They hadn’t even made it back as far as Falkreath when the next attack came.
Andante heard a commotion ahead of them. There was an elevated bridge across the roadway, a perch from which bandits frequently ambushed travelers, particularly merchant caravans. Those who attempted escape had rock fall traps dumped on them. Eventually, usually, the bandits got what they were after. Andante assumed this was another instance of merchants being attacked and left the roadway to take out the bandits in their lookout perches.
It wasn’t a merchant caravan below them, though. It was another group of four Dawnguard. Brynjolf waded into them with his usual lack of concern for personal safety. Andante snorted, and reminded himself to lecture Brynjolf, later, about not needing to emulate Dynjyl’s lack of caution. He started firing arrows. The angle of attack, though, was all wrong, and the arrows kept striking the rope railing instead of flying to their targets. He growled and jumped down to the roadway.
Serana was using her magic, striking the man with the crossbow with lightning bolts that had him staggering; but he was strong, and resilient, and brought his crossbow up for another shot quickly after each attack. It began to look as though she was flagging, running low on magicka, but Andante hadn’t cast a spell in a good while. He summoned the Dremora Churl once again and watched in satisfaction as it raced to help Brynjolf take down an Orc with a huge silvered warhammer.
Serana cried out as one of the bolts hit her.
“Damn it!” Andante growled, dashing forward, casting his life-draining spell with one hand on the man as he neared and raising his axe with the other. “Get off her!” he shouted, bringing his axe up in a diagonal, backhanded swipe that had the Dawnguard’s head bouncing and rolling down the slope toward Falkreath. He saw a wolf slink out of the undergrowth, snatch the head up by the chinstrap on its helmet, and run away with it.
Brynjolf and the churl had one of the remaining Dawnguard down and the last one well in hand, so Andante turned and ran to Serana’s side.
“Get it out. It burns,” she gasped.
“Hang on.”
He didn’t want to touch the bolt, not even by the long end that wasn’t coated with silver, but he gritted his teeth, set one hand on her shoulder and grabbed the bolt with the other. He yanked hard, and it popped out. Serana cried out but began healing herself immediately.
“Thank you, Andante. It wasn’t deep in but that coating, oh it burns so badly.”
“I know it does,” he said. “I don’t even like to touch the weapons. Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded, smiling. “Yes, I’ll be fine. Check on Brynjolf.”
Brynjolf had a few nicks and bangs that he was seeing to with the modest amount of healing magic he’d learned. He looked up from his work and grinned at Andante, his eyes twinkling. “Getting soft, are we?”
Andante blinked in confusion. “Soft?” Oh. I helped Serana. He snorted. “Oh hush. You would have done the same thing.”
“Yes, but I’m not the one who’s been complaining about her ever since we met her. I think she’s starting to grow on you.”
“She’s not my type, Brynjolf. Don’t give me a hard time,” Andante said, laughing, leaning down to rifle through the headless Dawnguard’s pockets. He pulled out a note, fine parchment that had once had an official-looking red wax seal, and stood to read it. Any semblance of humor he had been harboring fled.
He scanned the thing, then looked at Brynjolf and grimaced.
“I guess we can expect more of this. ‘By order of the Dawnguard, the Imperial Andante is hereby condemned to death for the crime of vampirism. By our authority and with the Jarl’s implicit consent, the bearer of this writ is hereby commissioned to exact justice upon the condemned wheresoever he may run.’ Well. They’ll have to catch me first, and I can move very quickly.”
Brynjolf frowned. “Which Jarl? Not Maven.”
“Does she know about you, loverboy? I mean, about those luscious fangs of yours?”
He heard Serana make a disgusted noise behind him, and grinned.
Brynjolf shook his head. “Um… no.”
“Well then. The Jarl of the Rift is the nearest to Fort Dawnguard. It would make perfect sense for her to go along with this for the sake of appearances, and to keep the Dawnguard busy and out of her hair. And she doesn’t know me at all. She may have seen me come and go from Honeyside but she’s never really spoken to me and I’d be willing to bet she doesn’t know my name.”
