In spite of Ulfric’s concerns about Frina’s well-being, the four of them were walking back to Windhelm. She had put her foot down.
“I’m pregnant, Ulfric, I’m not ill. I need exercise so that when the time comes I’ll be strong and ready. I want to walk home. Besides, it will add to our time away, and nobody will be expecting us to be on foot, right?”
“You do have a point, Stormblade,” Ulfric had told her reluctantly.
“There are two of us with the Voice in this caravan,” Dardeh had said. “Even if someone tries to bother us I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“I also still have the ability to swing an axe,” Frina said sourly. She was happy that they were concerned about her, but they seemed to have forgotten that she had single-handedly cleared out the Blood Horkers’ base.
“And you don’t want to be in front of that axe,” Roggi chuckled. “Trust me.”
Frina was enjoying the fresh air as they made their way north. What she was not enjoying, in the least, was the atmosphere of doom and gloom that surrounded all of them. It wasn’t that it was unwarranted; the idea of Edwyn Wickham being out to get all of them raised her hackles. It was just that being continually on guard was tiring and stressful, and the exercise only did so much to cut through that anxiety. She also was trying to process the information that Brynjolf had been a vampire.
“Roggi.”
He was just behind her when she asked.
“Yeah?”
“You’ve known Brynjolf for awhile, right?”
“Yes, probably longest of all of us aside from Sayma.”
“Why? Why was he a vampire?”
She heard him sigh heavily. He didn’t answer right away, and she didn’t want to badger him about it. Finally he cleared his throat.
“Well, there were a few reasons. I think he needed to feel like he was in control of something again.”
“I don’t understand.”
They walked for a long while after that while Roggi told her the story of how Sayma had been Dagnell, and how Brynjolf had ended up with Andante, and how they had found her again. He hesitated for a moment.
“I’m worried about him,” Roggi said. “I took care of him when he was giving up. Before he got together with Andante. I know he thinks that being that powerful again could defeat Edwyn but… I can’t help but think it would put him right back where he was way back then.”
“You mean you think Sayma would leave him?” Dardeh asked.
“I don’t know, Dar. But yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want him to give up.”
“Well he’s not going to just rush into anything. At least I don’t think so,” Dardeh said.
“Hmmm.” Ulfric’s rumble startled Frina a bit. “Perhaps we can remove his incentive to turn again. Perhaps it is time to put some pressure on these recalcitrant Jarls to hold the Moot at last. There is true danger afoot, and not from the source they expected. It is in Skyrim’s best interests to have a High King in place, and for that High King to pressure the rest of the Empire to finally turn its attention to the vacancies in its own ruling body. If the decision has been made, Edwyn Wickham will become moot and thus the need for Brynjolf to become stronger to fight him will, as well.”
“You’ll forgive me for saying this, Ulfric – at least I hope you will – but I can’t help but wonder whether you’re maneuvering to have yourself put on that highest throne,” Roggi rumbled. “Please don’t be angry with me. It needs to be said. Again.”
“Roggi!” Dardeh snapped, turning to his husband. “You have got to cut it out with this stuff. Ulfric’s going to be High King of Skyrim. That’s all. We all agreed on this. That’s why we fought the damn war. What is your problem at this point?”
“Perhaps Roggi desires the throne for himself.” Ulfric’s slight grin, and the wink he gave Roggi, said that he wasn’t serious. Roggi made a face at him and chuckled.
“No. I’m just the High King’s Inquisitor, if I’m anything at all in the new world coming along.”
“Don’t be bothered, Dragonborn,” Ulfric said. “Roggi only speaks the truth. I admit it. There was a time when perhaps I might have coveted even more power. I might even have thought I deserved it. After all, I am the Jarl of Windhelm, hand-picked as a child to become a Greybeard because of my talent with the Voice. I admit it. I assumed that I was special.” He reached for Frina’s hand then, and squeezed it, and she felt the strength of his love through his touch. Ulfric stopped walking, then, and turned to face Roggi.
“But now, Roggi, what I want is to spend my remaining days with my family. And while I would hope that you know this already, if I have need of an Inquisitor I would have nobody but you in the position.”
