The prisoner who had been putting up such a brave front was unconscious, hanging in his shackles.\u00a0 She unlocked them and lowered him to the floor.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 If this is the Imperial prison, it\u2019s definitely not in Caio\u2019s time. But if it were in my time, the present day, surely there would be more people \u2013 Thalmor, officers, who knows what else. Wouldn\u2019t there?<\/em><\/p>\n Well it doesn\u2019t matter when I am; I know roughly where I am.\u00a0 Now what?<\/em><\/p>\n She explored the length of the cell block. The only way out of it was an upper level door that was clearly barred from the other side. In the farthest cell from where the tortured prisoner lay she found, behind stacks of dusty crates, the skeleton of someone who had clearly had similar treatment a long time previous. She searched the ancient bones and found, under one of the legs, a spell tome.<\/p>\n \u201cAncient Vision, eh?\u00a0 Well I don\u2019t know this one but let\u2019s see.\u201d She studied it for a bit.\u00a0 The spell didn\u2019t look too terribly difficult, even for someone who did not specialize in magic. Its use, according to the book, was to reveal what one\u2019s surroundings had looked like in ages gone by.<\/p>\n Given how I got here, I\u2019ll bet I know where to try it out, too.<\/em><\/p>\n She returned to the cell she\u2019d started in and raised her left hand, casting the spell.\u00a0 It was a loud spell, bursting from her with a ringing, percussive sound. Her vision blurred and things around her took on an almost pinkish hue.\u00a0 And there, in the spot where the smooth rock wall had been just a moment earlier, was the arched entrance to a tunnel that she\u2019d seen in her vision of what had happened in this space two hundred years earlier.<\/p>\n Without any hesitation, she entered the tunnel.\u00a0 It was a crude tunnel, dirt and rock, probably excavated by some long-forgotten generation of prisoners or those helping them to escape. She hadn\u2019t travelled too far along it when the spell\u2019s sound repeated behind her. Startled, she turned to see that the archway had disappeared, and the tunnel once more ended at a smooth, solid stone wall.<\/p>\n I see.\u00a0 It won\u2019t change where I am, but it won\u2019t retain the changes around me for more than a few moments.\u00a0 Good to know.\u00a0 I guess there\u2019s no way to go but forward, now.<\/em><\/p>\n The tunnel emptied into an enormous cavern.\u00a0 Dirt ramps led to its bottom far, far below Sayma but it was the landing across the cavern\u2019s width that caught her attention.\u00a0 There was light there that spoke to her of an opening but did not reveal one, and no other visible exits anywhere else.\u00a0 She spent a few minutes going down to the floor of the cavern for a cursory look around, but found nothing aside from a few lonely ferns and a great deal of collapsed rock.\u00a0 Returning to the upper level, she nodded to herself and cast Ancient Vision again.<\/p>\n The spell exploded, and a rope bridge appeared before her, stretching across to a dirt pillar in the middle of the cavern. It was glowing in a shade of purple that left no doubt that she was looking at a magical construct.\u00a0 She started across the bridge, carefully, but had not made it completely to the end when the spell began to dispel.\u00a0 She caught the beginnings of its sound with just the barest moment left to leap for the dirt platform; and she stood for a moment, waiting for her heart to stop pounding, looking back at the very empty place where she\u2019d been just a moment before.<\/p>\n I guess I don\u2019t get to linger when I cast this spell, do I.<\/em><\/p>\n There was a substantial gap between the platform and the ledge she was heading for.\u00a0 This time, when she cast the spell and a second rope bridge appeared, she moved across it briskly.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s something waiting for me, I\u2019ll just have to fight it.\u00a0 Because that fall would kill me.<\/em><\/p>\n There was nothing on the other side. At all. Sayma looked around at the narrow ledge on which she stood, sighed, and cast her spell again. At some point in the distant past stones had fallen from above to block the hallway that Ancient Vision revealed. She moved briskly along it and around a corner.<\/p>\n This was yet another old fortress, and at this point Sayma had no idea at all which one it might be or where she was in relation to anything else. She was utterly confused. The next hour or so did nothing to relieve her confusion. In fact, the only thing that made complete sense to her was the down-staircase leading to a locked room with a number of chests inside. This, she thought, I can handle. This is a lock, a normal lock. I can pick a lock.