Dardeh was grateful to step off the ship onto the docks in Windhelm. It hadn’t been a pleasant crossing; they had run into a storm that had the ship heaving and bobbing in a way that had even some of its most seasoned hands looking a bit green by the time it ended. Dardeh hadn’t had a problem, below decks as he had been in order to stay out of the way, but he hadn’t gotten any rest. His mind kept churning; and the more it churned the worse he felt about himself.
It’s just as Arngeir told me. Beware the arrogance of power. The more I got, the more I wanted. Second-most powerful Dragonborn who has ever lived. Me. A miner from Markarth. And not even satisfied with that. And because of that, people died. The gods have a poor sense of humor.
And then there was Hermaeus Mora. Was he really in service to a Daedric Prince?
I don’t intend to do his work, but who knows how he may influence things. Here I was chiding the soldiers for killing each other and losing their souls.
He shuddered and walked slowly up the stairs toward the heart of the city. There were voices nearby; he ignored them until a familiar name caught his attention. A Dunmer man was bemoaning the state of his people’s standing in Windhelm to an old Nord dressed in scale armor. “Ulfric wants Skyrim for the Nords,” the old man said.
Dardeh sighed. Some things don’t change. Home again, and Ulfric’s still being a bigot. And yet there are so many willing to serve him without question. I suppose it’s not all that much different than the Cultists following Miraak.
He trudged slowly up the stairway into the central city, toward Candlehearth Hall. I’m tired. I need to sleep. But first I need to take care of something that I’ve been neglecting.
He made his way past the inn, to the Temple of Talos, and pushed open the door.
The Temple was an enormously tall space that might have been too somber and dark if not for the dozens of lanterns and candles surrounding the shrine at its far end. It was silent, in the Temple, and it smelled of whatever incense the priestesses burned, a rich, calming fragrance, and he needed calming more than he could say.
Dardeh made his way down the side of the space toward the shrine.
There it was, the huge statue of Talos standing victorious over … a serpent.
Dardeh walked forward, perplexed, and stared at the statue. That’s so odd. It really is a serpent. My whole life, I’ve looked at this thing. I knew it was either a dragon or a snake but I always assumed it was meant to be a dragon. It’s a snake. He looked up at Talos, at the stern but triumphant face.
“Is it true?”
He sat in the front pew and stared at the serpent.
He didn’t know as much about Redguard beliefs as he probably should, but he did know about Sep, the Second Serpent. Sep was said to have tricked the Aedra into creating the world and becoming mortal.
But Sep was also another name for Shor, or so Dardeh’s mother had told him. And Shor had sided with mortals after the creation of the world. He now reigned in Sovngarde, where Nords hoped to spend their afterlife.
Dardeh’s own ancestors worked with snakes, if the visions and the books were to be believed. At least on one side. The other side, the Nords…
What does it mean? Do both sides of my heritage slay serpents?
Dardeh looked at the statue again. My head hurts. I can’t figure it out. But this is important, somehow.
Dardeh knelt before the shrine.
It’s been too long, and I have been too full of myself. Forgive me. Here I am before you, Talos. Guide me, for I am lost and I do not know what to do.
He wanted, more than anything, to fly down the road to Kynesgrove, to find Roggi if he was there. But he dreaded it. And he dreaded returning to Whiterun, to face Lydia and Lucia. What can I tell them all? How can I make them understand what happened to me?
He tried to calm his mind, to meditate, to remember what he’d been before Helgen, before Solstheim, and he couldn’t do it.
There’s been too much between then and now. Too much killing. Too many bodies. I can’t go back ever again. I’m sorry, Ma.
He left the temple, intending to head straight to Candlehearth Hall, but voices caught his attention and he turned, down toward the graveyard, to see what was happening. Four people – a city guard, a Priestess of Arkay, a beggar and an older man – were clustered around a tombstone, staring at the nearly-nude, mutilated body of a young woman. She had several large slashes on her torso and was lying in a large, spreading pool of her own blood.
“By the Nine,” he murmured.
“Stop right there,” the guard said, holding up his hand.
“What happened?”
“Another murder. This is the third.” He shook his head. “It’s always the same: young girl killed at night, and no one saw a thing. Body all torn up like this.”
Dardeh stared at the body, wondering what sort of man would do such a thing, and then stopped short as he remembered himself looking down at the Reavers he’d killed outside the barrow on Solstheim. What makes this any worse than what I did? Yes, they were bandits and thieves but I left them in no better condition than this.
“So are the murders being investigated?”
“Look,” the guard said, shaking his head, “we’re stretched thin as it is with the war going on. Nobody has time to spend on this. Unpleasant, but it’s the truth.”
