The sandstorm started up again just as they crossed through the gates.
It was just a slight breeze, at first, lifting a bit of fine dust into the air, enough to make Sayma sneeze. It picked up a bit as they entered the narrow opening through the several ranks of stone walls, enough to rattle nearby bones. Sayma looked for the source of the sound and nearly jumped; for the bones that she heard rattle were part of a huge pile of skeletons clustered together in a low corner just to their right.
“What happened here?” she whispered.
Brynjolf stepped nearer to the pile and knelt down, examining the area, moving a few of the bones gently and respectfully aside to look at others. After a moment he stood and shook his head.
“No idea. It almost looks like they gathered in the corner and got murdered all at once. Look how they’re all facing the same way? I think we should prepare for the worst.”
Sayma nodded and continued down the pathway. They barely got beyond the first wall when the wind picked up, and with it the sharp, stinging sand. By the time they’d walked another two dozen paces, they were in a full-blown sandstorm once again. And it was dark; full, middle-of-the-night dark.
“This is making me nervous. Stay low,” she whispered to Brynjolf.
He chuckled. “Aye. I think I see movement up ahead.”
So yes, that was clever of me, telling the Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild how to sneak. I’m a fool. At least he didn’t give me a hard time about it.
It was nearly too dark to see, but they proceeded into what was clearly a Redguard settlement like Ben Erai, nestled behind incongruously Imperial-style city walls. The buildings, while it was too dark to see their colors, were of the same construction as those in Ben Erai: one- or two-story houses with stairs leading to rooftop patios. Their occupants, though, were what made it clear this was a Redguard city; for as they snaked their way through the streets, they had to avoid dozens of men in Alik’r warrior garb.
And all of them were specters.
“I wonder if they go with the bones at the gate?” Brynjolf whispered.
She turned to glare at him and hold a finger up before her mouth. She could almost see his eyes twinkling in amusement, even under his hood.
They were silent enough that the ghosts seemed to be unaware of their presence as they moved through the town, poking their heads into the open doors of homes partially filled with sand. Most of the buildings held skeletons, either inside or at the base of the stairwells. It looked as though the people had perished simultaneously, in the midst of their activities, perhaps during an attack of some kind. Sayma and Brynjolf swapped glances often as they pushed through the storm, and it was clear to Sayma that he was just as confused as she.
The town followed the slope up toward the mountains into which it was set. Between gusts of wind and sand they could just make out a tall structure, perhaps a temple, at the highest point in the city. In front of it was a taller home, one with two full stories and a rooftop patio; and because it was the only such building they’d passed Sayma decided to investigate it further. She slipped past a ghost wandering nearby and climbed the two flights of stairs up to the partially-enclosed patio on the roof. The partial enclosure blocked the wind just a bit and she slipped inside, grateful for the break from the stinging sands.
“What’s in here?” Brynjolf asked as he followed her into the room.
“Besides breathing room, I’m not sure. Oh, there’s a skeleton,” she said, pointing at the figure on the floor. “And there’s a chest over here. Should I look?”
“Yes. Maybe we’ll find something to shed a little light on what’s going on here.”
Inside the chest, Sayma found some coins, which she pocketed. One did not leave coins behind, particularly when their previous owner was clearly deceased. There was a book there, which she lifted out and glanced at before her attention turned to a key resting in the bottom.
“Hmm. I’m taking this. I’m going to hazard a guess that it goes to that big temple building behind us.”
“Good call. What’s this book?” Brynjolf took it from her and started skimming the pages. “We Are Yokudans” it says.” He read quietly for a moment. “Alright. It says this town was founded by the same people who built Ben Erai. Yokudans.” He glanced up at her. “This place must be ancient. They started building the city but stumbled into the tomb of someone named Sadraaka, who laid a curse on them.”
“A curse? Really? I wonder if it’s what killed all those trees back there, as well.”
“It’s like the whole area was cursed,” he agreed. “Well this isn’t your oasis, and it’s not where we’re going to find the Cowl, but I have this feeling.”
She grinned at him. “Yeah. I can guess. We need to see if we can set things right?”