To Frina’s utter surprise, Roggi smiled, and then bowed. It was the sort of bow one would expect to be given to a king, and yet given at the degree one might expect between equals. It conveyed a sense of acceptance, not just acceptance of Ulfric’s new role but also acceptance of himself.
“You do me honor, sir,” he said quietly.
To Frina’s ear it was the most honest and heartfelt thing she had ever heard Roggi say. She noticed Dardeh give him a curious glance. It sounded different to him, as well. Genuine. Respectful.
“Honor which you have earned and richly deserve,” Ulfric said quietly. “Yes, I will be High King. I will do that work for Skyrim. I owe her that, after taking her through the pain of this war just past. But beyond that I desire nothing more than to greet my son and see him on the road to his own story.”
“We will do that together, Ulfric,” Frina said, smiling at him.
“Yes. You and I, and our extended family. Including Roggi and the Dragonborn.”
“Dardeh,” Dardeh snorted. “You know, Ulfric, the first time I met you, you took a look at me and just dismissed me as some nameless Redguard. I have a name. Dardeh at-Dadarh if you want to get all technical and Redguardian about it. That’s one son of a bitch the world is better off without, and I’m glad my mother was a Nord who raised me as a Nord.”
“And I am ashamed to admit that I do not remember much of that encounter, and am very sorry if I looked at you that way. I doubtless did. I remember our later meetings, though, and I am afraid I treated you not much better; and for that I am appalled, and very sorry. But regardless of who your father was the world is a far better place for having you in it,” Ulfric continued. “Perhaps… No. It’s ridiculous.”
“Perhaps what, Ulfric?” Roggi asked. “You know better than to just leave something hanging in midair like that. Spit it out.”
Frina stifled a giggle. As painful as it had been to discover that these two men she loved most in the world had once loved each other, and as irritating as it was to have Roggi continually on edge about being in Ulfric’s company again, it still made her heart sing to hear what was clearly an old, well-worn friendship emerging once more, bit by bit.
“Dardeh said something in Riften that has had my mind searching back through the old tales yet again.”
“And what was that? We all said a great deal while we were there,” Roggi asked.
“He spoke of how he would never be the Emperor. And yet, by tradition, only the Dragonborn can lay claim to the Ruby Throne and rule as the one, true Emperor by divine right. Perhaps it is meant to be, Dragonborn, that you are to reclaim the Ruby Throne.”
Frina realized then that there were only three of them walking together. Roggi and Ulfric were next to each other and she was on Ulfric’s far side, holding his hand. She released that hand and turned to see Dardeh, standing stock-still in the middle of the road, his face as pale as she could imagine it ever being.
“Dardeh? Are you alright? What is it?”
“No,” he rumbled.
“No to which, Dar?” Roggi said. “You’re not alright? What’s happened?”
“I can never take the Ruby Throne,” Dardeh said.
“But you are the Dragonborn,” Ulfric said. “Surely there must be something to the old-“
“NID!”
The ground shook around them as Dardeh’s Shout took them all by surprise. It was Dardeh’s voice, no doubt; but it was overlaid with huge, cavernous, angry tones twice as deep as his natural timbre and wider than any voice Frina had ever heard before. The immense sound rousted birds from the grasses where they’d hidden; they took to the air in noisy clouds of dust and feathers. Frina gasped, and grabbed at Ulfric’s arm to steady herself. As the shock wave of the Shout dispersed over the landscape some distant wolves began howling. Frina looked at Ulfric, whose eyes were wide.
Roggi, who had put his hands to his knees for balance for just a moment, straightened and calmly stepped up to Dardeh. He put both hands on Dardeh’s shoulders.
“Calm down, Dragon-boy. It’s alright. Tell us what’s going on.”
Dardeh snarled. Then he blinked a couple of times and gave Roggi a quizzical look.
“Dragon-boy? Are you serious? Dragon-boy?”
Roggi grinned. “Well, you’re the one who said I got the dragon, my love. Seems only fair I get to give him a pet name, yes?”
