Against their better judgment, Sayma and Brynjolf decided to leave in mid-afternoon the next day.
Sayma had bolted awake, crying out and waking Brynjolf, just as the sun was high in the sky. Once again she had heard the man’s voice, deep and commanding, speaking to her in the dark.
Come to me.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Bryn,” she had told him, trying to calm herself. “It’s easier to deal with the Night Mother. At least I have something to look at when she speaks to me, and I know where the voice is coming from. This – I don’t know who it is, or where it is, or whether it even has anything to do with finding the Cowl. What if it’s one of the Daedra?”
Brynjolf had retrieved their armor from the roof and brought it inside, quiet and thoughtful as he dressed.
“It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve dealt with one of those. But I can see why you’d be a bit nervous.” He began filling his water skins from the keg Sayma had insisted they bring from Falkreath. “It’s probably stupid to leave at this time of day. But I feel like we really need to get this done, and soon.”
Sayma had agreed. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Ben Erai. It was the growing sense of unease, of impending disaster, that had her wanting to get on with things.
I don’t know whether it’s something here, or something back home. But something is just wrong and I want to get this done and taken care of.
The air was heavy on this day. It was dry, as it always was in the desert, but it felt heavy, and thick, and even the dune ripper they needed to dispatch at a small building east of Ben Erai seemed to move lethargically as the heat waves rippled up off the sand. Brynjolf chased it over the dune and past the structure, and it scurried off, unwilling to engage further. They ducked inside the gazebo for a moment of shade.
“Must have scared them off,” Brynjolf said as he took a sip of water. “What is this place?”
“Not sure.” Sayma examined the pedestal in the center of the space. There was something familiar about the item in its center; and when she touched it she found out why. There was an explosion of magic, and light leapt up from the pedestal through the roof. She stepped out from under cover and looked up, to find that the light shone as far up into the sky as the blinding sun would allow her to see.
“Magical lantern. At least we’ll know where we’ve been if we need to find the way back. Let’s go.”
Sayma led them east. At least she hoped she was going east, and north, roughly following the odd line of tall obelisks placed at regular intervals stretching across the dunes. They passed a group of wolves at the top of one dune; the beasts howled at them but stayed their distance. They were about to descend into the next valley, near the eastern range of rocky hills, when she heard it again.
Come to me.
“What in Oblivion…?” Sayma stopped short, and ran back up to the crest of the dune for a better vantage point. She looked around, in all directions; but aside from the wolves moving past them there were no signs of life.
“What is it?” Brynjolf said as he pulled up alongside her.
“I heard him again.”
“While you were awake this time. Hmm.”
“Yes, and I have no idea where it’s coming from either. But it’s too hot to stop and look around; let’s keep going.”
“Agreed.”
The trail of obelisks led them through another valley and up yet another high ridge. The view from its crest was startling. Directly before them, atop the next ridge, was another gazebo like the one in which they’d found the lantern. To its left, though, was a dense grove of trees. And all of them were dead; only their bones reached to the sky like a tribe in supplication to the gods for a bit of moisture.
“That doesn’t look like an oasis to me,” Brynjolf said. “Except for those few live trees around the building there.”
“I know. I really think we’re going the wrong way. But I don’t know what the right way is. All I know is east and north of Ben Erai, and that’s where we’re going. Isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I’m certain of it. Well let’s at least get inside for a few moments and get some shade, and we can decide where to go from there.”
Between the insistent, disembodied voice and the dead forest they’d stumbled into Sayma was feeling unsettled, and was grateful for Brynjolf’s calm. She trotted down the side of the dune they were on and trudged up the next, stepping gratefully into the slight shade provided by the gazebo on the ridge. It, too, held a lantern. She touched it, and again heard the percussive sound of magic activating; but once again she could not tell what sort of magic it might be. She didn’t have time to ponder it, either; she stepped outside to see whether there might be another beam of light reaching up from here and instead met a fireball. A dune ripper had been scuffling about on the far side of the ridge, just below their sight line; but it had heard them approaching and attacked.
Sayma cried out as the fire flared in her face, and only barely avoided being scorched by rolling to the side. By the time she’d scrambled back to her feet, Brynjolf was closing on the creature, firing arrows as fast as he could, the menace in his posture unsettling even to her. She drew her own bow and joined him in the hunt. As her last arrow buried itself in the dune ripper’s head, felling it, two other things happened.
First, a skeleton hurtled up the bank behind Brynjolf, and took a swing at him with a war axe.
