clank of a mechanism releasing.
Sayma turned and grinned at the bust. “Alright, what’s next?”
She made her way back through the broken corridors, up and down staircases and past the poorly-concealed pressure plate, stopping to break the tripwire beneath the first spiked gate she’d encountered so that no mistake would bring spiked death from above. The stairwell that had been barred at the top on her way in now stood open, and she moved up it slowly, checking for further traps.
The room beyond was circular, with five stone pathways branching out from a central point like the spokes of a wheel cut in half. Each path led to a door, one of which was guarded by yet another bust of the Gray Fox, a lighted candle, and a curious lock with four keyholes. She didn’t approach the bust for fear of hidden, unpleasant surprises; but it wasn’t hard to determine what she had to do.
I guess I find the keys next. That shouldn’t be too difficult; there are four doors. One key behind each. Nothing else makes sense.
Sayma opened the first door to her left and moved into the wide corridor beyond. She hadn’t gone too far before she had an uncomfortable feeling; there was a right-hand corner beyond which she couldn’t see, and yet she sensed something there. She backed up to just in front of the door and cast a muffling spell on herself.
I can sneak with the best of them but better safe than sorry. I don’t know what’s around that corner.
It was a large chamber, with cots along one wall and tables on the other, Imperial banners hung on both sides as well as over the enormous, cold fireplace in the center. A stairwell led up on the far side of the room.
It is an old fortress. I’ll bet it is Sancre Tor! And that means that I may be encountering some ghosts who will not be as pleasant as Gallus was to deal with. And that also means that …
Sayma and her thoughts stopped short as she glanced around the corner into a large dining area and saw the familiar shimmering blue of a specter, seated on a bench, nibbling on a spectral piece of bread.
I’ll bet he has the key. Damn. I’m not much of a pickpocket and never have been. She’d been lucky to have pulled off the shill job Brynjolf had given her, the first time she’d met him. Remembering that made her mouth curl into a smile in spite of everything. He was so sure of himself and of me. The idiot.
Well, I’m supposed to be a thief. Once upon a time they thought I was good enough to be Guildmaster. If I can’t do this, I guess I deserve whatever I get. She readied her blades just in case of disaster, then inched forward, painfully slowly, and examined the ghost. The key was visible through one of its semi-transparent pockets; she reached for it, and had it almost out into her palm, when the ghost rose.
“Hmm! Does someone live among the dead?”
Damn it!
The ghost got one solid swipe across her back with its weapon as she turned and ran back toward the door to the deepest shadow she could find. It wasn’t a deep wound, but it did hurt, and she could feel warmth trickling down inside her armor. Crouching, and wincing from the pain of the wound, she turned and waited for the attack she was sure would be coming next. But Sayma was not just a thief for nothing, not just an assassin for no reason. She was, at this stage, as Vex had been described to her once long before – “she steps into the shadows and disappears,” – and the ghost lost track of her.
“You dare to hide from me?” It called out.
You bet I do. It’s what I’m good at.
She crouched in the darkness, muffled by her own magic, and waited as the ghost ran from one side of the room to another, searching for her. It came closer and she gripped her swords tightly, certain there was a battle approaching; but the ghost ran by so closely that she was able to see that yes, in fact he was wearing Blades armor.
“Gone,” the ghost said. “The living are right to fear the dead.”
Sayma waited, her heart beating so hard that she was afraid he would hear it, waiting for him to return to the dining area; but he didn’t. She rotated back toward the corridor, painfully slowly, and moved in that direction – and almost ran into the ghost as he stood watching the exit.
Well now what? If I move, he sees me.
She thought about it for a moment. There was no way she was going to get another chance to steal the key from the specter; it was on high alert already. I have no choice; there’s only one way to handle this. I may not be much of a pickpocket but I can kill a person from behind with the best of them.
She took a deep breath, readied herself, and brought her blade down hard onto the spectral guardian. He disintegrated into a pile of shimmering dust, from which she lifted the key she needed.
“One down.” She took a couple of steps forward and then turned back and looked at the ashes, sighing. “I’m really sorry.”
The second ghost was visible almost as soon as she entered its quarters. A short corridor led to stairs down and the shimmering blue specter was right there, sitting at the foot of the stairs, his arms crossed, glaring up at the spot she occupied. Only the fact that she had chosen the deepest of the shadows to move in kept her from being spotted instantly. She flattened herself against the wall and frowned.
I can’t very well just waltz in there. I wonder if I can draw him away.