Dardeh smiled. Then he broke out into a chuckle. “Yes. Thank you, Roggi.”
Frina had the sense that Roggi had just managed to avert a potential disaster. Just his touch, a calm voice, and a bit of humor had brought Dardeh back to himself.
Roggi dropped his hands and stepped back. “So, why all the noise?”
Dardeh shook his head. “I can never be the Emperor, and not just because I’m not a ruler-type. Seriously. If one of us was going to be the Emperor it would be Ulfric, and he doesn’t want it.” He shrugged his shoulders and started slowly down the road again. The rest of them fell into a comfortable pace behind him.
“Listen. When I was on Solstheim, I learned a lot of the old legends from the Skaal. They’re the reason I was there for so long – or at least part of the reason. There’s an old book that talks about the fight between Dragon Priests – one called the Guardian and the other one called the Traitor – that they say is what tore Solstheim away from the mainland. That part of it is pretty far-fetched, but it’s not the most important thing. The outcome was that the Traitor was subdued and the Guardian ruled over Solstheim for a very long time.”
“Alright,” Frina said. “So it’s an old legend about good and evil. What does that have to do with you, Dardeh?”
“Well, the Guardian didn’t kill the Traitor. He was about to, but Herma-Mora snatched the Traitor away at the last moment and hid him away from the world.” Dardeh glanced at each of them in turn to make sure they were paying attention. “The same thing happened to me.”
“What do you mean, Dragonborn?” Ulfric asked.
“Miraak was a Dragon Priest – he called himself the First Dragonborn. He started emerging on Solstheim again not long before I went there. His cultists almost killed Roggi, because he was with me. That’s why I went there to kill him. I am certain Miraak was the Traitor from that legend. I’m certain of it.” He closed his eyes and shook his head; Frina could see the eyes moving beneath their lids and knew he was reliving the scene. “I almost had him, in Apocrypha. It was a terrible fight, but I was no more than a few blows away from killing him. He was almost defeated. And then Hermaeus Mora appeared and finished the job before I could do it.”
“Well,” Frina said, trying furiously to sort it all out, “that means you’re the Guardian, doesn’t it? The good guy? The one who brought peace and justice to the world? You also killed Alduin and helped us restore Talos worship to Skyrim. Isn’t that all the proof you need?”
“And therefore you would be an excellent candidate for Emperor, would you not?” Ulfric said quietly.
“NID.”
It was quieter, this time, not delivered with the same awful volume as it had been before, but Frina still had to check her balance as the word’s massive undertones shook ground beneath her feet. She stared at Dardeh in amazement.
“Why are you suddenly speaking dragon, Dar? Just say ‘no’ and get it over with,” Roggi said, reaching out to touch Dardeh again. It seemed to Frina that he was grounding Dardeh, somehow; anchoring him to the world he was supposed to be in.
Dardeh opened his eyes. “No. It would be a terrible thing. You see, I’m not the Guardian. I’m the Traitor.”
Frina frowned. “You just said that you defeated Miraak.”
“No. I said that Hermaeus Mora killed him. I watched Miraak die. And then I heard Mora tell me the reason. Miraak had outlived his usefulness. Hermaeus Mora chose me to take his place. There’s a specific passage I remember: ‘…the people of Solstheim, the heirs of the Guardian, must remain wary, lest the dark influence of Herma-Mora, or even the Traitor himself, return someday.’”
“Dar. Is that what you meant when we were leaving Septimus’ cave, after you read the book?” Roggi’s face was wreathed in a frown so deep that Frina could barely see his eyes.
“Yeah. That’s what I meant. He owns me, Roggi. That’s what I told you. He’s put his knowledge directly into my brain with those Black Books, and especially the one we found with Septimus. I fight him, as hard as I can, but…” He sighed heavily and looked at each of them in turn. “Don’t you see? I may be Dragonborn. I may have defeated Alduin. But I’m the last Dragonborn for a reason. If I were to sit on that throne – any throne, but that one in particular – Hermaeus Mora would have access to all the power in the mortal world.”
They all stared at him. Roggi put a hand on Dardeh’s back and rubbed up and down in a reassuring motion.