Second, the wind rose, suddenly and unexpectedly, and with it a stinging cloud of sand that darkened the sky. The temperature dropped, which was a relief; but it was hard to see and hard to breathe.
Sayma took the best breath she was able to take and shrieked, an incoherent noise at best. Brynjolf had already turned to face the skeleton. The axe blow had obviously missed him; either that, or he was better at fighting through an injury than she knew. He barely missed a beat before drawing his sword and downing the skeleton with one massive swipe.
He ran back up the hill toward her, and they ducked back inside the gazebo for a moment. Sayma had to fight the instinct to grab Brynjolf and check him for injuries; all she could do was look at the way he moved and assume that he was mostly in one piece.
“Sandstorm,” she mumbled. “Cover your face and pull that hood down over your eyes. I don’t know how long they last here, but they’re miserable.”
“Aye, it’s hard to see out there.”
“At least it’s not as hot. Are you alright?”
“Yes. I don’t know why that beast was such a bad shot but all the axe did was to startle me.”
She reached for a water skin and took a sip. “Did you see what I saw? It’s like everything is dead out there. Besides the obvious, I mean.”
“Yes. I don’t know what’s caused it but it doesn’t look natural to me. If it was just the weather, or the desert, there would be at least a few trees still alive here and there, you would think. There’s nothing out there, not even a sapling.”
He smiled at her, and she didn’t believe for a moment that he was really as unscathed as he pretended to be; but Sayma decided to accept the smile and move on. It was going to be hard to navigate in the sandstorm, but continuing on the northeasterly path they’d been taking was probably going to be their best bet, as far as she could tell.
Sayma led the way out of the gazebo and back along the crest of the hill it sat on, and to her dismay saw two more skeletons, down in the next gully, neither of which seemed to have spotted them yet. One was just at the edge of her bow’s range; she took careful aim and fired at it when it stopped to look around. The arrow, and the shock enchantment supplied by her bow, disintegrated it easily. She kept moving in its direction; but as she went, visibility dropped rapidly. It seemed as though every few paces they moved, another skeleton shuffled forward from the dust clouds. They weren’t difficult to dispatch, but the farther they went the more uneasy she felt.
Two skeletons walking side by side emerged from behind a curious stone wall. They seemed oblivious to Sayma and Brynjolf’s presence. She looked at him and pointed toward the skeleton on the right; he nodded, drew his bow and took it down as she did the same for the one on the left. The wall behind which they had come was flat, and narrow, and had two vaguely triangular points on either end. Stranger still, they found three more of them as they crept around it; four short, eared walls arranged in a square, with a set of braziers and a font of magic in its center. They approached the center, and at least six skeletons rushed out from behind the other walls to attack. They were both very busy for the next few minutes.
“What is going on?” Sayma panted as Brynjolf resheathed his sword.
“Don’t know. I have a feeling it’s related to the dead trees, though.”
Sayma scanned the area, feeling more than a bit nervous. The light was beginning to wane, the wind hadn’t died a bit, and she still had no real idea where they were supposed to be going. She turned this way and that, trying to orient herself with respect to the rough square of walls; but they were all identical and she couldn’t remember which of them they had first approached.
Oasis. Oasis of Mora Sul. This is as opposite an oasis as I can imagine, with all the dead. Dead trees, dead people, dead…
Far in front of her she caught movement, and reflexively pulled her bow and fired at it even as the creature dropped down the next hillside out of sight. She could almost feel the resounding thwack as the ebony arrow struck its target; but she also sensed that whatever she had hit was not down. She dashed behind a piece of toppled stone block that might once have been part of a wall or pillar, and looked out around it. Her mouth fell open and chills ran up her back.
Running back up the sand dune was a figure in black, wearing a distinctive horned helmet. It was a draugr death lord, a creature she had met only once before, in the company of the former Guildmaster Mercer Frey. It had been a formidable enemy then and she was certain it would be no less formidable now. Sayma fired another quick shot at it, scanning desperately around her for any sign of Brynjolf but not seeing him.
“Bryn!” she shrieked. “Over here! Deathlord!”
Brynjolf appeared from around the corner of one of the four walls, his bow at the ready, frowning as he scanned the area for threats. She wanted to heave a sigh of relief; but behind him yet another skeleton came rushing toward them.
“Look out!” she shouted, firing at the skeleton and dismantling it. Brynjolf frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but the words never came.