Dardeh looked down at the dead girl, and shook his head. How can you not spend time on this when it’s happening right under your noses?
He looked at the girl, again, and then at the others, and sighed. Well I can’t very well just let this go on, can I. Lydia and Lucia have been without me this long, and they don’t even know I’m back. Another few days won’t make any difference.
“Do you need some help?”
“You want to help? Ask some of these gawkers if they saw anything useful.”
Would that not have been the very easiest and most obvious thing for you to do yourself, given that you were already standing here with them staring at the body?
He chewed on the inside of his mouth to keep himself from saying that aloud. Being sarcastic certainly wouldn’t help anything.
“All right. I’ll do that.”
He spent the next few minutes interviewing the bystanders. The beggar had arrived almost immediately after the murder but not quickly enough to see the murderer; the older man thought he saw someone running away, but didn’t get a good look at him. The Priestess had already begun examining the body to prepare it for burial, and remarked that the murderer wasn’t after gold because her coin purse was intact.
Dardeh reported back to the guard. “I might be able to learn more about this, if you’ll let me help. I’m not involved in the war and I don’t have to protect the city, so I’m free.”
The guard sneered. “Listen, friend, if you think you can do better than the Legion of Guards, be my guest. But you’ll have to speak to the Steward. Can’t have you just poking around claiming to be on official business without permission.”
“That makes sense. Let me go find him and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Dardeh had never seen the long, unwelcoming, hollow-sounding main chamber of the Palace before and was not impressed. Oh it was large, to be certain, and imposing, but it was hard and cold, and most of the people in it were guards or soldiers. He couldn’t imagine Ulfric’s people being eager to approach their king to discuss their problems or anything else, truly, in a space as off-putting as this one was.
It was hard to miss the familiar figure of Ulfric Stormcloak rising to descend from his throne and follow his right-hand man – an older soldier with a raspy voice — into a room to Dardeh’s left. Dardeh didn’t catch what the older man said but he heard Ulfric clearly. His voice was uniquely resonant, and it echoed down the largely-empty hall.
“Things hinge on Whiterun. If we can take the city without bloodshed, all the better, but if not…”
Dardeh stopped cold, listening. If not … what?
Are you going to rush in and burn down my home?
Ulfric spoke again. “Do you think we should send Balgruuf a stronger message?”
This time he heard the other man clearly.
“If by message you mean a sword through the gullet.”
Lydia said things were heating up, and that was ages ago. I should have paid attention. He walked slowly toward the Steward, who had remained in the throne room, but strained to catch more of Ulfric’s conversation. It was clear that Ulfric wasn’t ready to move on Whiterun yet. But he will be, especially if his right-hand man keeps goading him toward it. I need to keep an eye on this war business. I may need to warn Balgruuf.
Jorlief, the steward, had stayed in the throne room. When Dardeh approached him about the investigation it was clear that he was disgusted by the murders. “Difficult times indeed, when men stalk their brethren like beasts. My men are stretched thin as it is. If you offer your aid, I will gladly accept. The guards will be told to assist you as necessary.”
“Thank you. I hope I can help.”
I do hope I can help. But first I need sleep.
Dardeh rented a bed at Candlehearth Hall and was asleep almost instantly.
And then he wasn’t. Or at least he wasn’t fully asleep.
Suddenly he was standing beside the shrine to Talos in the heart of Whiterun, facing a familiar, massively-built Redguard man. This time he was not dressed as an Alik’r, but in a barbarian style armor that bared his chest and arms, strangely out of place in the middle of the city, making him seem even larger and more frightening than he had the first time Dardeh had seen him. Dardeh felt something odd, and reached his hand up to find that his hair and beard were short once again. He looked down at himself and realized that he was wearing a set of armor unlike anything he owned; gleaming, black, probably made of ebony.
A dream. Another dream.
“Jine.”
“Son of my son. You did not believe me when I told you of our long line of men filled with power. I could tell that you did not. Now you have felt it within you. Used it to clear your path. You see it before you.”
“What is it that you think I see? I see Whiterun. I see Talos, standing over a serpent.”
“You have killed one of them, the men who stood in your way. Now you must kill the other. Do it well.”
And then he was gone, and the dream was gone, and Dardeh woke and sat up, blinking. What was that? What did he mean? Who does he want me to kill?
I killed one of them. Miraak? And who is the other?
He sat with his head in his hands for a moment, breathing deeply. All right. This was just a dream. And it followed hearing Ulfric talk about taking Whiterun, and I am nervous about that, to be certain. No wonder I had such a strange dream. It’s just a dream, it’s not real.