\u00a0 She\u2019d come away from that room with her backpack far heavier than it had been before.\u00a0 Farther along the corridor she found another door, this one wooden, of the type that was simply not going to yield to her efforts to pick it open.<\/p>\n Ok, so this is my next task. Obviously. Find a way to get this open.<\/em><\/p>\n The rest of the place was a nightmare of casting Ancient Vision, throwing levers, retracing steps to cast the spell again, up and down stairwells and around twisting hallways until her head was spinning. In some places, the spell revealed hidden handles. In others it removed walls, but only for a moment or two. It took an absurd amount of time but eventually Sayma had opened enough passages that her last casting took her to a small room.\u00a0 A bust of the Gray Fox grinned over a table containing gold ingots, books, and a silver bowl with gemstones and a key resting prominently in its center.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally.\u00a0 I am not sad to see the last of this place,\u201d she said to the bust.\u00a0 And now I\u2019m convinced that I\u2019m mad. Talking to a piece of sculpture.<\/em><\/p>\n This is new information, to you?<\/em><\/p>\n Shut up. Go back to sleep. I\u2019m trying to concentrate.<\/em><\/p>\n She found her way back to the locked door and unlocked it.<\/p>\n Behind it was \u2026 a wall.<\/p>\n Gods damn this place. <\/em><\/p>\n After casting Ancient Vision again, Sayma entered a room with two levels, the higher on the far side.\u00a0 Two staircases led up to it. \u00a0At the top of the stairs was a long table with a pull handle mounted in its center. Four candles were arranged along the table\u2019s length, each resting in a patch of differently-colored light.\u00a0 And directly behind the pull handle was none other than the Gray Fox.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother puzzle, eh? I suppose I really ought to ask you for a hint before I go at it, this time.\u201d<\/p>\n She touched the bust and once again felt words. This time, the Gray Fox spoke of light coming in a specific order: Sun, Candle, Fireplace, and Moon.\u00a0 She rubbed her eyes and forehead and heaved a great sigh.<\/p>\n \u201cOk. This is ridiculous, but ok, I can figure this out. The moon is easy.\u00a0 Moonlight is this light grey over here. But the first one is Sun and sunlight ought to be yellow.\u201d<\/p>\n There was no yellow light on the table, but there were two different shades of orange. Sayma was tired, and frustrated, and wracked her brain to no avail. Sunlight was yellow. Or orange.\u00a0 Or\u2026<\/p>\n She stared down at the table again and realized that one of the patches of light was green.<\/p>\n Ah! Yes, of course! Green, growing things need sunlight!\u00a0 And green doesn\u2019t work for either candle or fireplace, so\u2026 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n She lit the green candle.\u00a0 Nothing bad happened.<\/p>\n It took her a few moments to decipher which shade of orange would be Candle and which one Fireplace, but after deciding that the darker orange would be more like a fireplace\u2019s stronger, ruddy glow, she lit the rest of the candles in order: light orange, dark orange, gray.\u00a0 She grinned at the bust and activated the pull handle.<\/p>\n Slowly, noisily, with a great deal of dust, a section of the thick stone wall behind the table lowered itself into the floor below it.\u00a0 Beyond it, Sayma saw something she had not been expecting at all.<\/p>\n In the many months since leaving Riften, Sayma had made one or two trips across the southern border into the northernmost province of Cyrodiil, looking for any remnants of the Dark Brotherhood and finding that they had all scattered to the winds. What she saw before her, as she crouched in the entrance to the partially-flooded cavern before her, looked like the ancient Ayleid ruins that dotted Cyrodiil\u2019s countryside. The stonework was smoother, and of different materials than that in Skyrim\u2019s dark, rough stone barrows and keeps. The graceful, sweeping curves and sharply peaked arches of these structures were like the ones she had marveled at in the Bruma area.<\/p>\n Whatever this had once been, it was now partially collapsed into the floor of the cavern.\u00a0 Parts of it stood high and dry and others were visible just beneath the surface of the water.\u00a0 In one place, someone had built a crude wooden staircase of sorts up over the rubble and onto the Ayleid-era stones.\u00a0 Sayma darted down the dirt ramps and splashed through the incredibly cold water to that staircase, wincing as it filled her boots and froze her calves, hoping that whatever was on top of the structure would lead her where she needed to go.