“FUS- RO DAH!” she heard, and squeaked in fright as she recognized the words of Unrelenting Force for the first time and saw the shock wave of the Draugr’s Shout blast toward them. She readied her bow and tried to slide around the narrow end of the nearest wall, but before she had made it all the way there, she heard a guttural grunt.
“Who’s there?” Brynjolf snarled.
She peered back at him just in time to see the draugr, tall and fearsome with its dead blue eyes glowing malice, strike Brynjolf with some sort of cold-enchanted weapon. Brynjolf grunted, but didn’t miss a beat; even as his armor whitened with frost he pulled his sword and an ebony dagger and forced the attack on the draugr. “Is that all you’ve got?” he growled, whirling to give his Daedric sword the benefit of his mass and momentum.
Sayma fired another arrow at the draugr and then nearly panicked; for just as she released the bowstring Brynjolf stepped to the left, nearly in front of the draugr. In a fraction of a moment that seemed to last forever she waited for her own arrow to cut down her partner, wondering how she would manage to save his life and her own at the same time. And then the dance between Brynjolf and the draugr proceeded; they drifted apart just long enough for the arrow to slam into the draugr’s chest. The draugr staggered back, but did not fall; Brynjolf took advantage of that moment to step forward and bring his sword straight down in a massive blow that ended the creature.
Her knees nearly gave out at how close they had come to disaster. I almost killed him. I can’t believe it.
“Thank the gods, Bryn. I thought he had us.”
“Aye, that was close.”
Closer than you think. I never would be able to forgive myself if I hurt you by mistake.
“Listen!” he hissed. “What was that?”
She looked around, turned in all directions, but saw nothing. “I don’t see anything, Red. What…”
He shook his head. “There’s something out there still. Down the hill. Let’s go.”
She moved forward, down into the rocky gully beyond the walls. There was one more skeleton, moving out of the sandstorm toward them; but that surely was not what he had heard. It was a simple matter to end it; in fact she barely stopped moving, just aimed her bow and shot it. But she could feel the unease radiating from Brynjolf and began to feel it herself.
She slid to the left, and downhill further into the gully. As they inched forward a structure on the next hill, up against the first outcroppings of the stony mountains, emerged from the clouds of sand. Unlike so many of the other places they’d discovered here in the desert this one did not resemble the Halls of the West, or Al Shedim. Nor was it another Dwemer ruin.
A barrow? An ancient Nord barrow? Here?
Yet another skeleton shuffled out in their direction; Brynjolf picked it off with a quick bowshot. Sayma rubbed the sand away from her eyes and squinted out ahead of them. She caught movement, or thought she did; Brynjolf tapped her on the arm and pointed in the direction she’d seen something. She nodded and let fly a long shot, in the direction of what seemed like it might be another skeleton.
It wasn’t.
The figure running toward them was another death lord draugr, ready for the attack. She took another couple of quick shots at it, one of which went wild and missed. She ran perpendicular to its path to get clear, just as it inhaled.
“FUS- RO DAH!”
The shock of the force shout missed her, and she turned to take aim on the creature again. But in that short blink of time, Brynjolf had sprinted into battle and was slashing away at the death lord. Sayma searched frantically for an opening to shoot at the draugr, but they were moving too quickly. Every arrow either flew far wide of its target or came dangerously close to striking Brynjolf.
“FO- KRAH DIIN!”
Sayma’s head whipped right as she heard the now-familiar words of Frost Breath and watched a billowing cloud of white roll toward the battle.
“Brynjolf! Look out!” she shrieked; but it was far too late and the howling of the sandstorm far too loud for him to hear over the sounds of his own battle. The frost cloud struck both him and the draugr before him, and drove both of them to their knees.
“No!” she cried, loosing another arrow at the draugr.
For a moment it seemed that she could do nothing other than fire recklessly in the direction of the battle. There were two death lords now, both trying their best to kill Brynjolf, and she could not seem to move. It felt as though the words of Frost Breath had frozen her, not Brynjolf.
I’m a stealth fighter. I kill in the dark, from behind, in secret. I can’t do this.
And Brynjolf is a thief, not a melee warrior. He’s going to die if you don’t get in there and do something!
For once she did not argue with the other voice in her mind. It didn’t matter whose voice it was. Her legs started moving, and then picked up speed; and as she ran she secured her bow and drew her two swords.
You won’t have him.
Brynjolf cried out, and went down on one knee for a moment.