Serana came up beside them, dusting herself off. “It won’t matter which Jarl, if they manage to catch us. We really need to move along. We can talk about it on the way.”
And they did. They stopped at Mammoth Manor, rousing a yawning Roggi long enough to drop the Elder Scrolls off there. “They’ll be safer here with you two,” Brynjolf told him. “Nobody will expect them to be here, at least the two that aren’t already Dardeh’s. They’ll be looking for them with us.”
“And the damned things weigh too much to be carrying up into the mountains. I’m sure Dardeh would agree, and he only had one of them,” Andante grumbled.
Roggi had agreed, and had shared a couple of careful glances with Andante while they carried the Scrolls inside and stowed them in a closed bookcase just outside his and Dardeh’s bedroom. Yes, Roggi. I’ve spoken to Delvin. Nothing’s happening yet. They didn’t speak of it, but Andante had nodded, and was fairly certain that the message got across. He dropped the Dawnguard writ into the fireplace and watched it burn before they left and continued their run toward Markarth.
They were south of Old Hroldan, nearing the lake that served as headwaters of the river there in the Reach, when Andante held up a hand to stop the others. The road here ran between high banks on one side and steep rocks on the other, and before them a solitary figure was walking at a leisurely pace. Andante peered at him and saw that his skin was an odd, red hue.
“Afflicted?” Brynjolf whispered.
“Yes. I’ll get him. I’m starting to get really hungry and it’s going to be a problem really soon if I don’t do something about it. Wait here.”
He crept up behind the man, silently, and sank his fangs into his neck, draining him dry. As he dropped the body to the ground, he stood staring at it and suddenly felt the world swirling around him.
I’ve done this before.
It was darker that day. It was darker, and his own clothing was darker, and it had been a different man, but the man had been one of the Afflicted. And he had stepped up to him, and he had…
Andante looked around him. Yes, it was nearly the same spot. He had taken his sword. A wicked, black Bosmer shortblade. And he had swung it and opened the man’s throat and had dropped him, right here, right in this spot.
Andante’s head started to pound. But I didn’t take his blood. I wasn’t a vampire. I was just…
“Lad? Are you alright?”
Andante wanted to answer but couldn’t quite shake himself free of the overwhelming déjà vu he was experiencing. He heard Serana trot up beside him.
“Are you going to move that body, Andante? Or are you going to just stand there ogling it?”
Andante’s mouth fell open just a bit. He raised his head and stared at Serana.
I wasn’t a vampire. I was just an assassin. And I was running down this road, in this spot, when another of the Afflicted got in my way.
“I… don’t… ogle, Serana.” He looked back at the body and shook himself into motion. “But yes, I will get this body off the road.”
He took one arm, and Brynjolf, staring at him with a puzzled expression, took the other. They dragged the body down the road and to the left, down to the water’s edge, and Andante washed his hands, remembering the revulsion he had felt cleaning off that black shortsword.
He rose slowly, and cleared his throat. “Let’s go. We need to either make Markarth or find a cave somewhere. It’s too hot out here.”
Brynjolf squinted up at the sky, shielding his eyes even under his heavy black hood. “I’d be in favor of that.”
They made for a cave Andante knew of, one he’d hidden in while he was trying to recover himself all that time before. Once it had been filled with draugr, and had been a dangerous place. But he had cleared it out, long since, and it would serve as a decent resting place to spend a couple of hours in the heat of the day.
They each found a spot to rest. Brynjolf leaned back against one of the old sarcophagi and fell asleep almost immediately; Serana followed suit not much later. But Andante stared into the darkness, unable to rest. He reached deep into a pocket, running his fingers over a bottle of skooma, wondering if he should take advantage of this moment and decided that it would only make matters worse.
It’s true. It must be. I was an assassin, before I ever met Nazir, or Babette, or Sayma. I had dark armor. And dark swords. And I was here, and I killed that man on the road, in that same spot. And I needed the skooma then. I didn’t just want it as a diversion, I needed it to keep going.