“Aye.” He shook his head. “I know it sounds strange, especially since I want to get this done. But it feels important.”
Sayma considered for a moment. She, too, felt increasingly pressured to find the Cowl and deal with whatever it was causing her sense of impending doom. But she studied Brynjolf’s expression and came to the only conclusion she could.
Bryn’s instincts have almost always been right on target. The only time he’s ever been wrong was in trusting Mercer Frey. I’m not going to start second-guessing him on this.
“Alright. Let’s go. I say we head for that temple. It’s got to be there, whatever the answer is.”
“Aye,” Brynjolf said, bounding back down the staircase before Sayma could say anything else.
And everything went sideways.
Sayma started after him, alarmed. The wind and sand caught her squarely in the face as soon as she stepped out from behind the slight protection of the covered patio, and she had to stop, to pull her scarf up over her face as best she could, fighting against the howling wind to do so. She struggled to bring her bow around into position.
“Pathetic mortal! No one hides from the dead!”
Her eyes went wide, and it felt as though her blood turned to ice.
They found him.
She leaned against the sandstorm and forced her way to the edge of the first landing. Below her were no fewer than seven ghostly Alik’r warriors, all converging on Brynjolf. He was firing at them with his bow, but as they closed the circle around him he changed to his sword and dagger.
“Bryn!!” She shouted, knowing what a wasted effort it was. The Alik’r were shouting, and banging swords against shields, and the wind was whistling through all the alleys and openings in the buildings. Just the force of the sand against his hood would make her voice impossible to hear. But she shouted to him anyway.
Sayma started firing from the edge of the second floor landing, and was able to take down one of the warriors; but the rest were beginning to attack Brynjolf, and she could hear his grunts of pain as they struck him. She started for the stairs to run to his aid just as a spectral mage fired a lightning spell at him. She could see Brynjolf in its light, clearly, trying hard to escape toward her right; but then the spell died, and she was for a moment blinded between its aftereffects and the darkness of the sand storm. Her heart started pounding, as she tried desperately to see him, to hear his voice, to catch the scent of a live person, anything at all that would help her find him.
I have to get us out of here! I have to get him out of here!
“The endless sleep comes for us all,” she heard, close by to her left; she ducked down the stairs and around the corner of the house hoping to slip by, somehow, and rejoin Brynjolf. Up ahead she could see him, surrounded by angry Alik’r ghosts, and could hear the clash of his sword against theirs. She could hear him cry out when he was struck, even over the howling of the wind.
“Die!” she screamed as her next shot caught one of the ghosts squarely in its head, taking it down.
All of them turned to look at her. There were at least eight of them, and they all began running in her direction.
Oh shit.
Sayma turned and ran, back around the corner of the tall house, back toward the even darker corners between it and the mountain.
“You are not welcome here,” she heard behind her, just as she scrambled up the rocks toward the temple’s outer wall. An arrow whizzed past her head and clattered onto the stones in front of her; she threw herself over the short wall onto the temple grounds just in time to avoid another.
It was a temple, clearly, its construction very like what she had encountered in the Halls of the West but with older, symbolic carvings around the onion-shaped doorway before her, rather than Daedric lettering. There was a plaza – a platform high above the homes of the city beneath, just on the other side of the doorway – and she made for it, shuddering when she saw the skeleton in a cage suspended high above the ground. The other people in this place seemed to have had quick deaths. She was fairly certain this person hadn’t.
Below her, the battle continued. Another flash of lightning streaked across the open space, and a second; and while she could not see Brynjolf she knew that if they were still firing at him, that must mean he was still holding his own. She began raining arrows down on the glowing, ghostly figures, and several of them dissipated; but several of them turned to see the source of the arrows and ran toward the stairs to the temple, to attack her. Sayma ran back into the temple grounds and crouched, invoking her Nightingale invisibility.
“Such an abrupt end to our game!” one of the ghosts called out.
She should have known that it was referring to her. She should have known that her power had done what it was supposed to do, and the ghost had lost track of her. But in her panic, Sayma had one searing thought tear through her mind: They’ve killed him. Brynjolf is dead.