Sayma saw red. She barreled into the draugr that she’d seen first, the one that had several ebony arrows buried in its chest. Flailing and hacking as hard as she could, she managed to bring it down quickly and turn to find the second towering over Brynjolf with an axe raised high. It started to laugh – a dry, raspy, horrible sound. She managed to block its axe long enough for Brynjolf to move aside, and then began what was in retrospect one of the fiercest flurries of strikes she’d ever thrown. It took her several moments, but the draugr finally fell.
And then it got even worse.
She turned, relieved, looking for Brynjolf, and saw yet another death lord come running up the slope toward him, a greatsword raised over his shoulder, ready for the attack. She opened her mouth to scream at him, but the draugr cut her off with a Shout. Unrelenting Force knocked Brynjolf backward and off his feet. Sayma sprinted to cut off the draugr’s path to him and laid into him with both swords; but her arms were tiring and her blows weren’t as strong as they had been. As she drew back for another strike, and a breath with which to support it, the beast Shouted frost at Brynjolf once more, forcing him down again. Sayma clenched her jaw and forced herself forward, bringing the Daedric sword from the Halls of the West down across the back of its neck.
Finally, it dropped.
Sayma rushed to Brynjolf and grabbed his upper arms. “Are you alright?”
He nodded. “Hardly felt a thing.” But it was clear that he was exhausted; there was a tiny tremor in his stance that spoke of muscles not quite strong enough to resist freezing, and she knew that beneath the black leathers he would be a mass of bruises.
“Liar,” she said, to be rewarded with a grin.
“Alright then. I hurt. I want to go see if that barrow has a place we can rest for a moment. I need some water and I don’t want to be drinking sand along with it.”
They explored the area for a few moments. The barrow itself was impassable; only the front entryway was clear of sand and stone rubble. The sarcophagi from which the draugr had come were open, and empty. Nearby there was a stone hut containing a half-buried chest with a few coins in it; it was at least something to block the wind and sand, and they sat for a few minutes to sip water, and rest.
“At least it’s not burning hot anymore,” Brynjolf said.
“Right. But the sun’s going down and this sandstorm doesn’t show any signs of stopping. I still don’t know where we are but I’m certain this wasn’t our goal. Four Deathlords, Bryn! What do you suppose has happened here?”
He shook his head, peering out into the storm. “No idea. I’d have laughed at myself to say this before the end of Mercer, but I would guess it’s some kind of curse. I couldn’t imagine what put it in place. But nothing else could explain all the death.”
Once they had their legs back under them, they continued on their way. Because they were now up against the mountains – Sayma presumed they had found the eastern range – she continued hugging the range as they moved generally toward the north. Not too far from the barrow they encountered what had once been a camp. There was a broken-down cart, mostly filled with sand. The remnants of a fire pit still poked up through the drifts, with a surprisingly intact, if rusted, cooking spit still waiting above it. An old chest was open, and like the cart was filled with sand. There was nothing else there, at least nothing that was visible until Brynjolf stumbled over a skull. He harrumphed, then leaned down and started moving sand aside. There was in fact a group of two or three skeletons, all in pieces and all piled in the same spot. Once they were clear of their burial, the wind took the lighter bones and began rolling them away from the campsite.
“Odd,” he said, shaking his head at her.
“Very. Something covered them all up in this one spot. I don’t really understand it.”
“Neither do I. Let’s keep moving.”
Sayma looked around. She turned in a complete circle, several times. They’d moved far enough away from the barrow that they were surrounded by rocky outcroppings. It wasn’t clear, in the heavy sandstorm, which were the mountains and which were not. And she had no idea which way to go.
Gods damn it. I’m lost. I am completely lost.
She tried to make out the general direction of the dwindling light, and put what she thought she saw on her left. If she was right, that would take them generally north. They trotted along for some time, up and down the sand dunes, and then Sayma saw something horizontal, regular, and clearly man-made. It might be Al Shedim! If it’s Al Shedim it’s not where we want to be but at least I’ll know where we are! She broke into a sprint and ran for it, wanting to reach whatever it was before it got completely dark.
Halfway up the next rise, Sayma realized that she was once again completely disoriented. There was no sound aside from the roaring of the wind. She couldn’t truly see anything in the sand aside from vaguely darker shapes here and there in the distance, and she couldn’t judge how great that distance might be. She swung around to look for Brynjolf and couldn’t see him, and her heart started to pound in panic.
“Bryn? Brynjolf? Where are you?”
She heard the sound of his footsteps before his form emerged from the dark.
“I’m right here. Right behind you.”