He closed his eyes and felt a coldness rising from deep within him, his hands twitching as they remembered things they hadn’t done for a very long time, his muscles remembering a different set of dance steps than the ones they’d been performing since he’d known Brynjolf. He knew, somehow, that the next time he needed to take out an enemy it would feel different, that he would move differently, and that it would be easier for him to do what he needed to do.
I’ve done this for a long, long time, haven’t I. A very long time. I can feel it. I can almost see it. But not quite. I can see my body, in the black armor. I can remember what it felt like to wear it. Light, supple, easy to move in. Silent. But I can’t see my face.
He suddenly remembered the Keeper, the first one he had encountered in the Soul Cairn, the one that had startled him so badly with its blue eyes shining out from a bottomless, unfathomable mass of undulating black mist. A shudder rippled out from his core.
I can’t see my face when I’m in that black armor. I can’t see. I can’t see.
He opened his eyes and searched through the darkness for Brynjolf, remembering how his vision had gone white after reading the Elder Scrolls, how Brynjolf had held him for those few moments of sheer terror. He’d felt comforted, and safe, and cared for in spite of being terrified; and a part of him longed to wake Brynjolf, to wrap himself around the man again, to take comfort from him once more.
I still can’t see, Bryn. Do I want to see? If I remember who I am, really remember all of it, will I be different? Will you still want me? Will I be gone – Andante, the one who has been with you since that night in Honeyside?
Who did this to me? Who do I need to kill for doing this to me?
Who am I, really?
He closed his eyes again, and tried, in vain, to sleep.
—-
Andante frowned, watching Brynjolf sharpening his wicked sword and reinforcing his shield. Brynjolf was a decent smith, said he had been working for the past couple of years or so to build up what were fairly low-level skills, but done well. He himself was better, far better, and he would happily have done the work for Brynjolf, but his offer had been declined. “I need the practice,” Brynjolf had told him. Serana had gone to find the Hag’s Cure, the apothecary in Markarth, and Andante was left waiting.
He paced back and forth, thinking about the shortblades he’d seen in his memory. Ghorza gra-Bagol, the blacksmith, didn’t have anything like them for sale. His mind chewed at the idea of them; his axe was a fantastic weapon, but he felt an almost visceral need to have those lightweight, deadly blades in his hands again, to see whether they really were as fine as he remembered. All he needed, to make them, was ebony. And Ghorza had no ebony for sale, either. Steel or Orcish weapons she could supply in abundance, but not ebony.
He waited, impatiently, until Brynjolf was done with his work, and then insisted that they go to the palace.
“What for, lad? I thought we needed to get to this cave.”
“Yes, we do,” Andante said, frowning, “but I need to see if the Jarl’s smith has any ebony. No, really,” he held up his hand, interrupting Brynjolf as he was about to object. “I just need to, Bryn. Humor me.”
Brynjolf had frowned, and pulled his hood back up over his head. “If you say so. You seem awfully on edge, Andante. Should we do something else? Get a room here and relax?”
Andante chuckled. “That does sound lovely, but no. I’m going to go up and see the other smith. Meet me up there when you’re ready.” He started climbing the steps through Markarth’s various levels, not waiting to find out whether Brynjolf was with him or not.
I need something else. If I can’t have those, maybe a greatsword. An ebony greatsword. Maybe that would work. I don’t know.
He nodded to the guards outside the doors of Understone Keep as he passed through.
Why on earth does this matter? He thought about it as he walked deeper into the castle; he glanced to the left, down toward the excavation of the great Dwemer city that lay beneath what was once Markarth. The city’s mage was bent over his enchanting table, as usual, lost in his work. He sighed. It matters because I’m not who I thought I was. I don’t know who I thought I was, exactly – whoever Andante is – but I’m different. I’m something new. I need something else. Maybe Moth will have something.
Moth gro-Bagol, Ghorza’s brother, had his smithy just ahead, up some steps, and to the right. Andante had been here before, had done business with Moth on a number of occasions while in town on various Thieves Guild assignments, and thus headed for the staircases without slowing. As he started up them, though, a loud argument stopped him in his tracks.
“And just when do you suppose you will ever manage to complete this assignment?” the Altmer said, angrily.
