Vitus Perdeti stepped up to what he thought was the front desk and gave his name: he was Vinnus Pettellia, from just across the border southeast of Riften, headed back across the border into Bruma but not tonight; and he wanted a room. Because Vinnus has been hugging the border for hours and is dead tired and wants to relax with a nice bit of brandy and perhaps something else before hitting the road in exactly the opposite direction of what he just told you.
The man writing diligently in his ledgers ignored him. The woman standing just behind his shoulder stared at him as though either he had suddenly grown a second head or she was memorizing every nook and cranny of the one he already had, and that made him more than a bit uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the blue. I have it on good authority that I look good in blue. I shouldn’t have worn the blue, it attracts attention. He’d carefully taken off everything that resembled armor and stuffed it deep into his pack before donning the favorite thing he’d ever stolen from a corpse of his making: a set of embroidered Colovian finery with a leather vest. It flattered him, setting off his blue eyes, hugging his slim build, and very effectively hiding the short sword he had strapped to his leg beneath it; and he loved wearing the thing, particularly if he was looking for company for an evening. It certainly didn’t look like something a Skyrim native would wear but this close to the border Imperial garb was fairly common, certainly moreso than a set of black, enchanted armor with a hood that made his features vanish as if into the Void.
He was not looking for company right then. He was still too close to the Pale Pass for his own comfort, too close to the potential pursuit from Bruma, and not close enough to the Reach to be able to fulfill his contract without a night’s sleep, maybe two. This place had been given the amusing name of the House of Troubles. He hoped it wouldn’t resemble its namesake, the four “bad Daedra,” too closely but it did seem like the sort of place a man of his particular temperament and occupation might find suitable. It was also well off the beaten track, and that made it even more attractive.
Come on, Vitus, hold it together. These people aren’t in charge. Just go find the bar. They won’t remember you tomorrow. And even if they do, you’ll be long gone and they won’t know the man in the mask and the black armor.
He met the woman’s eye and gestured toward the metal cage door that seemed to lead into the bar, his eyebrow raised in question, and she nodded. He returned the nod and slipped through into the main room. It seemed a normal enough establishment. As with every other bar he’d ever been in there were a number of patrons, at least one of whom was truly drunk. There was a bard, a woman of some small talent but not notable. And there was a burly man with a shaved head and a thick beard behind the counter.
“Might I have a brandy?” Vitus asked him. No point in trying to disguise my voice. I sound like every other Imperial soldier on the roads in this part of Skyrim, so nobody is going to take note of me for that. “And I’d also like to rent a room for the night.”
“Of course,” the innkeeper said, taking Vitus’ coins and pouring him a snifter of brandy. “I’ll show you to your room. Right this way.” He led the way up the stairs that emptied onto a balcony at the edge of the vaulted main space, and across that to a large room. Vitus grimaced: six beds in the room. One of them was his. I thought I was renting a room, not a bunk. Well, it’s better than a hay pile in the rain but still, I’d best be very careful. He laughed at himself. What am I thinking? I’m always very careful.
Just outside the door to the common sleeping room was a table and chairs, one of which he took. He sipped his brandy, watching a curious display of archery from a man standing just on the other side of the table but aiming at targets mounted at their eye level on the other side of the vaulted space. It must have been quite a feat getting those up there. What an odd place for archery practice. He reached into a pocket and palmed a small bottle, then discreetly drained it behind a hand.
He relaxed back into his chair as the drug took effect and pondered giving the resident archer a bit of competition. But it would be too risky. How many unarmored travelers carried daedric bows? How many fewer could split a competitor’s arrow down the middle while drugged? Enough fewer that they would remember him if he did it. And he would, if he picked up his bow.
—
It was still dark when he took down the first one along the road.
She came running up from behind him and waved a weapon in his direction, and from the corner of his eye he thought it was the woman who had been staring at him at the House of Troubles. He turned almost without breaking stride and slid his Bosmer shortblade through her chest. Then he stopped to examine her body. She had face tattoos. The woman at the inn had had no war paint of any kind.