She did the very last thing she should have done. She stood, ran back to the edge of the temple grounds, dropped down and raced back up the street. Seven Alik’r ghosts advanced on a figure who was made visible only by virtue of the magical ice spike glowing where it had pierced his body.
“Get away from him!” she screamed, firing at the nearest ghost to Brynjolf. It dropped. Her next shot went wide, and so did the third. The ghostly warriors were almost on top of him.
Then the most remarkable thing happened. Brynjolf raised his head and met her gaze, and even as far away as they were and as loud as the battle was in the midst of the storm, she swore that she heard him speak.
“Run, lass.”
Half the ghosts had turned to chase her down. She was in light armor. She had no real chance of surviving a close fight with multiple, ghostly enemies. So she turned, and she fled.
She ran back to the stairs leading to the temple, and up the stairs, and toward the metal gate at the end of them. It suddenly became very quiet behind her, and once again she heard a ghostly voice.
“Such an abrupt end to our little game.”
“Bryn!” Sayma screamed at the top of her lungs. “BRYNJOLF!” She ran as close as she dared to the edge of the plaza, looking into the blackness, frantically searching for anything that wasn’t a shimmering ghost, listening for any hint of his voice.
But there was no response. Instead, she heard the ghosts calling out threats and moving toward her.
She sprinted back to the gate and pulled on it, only to find it locked. Fumbling in her pockets to find the key they’d discovered in the tall house, she struggled to use it on the gate as the tears blurred her eyes and fell onto her hands. Finally, finally, the lock clicked open, and she ran through the gate and into the crypt beyond.
The space inside was nearly identical to some she’d seen before, but her mind refused to recall which it had been. Before she had a chance to think about it or do anything else, another figure emerged from the room below her. This was also an Alik’r warrior, but skeletal, and black, and floating above the ground, and she screamed and shot two arrows at it in quick succession.
“Die!” she shrieked, as it toppled over backward and dispersed into a black patch on the tiles. She stared at it for a moment and then jumped as an arrow narrowly missed her on the right. Down the ramp in front of her, at the end of a narrow corridor, another of the corrupted warriors floated toward her. She drew another arrow and fired it at the creature, killing it in one efficient shot.
Then she looked down at the dark patch on the floor; and while she saw a black, glistening spot her mind remembered a glittering pile of red ash on a cold beach, and she remembered the man she had known as Andante. And she thought of Brynjolf, and how the two men had loved each other, and how they were now both gone.
She collapsed onto the floor of the darkened corridor, wailing. Howling. Her heart was disintegrating into a million pieces.
He’s dead. He’s gone. I led him into a disaster and he’s GONE and it’s MY fault. No, no, no. No. I just needed one more chance. I needed to give him that peace, to let him say goodbye to Dynjyl, to pay tribute to Andante. But he’s gone and I’ll never see him again.
She’d never cried so hard in her life. Not when Coyle and Daron drove her away for their love of skooma; not when Roggi had said “find your own way to keep warm” and walked away because of his hatred of bandits and thieves and what had been done to his life; and not even when she’d been a little girl wailing over the bodies of her mother and father, murdered for reasons she had never known for certain. Not even those things had seemed so earth-shattering, so horrible, so final as knowing that Brynjolf had been overcome by the angry, violent shades of long-dead, long-cursed Alik’r warriors who wanted only to have revenge on whatever walked into their domain.
Every moment she’d ever had with him – every twitch of his eyebrows, every curl of his mouth, every sarcastic comment – ran through her mind. The desperate chase of Mercer Frey, the moment when time stood still at the mouth of Bronze Water Cave. The look in his eyes when he saw the Amulet of Mara around her neck and asked whether she was referring to him. Their wedding. Every moment passed through her mind and every memory broke her heart a bit more.
It doesn’t matter whether Dynjyl is freed now. I’ll do it, I’ll do it anyway to honor him, but it doesn’t matter anymore because he’s gone. Brynjolf is gone. And I’m alone. All I have of him is his son and once he is a grown man I’ll have nothing at all.
How could I have done this? How was I so stupid?