Andante instinctively ducked behind one of the large planters that served as railings of sorts along the edge of the upper platform. He leaned to his left, and saw the person who had just spoken: a tall, stately Altmer in Thalmor Justiciar robes. His eyes went wide.
“Damn it to Oblivion, Ondolemar, I don’t know where the man went. It’s not my fault that your idiot interrogators let him slip out.”
Andante had to fight not to gasp. Once more he felt the tingling of shock running through his body, his heart beginning to pound, a band tightening around his temples as memories started pouring into the spaces that had been dark just a moment before.
Ondolemar. He slipped back down the steps, just a bit, and pulled his hood up over his head, hiding his face as much as he could.
The man who had just spoken was an older man: balding, graying, but vicious-looking, dressed in heavy armor and a thick fur cloak. His arms were crossed and he was pointedly staring away from the Thalmor, frowning angrily.
“He’s just one man, and when he escaped he’d been beaten and tortured. Just an ordinary assassin, not a Daedric prince. How hard could it possibly be to locate him? It’s been years now, Haran, and I’ve been paying you all this time. I expected more of you!”
Haran, the bounty hunter, turned and glared at Ondolemar. “Well then perhaps you should have been searching for him yourself, milord. Vitus Perdeti was good enough to get close enough to you, and he almost got you. Not a single soul knows what he looked like aside from you and your goons and thanks to your short temper they’re gone. If you think a man like that is going to be easy to find again, well, maybe you should have been the one puttin’ in the legwork all this time.” His voice dropped. “Word on the street is that you even had some of his gear stolen right out from under your noses. Pretty fancy work on your team’s part if some ordinary thief could grab that mask.”
He’s not even a thief, Andante thought numbly. He’s a former interrogator himself, but he’s not a thief.
“Enough of your pitiful excuses!” the Altmer sneered. “The Thalmor Ambassador herself is expecting us to deliver and she is getting impatient. Find Perdeti. I don’t care what it takes. Now get back to it.”
Ondolemar swept around the corner and up a flight of stairs. Haran the bounty hunter stood and sneered, and headed across the platform toward the keep’s kitchens. Andante rose, slowly, and fought to control the trembling that had threatened to take over his limbs.
He stood there for a few moments, until the sound of footsteps behind him made him turn. Brynjolf was staring at him, perplexed.
“What was that all about, lad? Why are you standing here on the stairs?”
“I… uh…” I can’t believe it. “I don’t like Thalmor,” he said, seizing on the first idea that popped into his head, and pointing up in the direction Ondolemar had gone. “I didn’t want to take any chances, so I hid myself. What if they’re working with the Dawnguard?”
Brynjolf nodded, slowly. “I wouldn’t have thought about that. Good call. Let’s go do this business of yours and get under way.”
Andante walked slowly up the rest of the stairs and around the corner into the smithy. He smiled, and greeted Moth. Moth didn’t have any ebony, either, and neither did he have any shortblades. He did, however, have a truly interesting eleven greatsword, of a make Andante had never seen before. He bought that, and some moonstone ingots with which to improve it, and took a seat at Moth’s grindstone to work at it. It would feel good to try a different weapon.
I … tried to kill that Altmer. A Thalmor Justiciar. Ondolemar. He furrowed his brow, trying to remember, and slowly the vision of a room erupting in flames came to him. They took me. And they took my armor. My black armor. And the mask, the one that’s in Riften, the one that Roggi stole right out from under their noses. And after that… I don’t remember. I don’t really remember what happened before that, either. But I remember Ondolemar.
He stood, and thanked Moth, and smiled at Brynjolf, and made for the door so that they could go collect Serana and be on their way. As they reached the bottom of the steps, he grabbed Brynjolf and pulled him into a dark corner, and reached for him, and kissed him hard, and for a long time, until they both were a bit short of breath by the time they pulled apart from each other.
“What was that all about?” Brynjolf was clearly puzzled, but his hands traced down Andante’s back nonetheless. “We can’t very well go at it right here. Although I can’t say I’d mind trying to get away with it, after that.”
He shrugged, and tried to smile. “It had been awhile. I just wanted to remind myself,” he said.