He tried to go back to sleep, and did, to a certain degree, but he was crafting armor in his dreams and couldn’t get it quite right.
The next day was a nightmare of a different sort. A trail of blood led Dardeh from the graveyard to the former home of one of the victims. He retrieved the key from her mother and let himself into the mostly-empty house. The few chests and wardrobes left in it were largely empty. One of them, though, led to a concealed room holding a table set up for a macabre necromantic ritual, body parts arranged on top of it and discarded pieces littering the floor. The place reeked. A journal described the “ingredients” its author was looking for and pointed to the most recent victim as the next target. The journal, and a strange jade and ebony amulet he found in a bookcase, had him running back and forth between the palace, various citizens, Callixto – the older man he’d met at the murder scene – and then finally to Wuunferth, the court mage.
Everything pointed to Wuunferth. The amulet, he’d been told, used to belong to the court mages. A woman he’d spoken to maintained that Wuunferth had dabbled in necromancy, though other people seemed to consider her a bit strange and definitely not a reliable source of information.
He was a cranky old man, and Dardeh approached him cautiously.
“Whatever you’ve heard about me is probably true,” he said, looking up from his enchanting table.
Dardeh had no idea how to begin the conversation. One just didn’t say “hello, I think you’re the Butcher.”
“What kind of magic do you study?” He’s not going to say ‘necromancy.’ What am I thinking?
Wuunferth narrowed his eyes and peered out from under his hood at Dardeh. “Whatever kind I don’t already know.”
Well that doesn’t exclude necromancy. And it’s a pretty cagey answer.
“So, um, does Ulfric have much use for magic?”
Wuunferth snorted. “No, but that’s all right because I don’t have much use for Ulfric.”
Dardeh couldn’t help it; he laughed. All right. I like him. Let’s see what he has to say.
“We both leave well enough alone,” Wuunferth smirked.
Dardeh talked to him for awhile about the amulet, which he recognized by its description, and then eased into Viola Giordano’s statements that he’d dabbled in necromancy. The man was outraged; he was a member of the College of Winterhold, in good standing, and they had banned necromancy.
“I’m sorry. Some of the things I’ve found looked as though they pointed at you. If not, I apologize. Do you have any idea who it might be?”
“No, but I’ve noticed a pattern.” He rambled on for several moments about what he’d learned and then said “Soon. The killer will strike again soon. Keep watch in the Stone Quarter this next night.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“Remember,” the old man said as Dardeh turned to leave, “power is the crux of this world. There’s always more of it to be had if you look in the right places.”
Dardeh stood and stared at him for a moment, then turned to leave the palace.
Power. That word kept coming up. That’s what he had wanted, fighting against Miraak. That’s what he’d gotten. From the moment he had stood in awe and fear before his first dying dragon to the moment he’d boarded the ship back to Skyrim, he had become almost unrecognizable to himself and all of it because of power.
But it wasn’t enough, was it. Not enough for you.
If Miraak was the “one I’ve already killed” – am I the other?
He went back to the inn and ate a hot meal while sitting before the fireplace. When it was late enough, he wandered out into the crystal clear, bitterly cold night and headed for the marketplace in the Stone Quarter. He had just rounded the back corner by Oengul’s smithy when there was a cry ahead of him; a woman’s cry, familiar, and the shape of a man just behind her.
“No!” Dardeh shouted, sprinting for the man and drawing his swords. He saw red; he swung at the man with all his strength. Die, scum. Die. It took him almost no time and little effort to put the attacker down; rolling him over he found that it was Callixto, the man who had recognized the Necromancer’s amulet, the man he had interviewed at the previous murder scene.
But then he turned his head and saw the woman, lying still and cold in a pool of her own blood. He stared at the body in disbelief. It was Arivanya, wife of the stable master.
“I was too slow,” he whispered.
He stood and stared at the two bodies, and saw dozens more, all the people who had died by the standing stones on Solstheim, the people he hadn’t been able to save because he was too slow to kill the Lurkers before they could strike.
“I was too slow.”
He stood there for a long time, looking at what had happened and thinking about what he had imagined would happen when he ran forward with his swords, willing time to turn back just this once and knowing that it wouldn’t. He turned and trudged slowly to the Palace, to wake Jorlief from his sleep and report what had happened. Jorlief was delighted, told him he’d done the city a great service.
“You’ll… need to send someone to attend to the bodies,” he whispered.
“Good man,” Jorlief said, nodding. “Now go and get some rest. You’ve earned it. Windhelm is safe because of you.”
Dardeh walked back to Candlehearth Hall in a daze.
I failed. Windhelm isn’t safe because of me. Nobody is safe if I am around. I’m no better than Miraak.