She nodded, not wanting to reveal how relieved she was to see him, and started running again. She could no longer spy the outlines she’d been certain were those of Al Shedim, but began running in what she hoped was that direction. They needed to get somewhere, out of the sandstorm, and soon; and they needed to find the Cowl. She ran, and ran, not knowing how fast she was going or how far they’d gone, and suddenly, out of the darkness came a stone brick wall. She stopped short and stared at it.
We’ve run all the way to Riften, she thought briefly; and indeed the wall looked very much like the walls around their home city.
“Where are we?” Brynjolf murmured.
“I don’t know. I thought I was heading for Al Shedim. This isn’t it. And it doesn’t look like an oasis.”
“No. Let’s keep going and see what we find.”
What they found was twofold. First, and not too far beyond them, was another of the fountains glimmering with magic that they’d passed several times before. Second, there was a dune ripper; and this one got the drop on them, its senses better than theirs in the sandstorm. There was a huge, fiery explosion, and Brynjolf cried out. Sayma turned to see him outlined in flames and immediately drew her bow. She struck the creature twice before it once again spat a fireball at Brynjolf.
Sayma heard him yelp, and screamed at him. “Back UP, Brynjolf! Get away from it!”
But Brynjolf couldn’t hear her over the wind. He kept advancing on the dune ripper, bow drawn, taunting it with sounds she could barely hear in words she could not understand. She cried out in frustration and readied another shot, only to watch both Brynjolf and the dune ripper completely vanish into the dark clouds of disorienting sand. She followed as best she could, pulling out her swords. It was more likely than ever now that she was going to come up on an adversary with no warning at all, and she would be better equipped to defend herself with her swords.
Then the most remarkable thing happened. As she descended toward the sounds of Brynjolf fighting, the sandstorm sputtered. For a moment it was as clear as though there had never been a storm; she could see a tiny oasis at the bottom of the valley before her, and could see Brynjolf beating on the dune ripper. She could also see and hear multiple wolves attacking him as well. Then the wind picked up again, and the sand with it; and she ran blindly forward into it toward the battle she knew was taking place.
She reached the edge of the water. Three wolves leapt toward her. But wolves, she could handle; and because she had picked up more soul gems along the way their energies exploded and rushed to her as she took them out one after the next. She killed three of them, and saw the carcasses of two others on the ground; but when she looked for Brynjolf she found him halfway up the next hill, chasing down the dune ripper that had twice fire blasted him.
Stendarr’s great shiny balls, Bryn, leave the damnable thing alone!
He was flagging. That much was clear. He wasn’t running up the sand dune so much as plodding up it. The storm, though, had died, just as easily as it had started; and with clear vision before her Sayma was able to sprint up to the crest of the hill and take aim at the beast with her bow. It took only two more shots before the thing died.
She turned and stared at him, waiting as he trudged the rest of the way to meet her.
“I thought you didn’t like fire.”
“Don’t,” he panted, grinning. “But I like those things even less. It had to die.”
“Yeah, well, you might have as well, tough guy. It may come as something of a surprise to you, Guildmaster, sir, but I really do not want to see you die out here in the middle of some forgotten armpit of Hammerfell.”
He laughed. “A forgotten armpit. That would be quite a feat.” He reached down and started patting his armor, clouds of dust and sand falling away from it. He ran his hands through his hair and shook it out, and then tried valiantly to dust off his beard. “It’s everywhere. I’ll bet I have sand in places we won’t even mention.”
In spite of herself, Sayma had to laugh at him. “I know. It’s going to be fun getting rid of it all.” She pointed down over the hill. “But not right now. Look at that!”
Before them, nestled against the mountains, was the wall she’d nearly collided with not long before. A cold, luminescent fog filled the area behind it, rising up against the mountains and spilling over the wall in places. Sayma thought she could see movement behind the walls, bright spots of light traversing whatever landscape there was back there.
“That’s the place we saw before, isn’t it?” Brynjolf asked. “When we were getting ready to visit the cheetahs. That’s the spot.”
Sayma nodded. “I think so. I think we need to go see what it is. It may be where the Cowl is hidden, don’t you think? I didn’t see anything else that looked like an oasis that might have a name.”
“Hmm. I’ve never heard of an oasis with a stone wall around the outside. But we are right here. We may as well look.” He stretched his arms out behind him and rotated his shoulders. “Ugh. I’m going to be sore later on. But never mind. You lead and I’ll follow, Listener.”
Sayma grinned at him. Listener, indeed. “Whatever you say, Red.”
She started down the hillside toward the walls, snickering as she heard the inevitable disgusted grunt behind her.