Well it serves her right. Run up behind a man in black in the dead of night and expect anything else? She wasn’t exactly approaching me to sell flowers.
He hadn’t felt right about staying a full night there at the House of Troubles. Nobody else had rented a bed in the common room, but there had been something so odd about the way the people at the front looked at him that he’d decided to allow himself only a few hours of sleep, and he’d left in the middle of the night with his head still fuzzy from the skooma. You’re getting paranoid, Vitus. She might well have been a danger but she wasn’t that woman.
He stopped just long enough to drag the body off the road into the bushes and then continued on his way, this time paralleling the road rather than running on it. It was going to slow him down, but it was safer than not. Not long afterward he passed a mill; there was a lone guard patrolling the bridge across the small mill stream, so he crept silently down to the water, just beneath its edge out of sight, and waded across. Wet feet were a small price to pay for safety, and that guard would remember a man without a face, dressed all in black. The cold air and the frigid water washed the remaining cobwebs out of his head.
The sky was just beginning to lighten as he crossed into the Reach proper, and he stood to stretch and look around him. Not too far to go, especially if he crossed the river and kept near, but not on, the main roadways. In the meantime, though, he was in an area that didn’t lend itself to travelling overland, and he needed to get through it. He thought it was just about possible that he might make it to Markarth by evening if he moved fast, without taking much of a pause. He dropped down into the roadway and jogged ahead.
Not far down the road was one of the kinds of places that made him most nervous: the road cut between two steep rock faces for a short distance, and there was nowhere to go except straight ahead on it. Normally he would sprint through such a bottleneck and get back off the roadway as soon as he could but on this day there was a man just ahead of him. He kept moving; and as he came alongside he saw that the man’s skin was a dusky, reddish color, distinctive of a disease that had its sufferers calling themselves the Afflicted.
Vitus grimaced. He didn’t want anything to do with them. He intended to give this man a wide berth. But as he attempted to pass by the man looked at him and grunted. Then he said, in a sarcastic tone, “Are you finished ogling the grotesque? I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t just kill me.”
Vitus felt his irritation rising. Ogling, is it? You think I was – ogling?
“Yes,” he murmured. “I’m done ogling the grotesque. But don’t celebrate quite yet.”
He pulled his sword and whirled, slashing. The man dropped to the ground, his throat cut.
Vitus stared at his sword. “Disgusting.” He looked down at the dead man and grunted.
“I don’t ogle.”
The roadway had opened back up before him, and the river was off to his left. He dashed for it and washed both the sword and himself thoroughly. He did not want to take any chances. He couldn’t hear anything for the roaring of the river, and kept turning to look back up toward the roadway. It wouldn’t do to be encountered here, not after that.
But he was in the way and he irritated me. And now he’s dead.
The river ran deep and fast here, and he was going to need to cross it at the bridge not too far ahead and down the hill. On the other side of the bridge the road doglegged just in front of a stone shrine to one of the gods, which one he could not tell from this far away. As he trotted across the bridge and neared the shrine he saw the unmistakable shape of a bulging coin purse atop it.
Mine.
He dropped into a crouch and slunk forward, but just as he reached for the sack of septims a voice from the other side of the monument called out.
“Hey! You can’t just take that!”
Vitus’ head jerked up.
Damn.
He grabbed his blade and rolled to the side of the shrine. A man dressed in drab leathers, likely a hunter, was just reaching for his sword as Vitus popped up beside him.
“Bet I can.”
A moment later the man slumped back against the stones, blood pouring out of the wound across his neck. Vitus vaulted over the stones to grab the coin purse and run down the road as fast as he could, looking for a spot to jump up out of the roadway, into a place where he could calm his heartbeat and gather his wits.