She pulled her bow around in front of her, slowly and carefully, and found a junk arrow to fit to it. Aiming for a spot as far away from the ghost as she could, she loosed the arrow, which clattered against the stone of the inner tower. For a desperately long moment nothing happened. Then the ghost rose and pulled its weapon.
“I sense… a presence,” it said, running toward the direction the arrow had landed.
Sayma moved silently but quickly into the space he’d been sitting and found a dark corner to hide in. She surveyed the area; like all Imperial forts it was the corridor surrounding a tower and was a wide, circular room. This one was lined with bookcases, which she scanned for useful items while she waited. The ghost returned around the corner and headed straight for her but then, much to her relief, stopped a dozen feet in front of her and turned for the exit, glanced out it, and then whirled to run back around the corner again.
“Nothing!” she heard him grumble. “Nothing.”
Sayma moved around the circle, slowly, slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the various bookcases, making certain to make no sounds. She turned, after the third bookcase, and her heart nearly stopped. Where she had expected to see a spiral staircase there was a blank wall with a pair of benches in front of it. The guardian specter had taken a seat at the end of the room and was facing her. She froze.
Her mind raced; she had to do something, right then, before the ghost noticed her, or she was dead. Then she smiled. In spite of the fact that she had left the Guild behind to become the Listener, Sayma was still a Nightingale. And while she had not used her power in quite some time, she was still the Agent of Stealth.
She blinked into invisibility, just as the ghost rose right in front of her to change his seat to the second bench. She crept up beside him, located the key in his pocket and, just as he distracted himself by raising a spectral flagon, took it from him. She practically flew away from him, darting into a room she hadn’t seen before that opened to the right of the benches; it was an alchemy garden, still thriving, and a bedchamber to its side held more spectacular jewels than she had seen in some time. These she scooped into her pouches, and then carefully slipped past the ghost and out the exit.
The third doorway led to a series of small rooms. In the first was a smithing workbench, nicely appointed with metal ingots and leather strips stacked on a table next to it. Just around the corner, Sayma found an enchanting station; she grinned and slipped the grand soul gem she found on it into her backpack. Around a corner from the enchanting room was a wooden door and just beyond it, as she discovered when she pushed the door open, a bedchamber with a Blades ghost sitting at a small table set for a single dinner.
Almost messed up again, didn’t I? I’m getting a bit cocky just opening doors and roaming around like this.
Pay attention. You have to go home to Brynjolf.
Yes, I know, she snarled at her inner voice. Which one are you referring to?
Does it matter?
She gritted her teeth and took advantage of the ghost’s inattention to make her way around behind him. This time it took no effort at all to slip the key out of its pocket and leave the room without being noticed. I would be pleased, she thought, if not for the fact that I’m so annoyed with myself.
When she passed the bust of the Gray Fox on her way to the fourth door, she frowned at it.
“Is it really necessary for me to jump through quite so many hoops for this?” she asked the air. “All of this for a hood?”
There was no answer, of course, but in the flickering light from the candles Sayma thought the bust almost looked as though it was grinning at her.
“Pfft. Grin away. And if you’re not bad enough, there’s Nocturnal. There, I said it. Sometimes you’re all just such a bother. It’s not as though I asked for any of this.” She stretched her arms out behind her, rotating her shoulders, and winced at the spot where the first ghost’s blow still stung in spite of healing potions having done their work. “Oh, I don’t really mean it and you know it. You can’t very well just take my word for it that I’m a good thief.” She looked at the bust again and grinned.
“So let me show you.”
Past the fourth door was a winding, narrow corridor leading down a short staircase to a wooden door. Sayma made certain to cast her muffling spell before easing the door open, a tiny bit at a time, in case the ghost was going to be grinning at her from just beyond its opening. What she found, though, was a large room with a raised platform in its center. There were sounds coming from the top of the platform. She moved close to its wall, to hide as much as possible from view, and crept forward.
The far end of the room had a double row of back-to-back bookshelves, and she darted behind them and along their length to the end before taking a good look around. There was a stone staircase leading up to the platform, and she could just see the shimmering light of the ghost moving around the area. She eased her way up the stairs to spy a smithy: forge, workbench, tanning rack, and a grindstone at which sat the ghost, grinding away at a spectral blade.
I wonder if he knows his blade is a ghost too?
Once more, Sayma was able to ease the key out of the ghost’s pocket undetected. She moved as quickly as possible out of the area, heaving a great sigh once she was well away from him.
