It had been a long, cold trip from Riften to the hillside north of Windhelm where Snow Veil Sanctum lay. Dagnell’s funds had been almost completely drained in purchasing Honeyside, so she didn’t want to splurge on a carriage. Instead, she had filled her pack, taken her bear cloak, and trudged north on foot, camping along the way. It had been difficult to pass Kynesgrove, even taking the branch of the road that ran below and around it. She had hurried, on that section, just in case anyone she knew was out and about.
She had also made her way through Windhelm as quickly as possible. The easiest route to Snow Veil Sanctum was along the river’s northern edge, but in order to get to that edge she either had to swim across its icy expanse or go through Windhelm and down to the docks. That had been an easy choice, even with the recollection of Ulfric’s voice sending shudders up her spine as she scurried through the lower parts of the city to its easternmost gate.
The area north of Windhelm was solid with snow and ice, and the wildlife that lived there reflected that fact. Twice, Dag faced ice wolves. They were larger and more persistent than their darker cousins from the spruce forests, and took much more energy to defeat. Once she heard a bear; when she finally spotted it she realized that it was enormous and pure white. She slid behind boulders to break line of sight with the bear and waited silently, shivering in the cold, until it wandered away.
Farther north, just as she turned to begin the upslope trek toward Snow Veil Sanctum, there was something she had never encountered before: a snow troll. She was thankful, then, to have learned early on that the best way to defeat an enemy with a bow was to take the high ground and shoot from above. She was able to climb high enough onto a rocky outcropping that it couldn’t reach her, and peppered it with arrows for what felt like years until it finally dropped. Otherwise, she thought, examining its ugly head while she retrieved some of those arrows, its fangs would surely have been the end of her.
The worst, though, was a creature she’d never seen before. It was translucent, moved hissing through the air like a snake but well above the ground, and had wicked-looking teeth. Its rapid wriggling movement made it nearly impossible to hit with an arrow and not much easier to hit with a sword. She tried a flame spell on it, and while that did slow it down, she ran out of energy before stopping it. She was grazed by its teeth several times and could not keep herself from shrieking; contact with the creature was far worse than being splattered with frostbite spider’s venom. She had needed to quaff a potion designed to help resist the effects of frost, and several healing potions, and to expend every bit of stamina she had slashing furiously with her swords to finally connect with the creature’s weak spot. It exploded in a shower of ice crystals, leaving behind its teeth. She had taken those teeth as a souvenir, even while she panted and shivered and tried to recover her composure. That had been far too close to a cold end for her.
Just uphill from where she had killed the ice wraith, she arrived at what had to be Snow Veil Sanctum, its inverted bowl shape visible long before she reached the crest of the hill. There was a rough campsite set up, not far from it. Disturbingly, a dead horse lay next to the fire. Dag stood and stared at it for a moment. There was nothing in the campsite to tell whose it had been, or what might have killed the poor horse.
Mercer Frey was waiting for her, standing just outside the barrow. Oh good, she thought, crunching toward him in the crystalline snow. He got here before me. Now I’ll hear all about it.
“Good, you’re finally here. I’ve scouted the ruins and I’m certain Karliah’s still inside.”
Well, that wasn’t too bad, Dag thought. I was expecting a proper reaming-out for being late.
“You saw her?”
“No, I found her horse. Don’t worry, I took care of it. She won’t be using it to escape. Now take the lead.”
Dag had to work not to visibly shudder. You killed the horse, Mercer? That’s awful. Couldn’t you have just … scared it away, or something? Then the rest of what he had said filtered through.
“Wait, you want me to lead?” That made no sense, and was frankly a bit frightening. Surely Mercer is a stronger fighter than I am, she thought. I thought I was just here for backup.
Mercer gave her an even deeper frown. She hadn’t been convinced such a thing was even possible.
“I’m sorry, I was under the impression that I’m in charge. You’re leading and I’m following. Does that seem clear to you?”
Dag swallowed. Ok, I do not want to get on Mercer’s bad side. Not in a place like this.
“Yes, of course. I was just surprised. I have to ask though. About all of this – isn’t murder kind of the Dark Brotherhood’s area?”
Mercer smirked. “I have a long standing relationship with the Dark Brotherhood. If I need someone in the Guild taken care of, we do it ourselves,” he continued. “We’ve agreed that it’s best to keep it within the organization.”
Dag’s brain struggled to tease out the strands of this statement. She was confused. He and Brynjolf had talked of turning someone who didn’t want to be associated with them over to the Dark Brotherhood. Perhaps they’d simply been referring to someone they’d done business with, and not someone in the Guild itself. That had to be it. So it wasn’t the Guild who had sent the assassin after her.
At least she hoped it hadn’t been. She kept coming back to this thought in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t about to ask Mercer about it.
“Ok. Let me catch my breath for a second. I found an ice thing – wraith – just over that hill and it was tough. I need a few moments.” She really did, too; so she said the first thing that came to mind that might distract him.
“Can you tell me about Gallus? I don’t know anything about him. How did he die?”
Mercer sighed, looking around at the burial mound and the area. He took a deep breath, and started talking. When he spoke, his voice was without its usual harsh edge, and his eyes seemed somehow softer.
Gallus, he said, had been a fantastic Guildmaster. Everyone had loved him. He and Gallus and Karliah had been so close, such a good team. They’d done everything together. Gallus had been absolutely brilliant.
He looked sad to her.