“Dar. You’re not the bad guy. I understand what you’re saying, but you’re wrong. You’re the good guy. You’re always thinking about everyone else, and what’s good for all of us.” He leaned over and kissed Dardeh’s cheek. “You don’t have to be Emperor. You’d be a lousy Emperor, anyway. You’re not devious enough for the job,” he added, chuckling.
“This is still important, though,” Ulfric said.
Frina looked at his frown and felt a cold shudder run down her spine. “What do you mean?”
Ulfric sighed. “It is important because it is yet another reason to keep Dardeh safe from Edwyn Wickham.”
She was thoroughly confused for a moment, even as she heard Dardeh’s sharp intake of breath. Then it dawned on her; she spoke, slowly at first and then building momentum as the thought solidified in her mind.
“If … there’s anything at all to the idea that he could take Dardeh’s power with his blood… he could inadvertently give Hermaeus Mora access to the world in that way, through the vehicle of an ancient vampire. Couldn’t he.”
Dardeh nodded. “So you see. I’m not just a bad candidate to be Emperor. I’m dangerous. I’m dangerous because I’m at least the equal of those four old men up on the mountain who refuse to use their Voices. I’m dangerous because I can kill people without intending to do it. And I’m dangerous because I could give the most powerful vampire in the world even more power. I should … go away.”
Roggi snarled audibly and once more grabbed Dardeh by his upper arms, so hard that Frina flinched looking at the indentations his fingers made in Dardeh’s padded sleeves. He roared, not in the huge, monstrous sounds Dardeh had made but a guttural, terrifying voice that she’d never before heard from him.
“Don’t you dare say a thing like that, Dardeh at-Dadarh. You belong to me,” he said, shaking Dardeh. “Not Hermaeus Mora. Me. You are staying, with me. I will not let you go. You’re mine. Do you understand me?”
There was a moment of utter silence before Ulfric chuckled. “Don’t argue with him, Dragonborn. He’ll take out your fingernails.”
Dardeh sighed heavily and gave Roggi a weak smile. “I know it, Ulfric. You’re right, Roggi. I belong to you. Don’t worry. I’ll keep on fighting, here, just as long as you’re near me to help.”
Roggi dropped his hands and nodded. “You know it.”
Ulfric turned to Frina and smiled. “Let’s get back to Windhelm, love. Then we can decide how to proceed.”
Frina followed along beside them, mute. She was still trying to process what she had just seen and heard. Roggi and Ulfric had exchanged expressions of complete respect for each other, which was not something she’d ever expected to see. Dardeh had sounded like…
A dragon. He really sounded like a dragon.
She remembered the black and green dragon that had dropped onto the road in front of her, when she’d been passing by the cabin where a dog had been valiantly guarding his master’s dead body. That was the sound Dardeh had made: huge, and menacing, and more powerful than anything she’d ever heard before from either him or Ulfric.
And all he said was “no.”
And Roggi had faced him down as if all that power was nothing at all.
Frina grabbed hold of Ulfric’s hand and squeezed it again, needing to feel something warm and solid that was familiar. She looked up at Ulfric and caught his gaze. She must have looked distressed; for he gave her a small smile and wrapped one arm around her shoulders as if to say “I will protect you.”
She glanced over to see Dardeh and Roggi walking side-by-side. As she’d seen before, their hands would occasionally touch, their fingers intertwine for just a moment and then release, as though they weren’t doing it consciously but were reassuring each other that they existed, here and now in this world, and that nothing would ever tear them apart.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people so perfectly matched. Talos chose them for each other, for a reason. I’m sure of it.
They were approaching the bridge into Windhelm when Dardeh spoke again. “I think you may have been on to something, Ulfric.”
“Oh? What would that be?”
“I may not be Emperor material myself, but it seems to me that between Roggi and me we could put the fear of Talos in some of the Jarls, don’t you?”
“Might be a decent thing for us to do while we wait for word from Brynjolf; is that what you’re thinking?” Roggi asked, pushing open the gate to Windhelm and holding it for the rest to go through.