Three out of four. I guess that’s not bad for an out-of-practice thief.
Back in the central room, she approached the Gray Fox, and the lock, and grinned at him. Out of curiosity, she touched the bust and, just as she had before the room of fire, she “saw” words appear in her mind. “The quest of Sancre Tor begins again. Four are the doors. Four are the Blades. Four are the keys. One thief steals the keys. One thief opens the doors with the keys.”
Sayma’s mouth fell open again.
“You couldn’t have told me that from the beginning, you ridiculous creature? And what’s this ‘one thief opens the doors with the keys’ business? What in Oblivion else would I do with a four-part lock than open it with the four keys I just bloody stole from the four ghosts? Stendarr’s great shiny balls.”
She turned and shoved the keys into the locks, not bothering to puzzle out which went where. The door clicked open. Sayma shook her head.
I understand the need for layers of protection for a Daedric artifact. But this is purely ridiculous. I hope it’s over shortly. I need to get back to Dardeh’s house.
On the far side of the door was what she could only describe as a mausoleum. There were two enormous stone coffins, one on either side of the corridor, reaching almost to the ceiling in height. Each had a plaque mounted on it. To the left, the plaque read: “Here lies Captain Renault. She has sacrificed her life to protect the Emperor Uriel Septim VII. 27th Day of Last Seed, Year 433 of the 3rd Era.” The other held the same inscription, but for a person named Glenroy.
“Hmm. Uriel Septim VII. Everything about this place points at the Champion of Cyrodiil. Well, that’s what Seviana told me.”
It took her a good long while to find the way out of the mausoleum. The path before her was barred by a wooden gate, but in spite of searching every surface of the two coffins, jiggling their handles, running her hands over the walls, moving the few baskets near them out of the way and searching in them as well she could find no key, no switch, no pulley. There was a red patterned runner on the floor between the two coffins, and she flopped down onto it and onto her back, her hands behind her head, taking a moment to rest and to fume.
“Damn it.”
She was tired, and frustrated, and frankly a bit worried about what she’d gotten into.
I don’t even know Dynjyl. He’s someone else who had Brynjolf, before me, and he was obviously very important. But I’m doing this on his account and… and what if I can’t do it? Is it worth it? Is he worth it? I know it means a great deal to Bryn but…
She was just about to start getting angry at the whole situation when her gaze focused on the ceiling above her. There, set into a recess, was a mechanism, a handle of the type that required a pull and a half turn to operate.
“Well finally.” She heaved herself to her feet and brushed off her armor, then stretched upward. She could barely reach the handle by standing on her toes, but reach it she did, and pull and turn it, and the gate went down.
“Who puts a lever in the ceiling anyway?”
There was a round chamber just beyond the gate. As she walked forward, the circular platform in its center roared into life, magic leaping toward the ceiling and humming just as the previous portal had. Sayma sighed and moved into its light.
She was in a prison cell. Or, at least, she was looking at the ghost of someone who was in a prison, a man in ragged clothing gazing at a group of armed men standing outside the barred door in a central corridor between two rows of cells. It looked faint to her, the lighting blurred and gray, and Sayma had the sensation that nothing she might do would have the slightest effect on what was happening before her. There was no sound other than a faint humming like that of magical energies.
The cell door opened inward, and a man in Blades armor entered, followed by two others likewise outfitted. They peered anxiously down the hallway, stepping aside to allow an older man, wearing an outfit that Sayma recognized, to enter the cell. These were Emperor’s robes, she realized with a shudder, remembering the moment when she had stood before Titus Mede II and pronounced his death. This was a different Emperor. She watched him speaking, but heard no sound.
On the wall opposite her was what looked like it might once have been a doorway or the frame of an ornate window, an arch of stone bricks recessed into the wall and one step up from the floor. Whatever it had been, it had long ago been stopped up with stone. The Emperor waved in the direction of the wall, speaking silently to the prisoner. She watched what just a moment before had seemed like solid stone slide to the side, a panel opening up into a rough passageway beyond; and she watched the Emperor, the Blades, and finally the prisoner run into it and disappear.
Sayma’s vision went white for a moment. When it returned to normal, she saw that she was in the same corner of what looked as though it should be the same cell. But there was no opening, no panel, no stone archway in the place she had seen it before. There was only a smooth-surfaced stone brick wall.
She had just seen Emperor Uriel Septim VII. And that prisoner, that ghost, had been the person who became the Champion of Cyrodiil.
And the keeper of the Gray Cowl.