<\/p>\n There was a long, horizontal platform there, at the end of which was what looked like a very large and darkened Ayleid well, topped by an enormous, airy arch in nearly perfect condition. But Sayma couldn\u2019t get up to look into the well. Its outer rings of stone were too tall for her to jump onto from the front and no amount of searching around its base revealed any other way to get there. She tried leaping onto the blocks along the path\u2019s edge and ended up falling back into the frigid water, gasping as it took the breath from her lungs and narrowly missing the crueler edges of the rock rubble that had fallen into the spaces between smooth, tooled stone.\u00a0 She gritted her teeth and tried swimming around the edges of the cavern, because there were large pieces of what once must have been concentric circles of stone rising up out of it at strange angles.\u00a0 There was nothing, just nothing that was going to get her up onto that well.\u00a0 She hauled herself back up onto the wooden staircase to catch her breath, to wring water out of her hood and cape, and to rub warmth back into her arms if she could.\u00a0 Finally she cast Ancient Vision, standing as close to the well as she could get. The spell\u2019s sound echoed around the cavern and its purplish light flooded the area but she could see nothing else happening.\u00a0 When the magic dispelled, she tsk\u2019d and looked around in frustration.<\/p>\n Well I know that\u2019s where I need to go.\u00a0 What else is there in this place aside from that smaller circle down in the water?\u00a0 Is that a well, too?\u00a0 I may as well go see, because this is getting me nowhere.<\/em><\/p>\n Sayma made her soggy way to the smaller structure, unable to avoid getting completely soaked once more. Shivering as she climbed onto a rubble pile and approached the stone circles, she saw that in fact this was an Ayleid well, much smaller than the other but in almost perfect repair.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t hesitate more than a moment before casting Ancient Vision again.<\/p>\n The well before her began glowing, almost bubbling, with the light blue magical energies that were the hallmark of Ayleid wells, a shaft of light extending up toward the roof of the cavern.\u00a0 She stared at it in awe for a moment until it dawned on her that she had only a few moments to take advantage of whatever else might have happened in the room. She ran to the near side of the well and looked around; sure enough, the large well had a column of reddish energy extending upward from it.\u00a0 She leapt into the water and made her way back toward the large well.<\/p>\n The spell dissipated. The blue light behind her, in the smaller of the two wells, vanished.\u00a0 The reddish column of light above the larger well did not. As she reached the bottom of the wooden stairs Sayma began to hear a pulsating, humming sound.<\/p>\n In retrospect, she would wonder why it hadn\u2019t occurred to her to notice the difference in the two energies, or ponder why one had vanished with the spell but the other hadn\u2019t.\u00a0 But she didn\u2019t notice, and she didn\u2019t consider. Instead, she ran toward the light.<\/p>\n As she reached the base of the well, the energy and the sound vanished. In its place appeared a vertical portal, a circle partially flattened on its sides and top with ominous spikes extending inward.\u00a0 It began glowing.\u00a0 She started to back away in alarm as she saw Daedric symbols in a vivid purple appearing all around its edges; but she couldn\u2019t move backward no matter how hard she tried to fling her body that way.\u00a0 The portal had her.<\/p>\n And it sucked her in.<\/p>\n For some period of time, how long she could not tell, there was nothing.\u00a0 She neither saw, nor heard, nor felt a thing.\u00a0 It was just black.\u00a0 She would have been terrified if she\u2019d been able to have an emotion other than confusion, but she couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Then there was light. And the light was purple.\u00a0 And the ground was dark, and gray, and dead, with only a few spears of grayish grass daring to reach toward the sky.<\/p>\n On a hill before her was a tall tower, over which hovered a circular structure like the portal that had claimed her but round, not flattened on the sides.\u00a0 Enormous chain ropes extended from it to the ground beneath, like anchors. The wind was howling, clouds and a ring of something, possibly debris, swirling in a tight circular pattern around the top of the portal.\u00a0 Sayma caught her breath, then, the fright that she\u2019d been unable to feel before beginning to mount inside her.