Dag was astonished. Mercer had truly cared about Gallus. And about Karliah. That was as plain as it could possibly be.
“Twenty five years ago I was standing outside this very same ruin. Gallus had told us to meet here, but he didn’t say why. When I arrived, Gallus stepped out of the shadows. Before he uttered a sound an arrow pierced his throat. Before I could even draw my blade, her second arrow found its mark in my chest.”
Ok, Karliah’s a quick draw, and she managed to get to them both without being spotted first. And both of them master thieves. Interesting. “So she took you both on, alone?”
He nodded. “Karliah is a master marksman, and her strength is the element of surprise. I was lucky. The arrow missed my heart by mere inches. As I stumbled away from the ruin my vision began to blur; it was then that I realized the bitch had poisoned her arrows.”
Bitch, is it? Dag thought, surprised again by Mercer’s drop from his usual stiff speech. Good to know, though; she uses poison and she’s a fantastic shot. We’ll need to be careful.
“And what happened to Gallus?”
“Just before I blacked out I saw her dumping his body into an opening atop the ruin. An unceremonious end to a truly remarkable man.” He shook his head, frowning.
“So the Guild was without its Guildmaster and one of its senior members, and you were wounded. It had to have been nerve wracking at the very least to know that she was out there, knowing all she did about the operation. What happened?”
Mercer snorted. “The Guild erupted into chaos, with several people trying to take power and fill Gallus’ position. Factions formed behind each of them. It was a bloodbath. I wanted us to spend the Guild’s resources tracking down Karliah, but nobody even seemed to care that Gallus was gone. I persevered long enough to come out on top. The other factions were either killed or left. But Karliah had used the confusion of the power struggle to her advantage. She simply disappeared.”
Dag frowned. This was a truly awful story, and it bothered her to think of the awkward man before her having been betrayed so cruelly. It was hard to picture Guild members killing each other, particularly based on what she had seen of it. They really tried, at least, to treat each other like some sort of a community; she’d seen them following Brynjolf around and acting like a group of friends. But why would it have been so different twenty five years earlier, if everyone loved Gallus? Why would they have acted like they didn’t care? It didn’t add up. On the other hand, people had been known to pretend concern and compassion while waiting for personal gain.
“Alright. Tell me about Karliah.”
“She was such a stubborn Dunmer. Always had to do things her way. Gallus was too trusting. He allowed her to get too close.”
“Oh,” Dag said. “I get it. They had a relationship.”
Dag couldn’t decide whether the look on Mercer’s face was a sneer, or a grimace.
“If you want to call it that, yes. He was absolutely smitten by her. Called her his ‘little nightingale.’ If you ask me, she was softening him up for the kill.”
“But why? Why would she kill him?”
Something went wrong with the relationship and Karliah retaliated, perhaps? Dunmer lived for a very long time. Could Gallus have been getting too old for her? No, that didn’t make sense either; this had happened twenty-five years ago. Gallus was an Imperial name. He couldn’t have been all that old then. Mercer was only in his mid-fifties or so right now.
He shrugged. “Greed? Jealousy? Spite? Who can say what drove her to such an iniquitous act.”
Dag was overwhelmed. Not so much by the facts of the story itself, gruesome though they were, but by how genuinely sorrowful Mercer was, still, after so many years, at having lost a man he obviously cared for.
Mercer was such an odd person. He seemed so uncomfortable around people, and they around him. But he had a close relationship with friends at least once in his life, only to have it torn away and to nearly lose his own life, all at the hands of one of those friends. What a betrayal. Dag swallowed hard. She’d never expected to feel sympathetic toward Mercer Frey, but she did. She knew how hard it was to have your best friends turn on you. Karliah had to die.
He straightened and shook his head, as if clearing it.
“Now. We need to get in there. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Karliah is as sharp as a blade. The last thing I need is you blundering into a trap and warning her we’re here.”
Dag nodded, and led the way down the stairs into the interior of the open dome that constituted Snow Veil’s entryway. But when she reached the door, she was completely stymied. It wasn’t of a design she’d ever seen and she could find no keyhole. She tried pushing at the curved plates on its surface, which looked movable, but nothing happened. She turned as she heard Mercer approaching.
He sneered.
“Sometimes these old Nordic ruins are nearly impenetrable. Hmm. This one doesn’t look too difficult.” He knelt and began working on the door, looking directly at Dag as he did so. “I don’t understand what all the fuss is with these doors. They’re easy to pick if you know how. All it takes is skill, and a lot of practice. Very simple, really. There. That should do it. After you.”
Dag stared at him, fuming. That was a flat-out insult. I didn’t fail to pick the lock, there is no damnable keyhole! The arrogant son of a horker. I can’t believe I was feeling sympathetic toward him just a few minutes ago. But he’s the boss. And I’m, what? Expendable? It’s not as though anyone will miss me if I’m gone, but they’ll all miss him. They need him to be alive.
Suddenly she was reliving the uncomfortable staring match with Brynjolf across the Cistern. Would he notice she was gone, if she was killed in here? And if so, would he feel bad, or just relieved? She wished she knew what he’d been thinking then.
Mercer stood as the curved plates clicked open, and gestured for her to lead the way. She sighed. Well, sadly enough, if you really think about it having me go first is a good choice, Dag realized. He’s far more important to the Guild than I am and if I can buy him a moment to get out of danger, well, I’ll have more than done my job. Mercer may be obnoxious, but he’s surely no fool.
She nodded and stepped inside.