“Yeah,” Dardeh said. “Ulfric, since I’m no expert at all on these things, what can you tell us about organizing a Moot?”
Ulfric chuckled. “Let’s make our way to the palace and do some planning, shall we?”
Frina followed the three men quietly, grateful that she would soon be able to shed the too-tight armor and sit down. As much as she wanted to be an integral part of the planning, the business of growing an heir apparent was taking it out of her, more with every day that passed.
How is it that I have become a part of things that are so large?
She rubbed the spot beneath which Harald Stormcloak wiggled in his warm cocoon, and slipped into the warmth of her home, making her way toward the back stairway. As she entered the second stairwell to their bedroom, she shook her head.
It is what I get for loving Ulfric. I am to be the High Queen. I don’t know how such a thing came about but … if Talos put Roggi into Dardeh’s path, perhaps he also had a reason for putting me into Ulfric’s. I can only hope that’s the case. If I don’t think of it that way, I’m going to be too frightened to continue down this road.
___
Brynjolf found himself sitting on a tall wedge of rock next to the water. For several very long moments he looked around himself in confusion. It looked like the area around Lake Honrich, and yet it wasn’t Riften he was near. The town he was near reminded him of Shor’s Stone, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing a three-story building there, not even before the one house had burned leaving only its bones behind.
He rubbed his eyes trying to clear his head, and then looked down at himself. The clothes he wore were green, with tall, tall leather boots that came well above his knee before ending in a wide, turned-down cuff. He knew this clothing; but he hadn’t worn it since the days when he was traveling Skyrim with Dynjyl. At his belt was a pair of glass daggers, not the weapons he’d been carrying for years now.
He reached up to touch his own face and found that he had no beard. The hair, though, was long; well past his shoulders, with a braid on the left side, and a much more vibrant red than the dark, faded auburn he had grown into.
No beard, long hair.
Oh. I see. I’m dreaming. Well at least that means I finally got to sleep. It’s been days.
He cleared his throat and jumped when the sound he made was much lighter, much higher in pitch than the rich baritone he was used to hearing. He stood and looked around himself in confusion.
I’m just a boy. My voice hasn’t even stopped changing yet. I’m not even as old as I was when I met Dynny. What is this?
More to the point – where is this?
He hopped down off the rock and made his way toward the town. There was a house to his left, from the front of which he heard a woman calling out. Her tones were heavily accented – Nord, no question of that, but achingly familiar. He couldn’t quite put a finger on why he knew that voice, but he knew that he did.
He rounded the corner of the home and came perilously close to running straight into the woman in question. He stopped stock still, and stared.
She was at least half a head taller than he was, a fact that reinforced to him how young he was at present. She had long, unruly hair the same flaming red color as his. Gazing at her eyes he realized they were bright, emerald green – the same as his. For a moment the thought flitted through his mind that she might well have been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Then he wondered if, in his dream state, he’d somehow managed to conjure up one of the red-haired women from Andante’s stories.
It wouldn’t be too surprising, I suppose, after enjoying some of his recipe’s results. Who knows what it might have done to my mind. But I could at least be dreaming of myself as a grown man, not a…
“And what exactly are you doing back here, Bryn?” the woman said in her sing-song Nordic tones. “I thought you lived in Skyrim now.”
He gasped. It had been decades. Most of his life, in fact. But he knew who this was.
“Ma?”
This person standing before him was in fact Gulmist, a woman whose voice and touch he remembered dimly at best. And his mind, in his dream, had to be putting words in her mouth. There was no other explanation.
“Aye. And it seems to me that you’re out of place here, Brynny. You’re…” she waved her hand at him. “You’re far too grown up to be here, but you’re only half-grown. Your da will be beside himself when he sees you.”
She turned away and walked onto the porch of the home, and he followed her for a time. But when she swiveled back to face him again he stopped short, struck by the sad look on her face.
“Ah, my beautiful lad. It makes me so sad to see you. You were such a wee thing when you ran away and I never got to watch you grow up. You broke my heart, love. I never had another babe after you.”