<\/p>\n I know this. Anchors. I\u2019ve heard of these. They are\u2026 They are\u2026 Think! Think!<\/em><\/p>\n She looked around and saw that she was on a small hill, near the shores of some vast grayish-purple ocean. She stood in the center of a ring made from tall, ominous, spiked pillars of the deepest black.<\/p>\n A deep, sinister laugh came from nowhere and everywhere at once, and she jumped from fear, whirling in circles to find its source.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat have we here?\u201d the voice asked.\u00a0 It was a male voice, very deep and not completely unpleasant, but threatening because she could not tell where it was coming from. \u201cA new pet for my realm?\u201d<\/p>\n Even terrified as she was, Sayma was still defiant. \u201cWhere are you?\u201d she shouted, trying to be heard over the roaring wind. \u201cI\u2019m nobody\u2019s pet!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA very peculiar pet,\u201d the voice answered her after a pause. \u201cWhere are you from, you mortal? Let me guess: the trap under the Imperial City?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t come here on foot or horseback, fool,\u201d she snarled, not knowing whether she could be heard or not.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the trap beneath the city has been triggered again, after two hundred years. How foolish these mortals are,\u201d he said thoughtfully. \u201cBut why are you so \u2013 oh, interesting! The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, eh? You\u2019re seeking the Gray Cowl.\u00a0 You\u2019re here to follow the path of the one who was here two hundred years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy I am here is none of your concern,\u201d Sayma yelled.<\/p>\n Best keep it under control. You haven\u2019t figured out who you\u2019re speaking with? <\/em><\/p>\n No, I haven\u2019t, <\/em>she snapped at her internal voice. And if you have nothing useful to add to the proceedings then just shut up!<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYes. Caio Umbranox. Ciao Umbranox was here, but he successfully escaped Coldharbour. Are you here to escape my realm as well? Can you?\u201d He laughed. \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n Coldharbour.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m in\u2026 Coldharbour. That means I\u2019m speaking to\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Her father\u2019s voice answered her.<\/p>\n Yes, of course you\u2019re in Coldharbour and of course you\u2019re speaking to Molag Bal. I would have thought the Dark Anchor would have given you a clue. Gods know you\u2019ve spent enough time in the company of vampires that it should have come to you.<\/em><\/p>\n Sayma growled. Of course it was Molag Bal.<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t here two hundred years ago, Papa. I\u2019ve never seen one of these things. Forgive me for not being able to name it instantly. I was getting there.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSo, my friend,\u201d the huge voice continued. \u201cLet us see whether you can escape this realm. But I have a request to make of you. This place is filled with guardians of Coldharbour. Kill none of them. Do that, and I shall have a special reward for you. Do not break the silence of Coldharbour. Go now, and \u2013 how do they say it in the Thieves Guild? Shadows hide you.\u201d<\/p>\n The voice laughed long and loud once more and was then still.<\/p>\n \u201cThey say \u2018Eyes open and walk with the shadows,\u2019\u201d Sayma muttered. \u201cThat\u2019s what they say in my Thieves Guild.\u201d\u00a0 She laughed, and yelled up toward the sky. \u201cAnd silence?\u00a0 Are you kidding me? You made enough noise to raise the dead!\u201d<\/p>\n She turned around, slowly, taking stock of her surroundings.<\/p>\n Maybe that wasn\u2019t the best way to phrase that.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m in Oblivion, and I have to get out.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Excellent.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOoof!\u201d The cry of pain had been preceded by a meaty smack and was followed by the metallic rattle that Sayma recognized instantly as the sound of shackles rattled by the weight of the prisoner in them.\u00a0 She ducked down and hugged the wall, raising her matched blades and creeping out toward the hallway.\u00a0 She … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-4.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-5.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-6.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/4-1-8-7.png\")
<\/p>\n