She curled into a ball and cried until there were no more tears, and even then she rocked herself back and forth in the darkened passage, feeling as though she might never return to Falkreath at all and nobody would miss her if she didn’t. After all they had been through together, and apart, after trying to work back toward him, realizing how much she loved him, the idea that she would never hold him again was too much to bear.
And it was her fault for leading him into an ambush.
She couldn’t stop weeping. This must have been what he felt like when Andante died. This must have been what he felt like when Dynjyl died.
Except that he’s my husband, not just a lover. He’s the one I chose, my forever. Even when I was stupid and left him he was always my forever. I never stopped loving him. And now he’s gone and I’ll never get to tell him that.
Long minutes passed, how many she could not have said, while the sobs subsided and were replaced by a deep, cold silence unlike any she’d experienced. She sat with her head down, unaware, not able to muster the strength to stand or take stock of her surroundings.
As if from far away a part of her mind said you have a son. You have to keep going, for him. But she shook her head. He doesn’t need me. He has Dardeh, and Roggi, and Lydia, and he has Sofie and Lucia to grow up with. Even if the worst happens and the war breaks them apart they’ll find a way to care for the children. They’re some of the finest people I’ve ever known. He’ll be better off without me. Just like his father would have been better off without me.
There was no reply; not from her other voice, not from her father’s specter. Not from the quiet, deep voice that had been telling her to come to him. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of nothing, tried to become nothing. And the time passed.
“Sayma? Are you in here?”
The deep brogue startled her so badly that she was on her feet without knowing how she’d gotten there. She whirled to look behind her.
He was standing there, silhouetted by the dim light at the entrance, but there was no question that it was him. She started trembling.
“Brynjolf! Oh my gods, Brynjolf!”
Sayma didn’t stop to think. She didn’t think about having hurt him, betrayed him, left him behind. She didn’t think about what he had done with his life in the years between then and now. She simply flew to him, threw her hands behind his head and began kissing him.
Some long moments passed before it slowly occurred to her that Brynjolf’s arms were around her, and that he was returning the kiss. It was gentle, and reassuring, and sweet, and as familiar as though no days, months, or years had intervened between this kiss and the last, long before. Her tears started flowing again. She had to pull back from him. She slipped her hands down around his waist, buried her head against his chest and wept more.
“I’m right here, lass,” he murmured. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
“I thought,” she managed to croak out between shuddering sobs, “that you were dead. I’m so sorry, Bryn, I led you right into them. I couldn’t see you and there were so many of them. I thought you were dead because of me.”
“No,” he said quietly, and it seemed to her as though he pulled her a bit closer. “I’m not dead. I’ve been dead before, Sayma. Death is highly overrated.”
She couldn’t help it; she laughed, just a quick burst of amusement through the tears that refused to stop flowing.
“I always keep invisibility potions with me,” he continued. “You know that. It was pretty clear they were going to have the better of me if I kept trying to fight. They almost had me, actually. So I took one and found a spot to hide while I healed up a bit, and then followed your footprints. Though it isn’t easy out there in that sandstorm, as dark as it is. That’s why it took me so long to find you.”
He didn’t let go of her. She closed her eyes and savored his warmth. His hand, large and gentle, was rubbing her back up and down and it was the most wonderful touch she could remember having in a very long time.
“It wasn’t your fault, Sayma, it was mine. I just ran down those stairs and into the city without even thinking about it and alerted every single one of those things. I did exactly what Dynjyl did the day he died, and I’m a fool. I’ve always been a fool, just as my father named me.”
“Your father named you what?”
Brynjolf chuckled. When he spoke, it was as though he was a different man, speaking in tones she’d never heard before.
“’A cocksure, impulsive, worthless thievin’ brat and yer gonna get yerself er someone else killed wi’ it one of these days!’” He cleared his throat. “That’s what he told me. I told you he didn’t like me very much. I’ve never forgotten it, those exact words. They usually come calling when I’ve done something stupid, like walking into a nest of vengeful ghosts without bothering to keep to the shadows the way I know how to do.”
His own father told him that. What kind of a man says that to his own child?
She frowned.