“Wait. We’re in Falskaar, aren’t we?” He looked around, blinking, and knew it to be the case; his very dim memories from a childhood long ago left behind confirmed it for him.
“Aye. Amber Creek. You never came back, son. You ran away when you were so small, and you never came back. And now I see how you must have looked when you were older. You’re a handsome thing.” She smiled, for just a moment, but the smile faded, replaced again by a sad, regretful look.
“Ah, well I didn’t age that well in the long run, I’m afraid. Although my wife seems to like it well enough.”
Ah is this why I’m having this dream? And why none of it makes any sense? I’m worried about Sayma. That’s it, isn’t it.
“A wife. And children?”
“Two.” It somehow didn’t seem incongruous to hear a partially unchanged voice from a lanky, growing body speaking of being a father of two to a mother he’d not seen in thirty winters.
“Misty!” A deep voice called out from around the corner of the house, and Gulmist waved in that direction.
“Best go see your Da, son. I know he has things to say to you before you go.”
Brynjolf shook his head at the vision of his mother, and felt his eyes stinging. “No, Ma. I don’t want to go.” He heard his own youthful voice crack with emotion as she crossed her arms and turned away from him as she had when he was a child, sending him instead to his father. And then, as though he had no control over it at all, he found himself going back down the stairs from the porch and around to the rear of the building.
He approached the figure he hadn’t seen in so long, but whose stern features were etched in his memory so very clearly. He could see the roots of his own features in Brunulvr’s weathered face, though in many ways he resembled his mother more closely. Brunulvr had plain, medium brown hair, not the bright auburn he and his mother shared. But Brynjolf’s father had eyes the set of which he recognized well. He knew that his own narrow, keen, suspicious gaze had come to him naturally.
It would have been one thing if he’d been dreaming of himself as an adult. But in this dream this great bear of a man towered over him by almost a full head in height and had the full, stocky build he knew he had himself as a grown man: broad of chest, heavy of muscle. Brynjolf tried, but couldn’t help himself from beginning to tremble. In this dream he was helpless against the power he remembered his father wielding so easily.
“Ye’ve got a great deal of nerve to show up here of all places, ye reprobate, after all this time. Makin’ yer ma sad. Look at ye. Looks like ye don’ even know how te hold a weapon, much less wield one, ye thievin’ brat. It was just as well ye left when ye did.” He gave Brynjolf a withering scowl and looked him up and down, and then raised his left arm.
He knew that it was his own mind supplying Brunulvr’s scathing words, not the man himself. Who knew what the man might actually say to him now, after so many decades. Yet in spite of knowing it was just a dream, and in spite of knowing that he was a grown man with children of his own, Brynjolf found himself cowering at his father’s feet.
“Please don’t hit me again, Da,” his boyish voice wailed. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I took the things, and made you angry. I’m sorry I wasn’t what you wanted me to be, and I’m sorry I ran away! Please, don’t hit me!”
“Ye need to leave,” Brunulvr growled, pointing toward the horizon. “Ye’ve made a right mess of yer life yet again and yer own wee brats’ll suffer for it. Get out of here. Go back te Skyrim where ye belong and don’t be bringin’ yer mess here to upset yer ma.”
I’m afraid of my own father. A man I haven’t seen since I was a child.
Brynjolf rose to his feet, turned, and ran away from Brunulvr as fast as he could. He ran, and he ran; and the faster he ran the slower he seemed to go, running into a great, unending forest of shimmering golden aspens and birch that were indistinguishable from the great, unending forests of the Rift. He thrashed and turned in his bed, unable to wake himself from his dream, and found himself once again perched atop the rock next to the water, wearing the same outfit he’d worn when he sat beside the water crying over Dynjyl’s still form; and he thought of Chip, who would doubtless never understand why his father had chosen to become a vampire yet again.
For the longest time he couldn’t seem to wake from the dream. But he was sure he knew why he was having it. It was to make him wonder, once more, whether he had ever done anything right in his life. When at last his eyes opened and he found himself once more in his room in Honeyside, he sat up and cast his illusion spell. But he couldn’t quite see what he needed to do next.