You are, without a doubt, becoming the worst of all possible idiots, Vitus Perdeti. He shook his head and reached up under his hood to rub his eyes. Damnable blurry eyes. What in the world is wrong with me lately? I am going to get myself into difficulties if I don’t start paying attention to the basics. It just seems harder to focus on things these days. He looked up and down the road and saw nobody approaching. I never used to need to even think about the basics, they just happened. She would be very disappointed in me, I think.
He rolled his head to stretch out his neck, took a deep breath and blew it out, then started trotting onward toward the west. Maybe … I should have another. Sometimes it seems as though I focus better when I’m forced to, like that, when there’s no other choice. Maybe… Maybe I’m an idiot. I need to be able to react quickly. Maybe I should just keep moving.
His progress was helped by the heavy fog that hugged the river valley on this day. He was able to blend into the shadows almost effortlessly, although he did wonder how the hawks that screamed his passage managed to see him from that high up through the fog. He was grateful for the hawks, though. Even away from the actual river banks the rushing water was loud. More than once the hawks alerted him to other people on the road, giving him time to leap up into the rocks and hide himself. Several groups passed by – Thalmor, Imperial troops, and traders – while he rested and perched high above them. Each time he stopped to rest, whether to avoid people or to nibble on a sweet roll and drink some water, he moved well off the road and out of sight. And each time he stopped his mind pestered him to have another. It’s right there, Vitus. Go ahead and have it, Vitus. You’ll feel better. You won’t be so jittery. And he would shake his head, grit his teeth, and keep moving in spite of the tight, anxious clutch of his gut and the increasing discomfort of his jaw muscles as he ground his teeth together.
As the shadows were lengthening, Vitus found himself climbing out of the river, sliding up the bank into the shadows of an old Dwemer building next to a windmill. He’d never been in this particular building before. He was cold, he was tired, and he was sick of gritting his teeth against the gnawing demand of his body. He decided to let himself into the building and, if he could, rest a few hours before going the rest of the way into the city of Markarth to complete his contract. He wanted very much to get the contract done and get out, perhaps head to Solitude where another Imperial would just disappear into the crowds.
He picked the lock to the house and slid inside. It seemed to be empty at the moment, but there were clear signs of occupation: the embers of a fire laid in the fireplace, a double bed, the smell of a recently roasted goat haunch and bundles of fragrant herbs hanging from nails near the ceiling.
You shouldn’t stay here, the voice of reason in his head told him.
But I’m tired. And I’m hungry.
You’re not hungry, you’ve been eating off and on all day, the voice of reason in his head told him.
But…
“Can’t a woman get a moment of peace?” came a shrill voice, an old person’s voice, just behind him.
Vitus whirled, snarling.
The woman had just enough time to stare at him as the door closed behind her. He saw the familiar look, the look that resulted when people looked for his eyes and saw nothing but empty darkness. It had to be terrifying, to expect a face and find nothing; it had to be like seeing all of your worst nightmares in one being, standing just beyond your reach and yet not nearly far enough away.
That was exactly why he wore the mask.
“I’ll give you peace, old woman,” he growled, and flipped his sword, plunging it overhand into her chest.
He found himself still bent over her when he started to shake, a tremor that started from his core and moved outward. He tried to straighten, but he couldn’t; his muscles were cramping, he was in the most exquisite pain, and he could barely breathe. It felt like he was going to die, and he would not have that happen.
I refuse.
He could only think of one thing to do. He whisked one of the small bottles out of his pocket and downed its contents, then lurched his way to the bed and laid down on it, trembling for a few moments longer until the skooma took full effect. And as the pain left him, as he felt his breath coming back to him, as he felt better, the implications of his situation came into focus.
Gods damn it. Has it finally happened, after all these years? Am I actually addicted to it? Is that what has been happening to me?
He lay there and thought about it, ran everything that had been going on for the past months over and over in his mind. The escapes had gotten more and more precarious. His work had gotten sloppier by bits and pieces. He’d forgotten to do the simplest things, like just looking around before moving in for a kill. And there wasn’t any other explanation for it. He was still in excellent physical condition. He wasn’t losing his mind. There was only one possible explanation.