In case I forget.
And they left the Keep. Andante felt numb.
—
They left Markarth and headed along the road that ran north, looking for the place where a small stream came in from the northwest. Darkfall Cave, according to the map the Scrolls had imprinted in Andante’s mind, was up in that stream’s valley, and he would recognize it when he saw it. He was certain of it.
He was certain of that; and he was certain as well, now, that the reason he’d flipped the masked hood onto his head that night talking to Roggi, without even thinking about it, was that he’d been doing that very thing for years before. He couldn’t remember those years, not yet; he couldn’t remember everything that they held, or where exactly he might have come from, or who he might have been working for, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had been taken down in a wall of flame during a botched attempt to kill Ondolemar. And he remembered the beginning of it: the beatings, the starvation, the sets of cruel implements laid out in neat rows for use on him or on the other prisoners kept alongside him.
I don’t remember what happened, but I do remember that. We weren’t much better than Harkon’s cattle. Actually, we weren’t as good as Harkon’s cattle. They are better fed than we were.
The memories faded, and blurred, until they disappeared entirely. There was a gap; how long a gap, he didn’t know, but the memories began again on a hillside, in rags, starving, thin, and trembling with fear.
Ondolemar did this to me. The Thalmor did this to me. No wonder I hate them so much. No wonder I almost left Brynjolf to fight them on his own, at Northwatch. They did this to me. They stole my life.
The stream in question had steep banks to each side, and not much more than animal trails along either of those banks. The three of them had to take out two angry bears, as they headed northwest from the road, and were listening to a group of wolves howling and snarling not far away when he heard them. Serana did, too; she froze, and held a finger up to her lips, then shrank into the cover of a sizeable juniper tree.
“I swear I saw them headin’ this way, boss, three of ‘em,” a faint voice drifted toward them.
“We’re only looking for one guy, you idiot,” another one snarled, closer this time.
There was a pause, but Andante thought he heard the clinking of weapons against armor, a sound that drew closer by the moment. He drew his new sword and stepped back into the shadow of the nearby hillside, crouched, and waited. Brynjolf stepped in behind him.
“We’re looking for one guy in particular,” Haran’s voice floated up toward them. “We don’t know who he might be travelling with these days. It’s been a couple of years, after all. He probably has a whole new setup now.”
As Andante knelt, ready to move at the slightest need, he saw the three figures stop near the mouth of the stream they were following. They stood at the ridgeline, silent, peering down into the valley, for what felt to Andante like a lifetime.
“Nah,” Haran said, shaking his head. “They didn’t go that way. There’s nothing down there but bears and vampires. I’m betting on Solitude. He’s a greedy bastard and that’s where the money is.”
“And the skooma, according to what I’ve heard,” one of the other voices added.
The three men laughed, turned, and went on their way.
Andante waited a long time, still frozen in place, until he was certain that he could safely sheathe his sword without being heard. He did so, and straightened, staring back at the spot where the bounty hunters who were looking for Vitus Perdeti had been. A cold anger, at once unfamiliar and yet something he recognized, bubbled up from somewhere inside him, and he snarled, silently.
My name is Vitus Perdeti. But I’m not the same man you were looking for. I’m a Vampire lord. I’m immortal. And I’m soon to be the Lord of Volkihar Castle. And you will never take me. Never. And for what you did to me, I will have my revenge.
He turned and nearly ran into Brynjolf.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going. I’m a little distracted about being hunted.”
Brynjolf smiled out from under his hood.
“I understand. We’re all being hunted, lad. Let’s get going.”
Andante blinked in surprise. “Yes. Yes we are. I’m sorry, Brynjolf, this isn’t just about me, is it. Let’s go.”
Brynjolf motioned for Serana, and started picking his way back toward the stream, in to the northwest. Andante watched him moving away, the broad back that had become so familiar to him, and suddenly was nearly overcome by a feeling he didn’t know how to interpret rising up into his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment and found himself fighting back a stinging sensation behind their closed lids.
I don’t cry. I never cry. Is this what crying feels like?
They took me. They nearly erased me. And now they’re taking Andante too.