The same kind of father who would tell Dardeh he wasn’t worthy to carry his swords. My father.
“But you’re alive.”
“Aye. I’m alive. And so are you.” He pushed her back from him, slipped her hood down off her head, and tipped her chin up to study her face. “A little puffy around the eyes, but alive. I’m sorry you had to think I was gone. That’s the worst feeling in the world and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Oh Bryn. Yes it is, and I know that you’ve had more experience with that than anyone ever should have in a lifetime.
“It’s all right. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.” She looked him over, and saw the tears in his armor where he’d been slashed, and where the ice spike had struck him, and shuddered to think how near a thing it had been. Then she laughed at herself for not having realized that Brynjolf would have had a backup plan, a potion for emergencies. He’d probably been pulling it out of a pouch when he had told her to run.
You have to trust him, fool, her sarcastic inner voice said in the first utterance it had made for some time. He’s at least as good as you are at this kind of thing. Maybe better. Definitely more experienced.
She smiled at him, laughing at her inner voice which was, as it so often had been, exactly right. “He was right about you being a thief, though,” she said. “A very, very good one.”
He smiled at her, a small, gentle smile that reached his eyes. “I want to tell you something,” he said, reaching up to touch her face on the side that had once carried a long, pale scar. “I’m not sure whether I should, but it’s been on my mind.”
“Yes?” She leaned into his palm, savoring the contact.
“You are … beautiful,” he said softly.
“What?” She was stunned. It was the last thing she’d expected to hear.
He smiled again, an embarrassed smile. “You’ve always been beautiful, you know. That was one of the things that made it tough for me back when I first met you, looking at a beautiful woman and needing to see a thief. But now you are just… stunning.”
He shook his head. “Listen to me, saying such a thing in a place like this. I sound like a con man.”
She tipped her head to one side and smirked. “You are a con man, Brynjolf.”
He grinned. “That’s true. But this is real. I didn’t want to forget to tell you, this time. I’ve learned the hard way that I seem to have a talent for forgetting to tell people important things. I was lucky to have a second chance to speak to Dynjyl. This isn’t exactly where or when I thought I’d be saying it, but I’m not going to let this chance get by. And you, Sayma Sendu, are beautiful.”
He leaned down and kissed her again, slowly. She closed her eyes and tasted him and felt how much he had changed, and how much he hadn’t changed. This was a man who had known more power than she would ever encounter in her lifetime, and who had lost it; who had experienced a wildly improbable love after she left him, one that had touched his soul in ways she would never understand, and yet was here with her, acting as though …
He kissed me. He – kissed me. Not the other way around.
Good to know you can appreciate the obvious.
Shut up and let me kiss the man.
After a long moment, he pulled back and kissed her on the cheek, stroked her hair.
“Mmm,” he said. “That was… nice. Very nice. But I think we need to pay attention to where we are, Sayma. I don’t want one of us to be worried about the other again.”
It struck her then, what was different about him. When he’d first spoken to her, as a vampire, outside the Sanctuary, he’d been supremely confident and self-assured. Arrogant, even, in the fullness of his power; and knowing what little she knew about vampires she knew he and Andante must have been a terrifying team, deserving of their own self-assuredness. But there had been an edge to that feeling, anger, almost. She’d seen it in Andante from the time she’d first met him. It was a cruel power that he and Brynjolf each had, and it was restless.
She knew that restlessness. It came from wanting to kill, needing to kill. They’d both needed to kill, all the time, just to exist.
Now Brynjolf seemed controlled. Calm. Relaxed about his own abilities, even though he no longer had fangs and claws that could rip an opponent apart, or spells that could drain them of their vital essence.
I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him like this. When I first met him he was always on edge, worried about the Guild. Even after we were married, it felt as though he was always looking over his shoulder somehow. There’s something about all the things that have happened to him that has given him a center he didn’t have before.
“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the open and unexplored corridor beyond them. Let’s see what’s in here. I have a feeling that we were supposed to come here. Maybe we can set things right in this place.”
Sayma nodded and started toward the hallway to their right.
That’s what it is, isn’t it. He wants to set things right.
And so do I.