That’s what this is, isn’t it. I am now nothing more than one of the pitiful things I saw when I was a child, trying to come up with some justification to have more every time it starts to fade away.
He thought about everything for a bit longer and came to a sobering conclusion.
I’ve been an addict for a long time now, haven’t I. I just didn’t want to see it. The time between one bottle and the next has been shrinking, but I haven’t been paying attention to it. And I’ve never tried to hold off long enough for the shakes to get me, before this.
How in Oblivion have I managed to do my work in this condition? Is it just because I was the best, and even failing I’m better than most?
Gods damn it. Gods damn me. Gods damn the Listener for getting caught in the middle of that mess and now I have nobody to turn to for help. Gods damn it.
By the Eight. What am I going to do now?
He pushed himself up to a sitting position and shook his head, then wished he hadn’t.
Well. What I’m going to do now is fulfill my contract. I can do that in my sleep. Then it will be soon enough to think about what’s next.
Vitus moved the body of the old woman up onto her bed. As soon as someone looked at her they would be able to tell that she’d been murdered, but from the door it looked as though she was napping. Then he slipped out of the house, across the road and down into the river bed. There was an outlet for the streams that ran through Markarth which, if he didn’t mind crawling through a tunnel and getting wet, would let him avoid the main approach to the city and have only to evade the one or two guards patrolling before the heavy Dwemer doors.
It wasn’t difficult to slip in past the guards. It was late, it was getting dark, and they were tired and bored. Once inside, he ran left, hugging the shadows alongside the mines and the smithy, and to the door of the Hall of the Dead. He’d used this route once before, and had made sure to leave that door locked but not barred. It was simple to pick the lock and slip inside, then make his way to the far door that emptied into the vast excavations being undertaken by Calcelmo, the court wizard. He rubbed his eyes. It was too soon for him to be trying this. His head was still far too fuzzy and his vision too blurred, but at this stage he had no choice.
You’re the best of the best, Vitus. You can do this. Just focus.
He watched the guard’s patrol route and slid around the corner and out into the keep’s unfinished hallway as the guard was facing away. There were two more guards stationed just in front of the huge arch leading to the Jarl’s audience room and living chambers, but Vitus downed a brief invisibility potion and snuck past them, then to his right, to the farthest of the great staircases leading up. The Thalmor, he knew, had a chamber in the northwestern part of the keep, and at this time of the evening Ondolemar, the Justiciar who was his mark, would be there. It will be easy.
He crept up the stairs. The Jarl’s Housecarl was sitting at a small table in the main hall, eating a meal, and so absorbed in it that he was able to sneak past her and make for the short hallway and staircase leading to the Thalmor’s room. The door was locked, but he picked it open, silently, and then eased the door open just enough to slip inside. There was a Thalmor soldier staring intently at a map of Skyrim on a large table, another seated with his back to the door at a small desk to the right, and what looked like an officer, perhaps Imperial, stretched out on a bed at the far end of the room. And at the left side, at a large desk, sat Ondolemar.
Well, it will be a challenge, but I can do it. I’ll use the bow.
Vitus reached for his bow.
He had done this a thousand times. He was an expert at sliding it into position, silently, and taking down a target before they realized he was there.
This time, he mistimed his movements. The bow scraped against the floor as he pulled it around to the front of his body.
And the room exploded.
Suddenly he was surrounded by fire. People were shouting, the officer’s heavy armor was clanking, and the two Thalmor were snarling at him that he should behold their power, that he should bow to his betters, that he would die. There was a Markarth guard behind him, shooting a bow, somehow managing only to catch one arm with an arrow but that arm erupting in pain. He thought he heard Ondolemar howling that they should take him alive, not kill him, but he wasn’t certain whether he heard it or not, and between the skooma and the flames he couldn’t see where he was.
His armor would protect him from the flames. He wouldn’t burn.
But it was light armor, and it wouldn’t protect him from the Housecarl’s mace coming down onto the back of his head.
And the world went dark.