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Winterhold was a tiny, bleak, frigid place, made up of only a few buildings aside from the Jarl\u2019s longhouse.\u00a0 On the northern side of the road through its center, most structures had collapsed. At the end of town, beyond the tiny inn, a long, precarious stone bridge led to an enormous structure resting on a slender pinnacle of rock.\u00a0 This bridge had lost large chunks of its supporting structure; how it stayed there, hanging in midair, was just shy of miraculous as far as Dagnell could tell.\u00a0 If she walked to the edge of town near the collapsed homes and looked down she could clearly see huge, man-made stone blocks lying at the edge of the Sea of Ghosts far below. So the stories about part of Skyrim collapsing were true. And the enormous building could be nothing other than the College of Winterhold. \u00a0The amount of land that had fallen away from Winterhold and from around the College was almost beyond comprehension.\u00a0 And she could see no evidence of it, anywhere.<\/p>\n
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Dag turned from the cliff face and headed to the inn.\u00a0 She needed to get out of the blizzard that was forming.\u00a0 She also needed to find Enthir.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t hard to find Enthir in the midst of all the Nords.\u00a0 He was a Bosmer wizard, even-featured and with a cultured voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes? What is it?\u201d he said as she approached.<\/p>\n
\u201cKarliah sent me,\u201d Dag told him, slipping Gallus\u2019 journal out of her pack.<\/p>\n
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\u201cKarliah!\u201d Enthir shifted to being all business in an instant. \u201cSo she\u2019s finally found it. Do you have Gallus\u2019 journal?\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh, Dag thought.\u00a0 I see.\u00a0 These two have been trying to figure out what happened to Gallus for a long time. A College mage who is close to the thieves.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but there\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 We can\u2019t read it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me see,\u201d he said, and took the journal from her.\u00a0 After skimming a few pages, he chuckled. \u201cOh that Gallus.\u00a0 A dear friend, but always too clever for his own good.\u00a0 This journal is written entirely in the Falmer tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Falmer? Dag immediately heard Brynjolf calling out \u201cBuy my genuine Falmerblood Elixir! Only twenty septims each!\u201d\u00a0 She shook her head.\u00a0 They had a language? \u201cCan you translate it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Enthir said, \u201cbut I think I know who might. Calcelmo, the court wizard in Markarth.\u00a0 He\u2019s the foremost scholar on the Falmer in all of Tamriel. A word of warning, though: Calcelmo is fiercely protective of his research. Getting the information won\u2019t be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dag frowned, exasperated.\u00a0 \u201cWhy in the world would Gallus have written his journal in Falmer?\u201d<\/p>\n
Enthir smiled.\u00a0 \u201cFor one thing, there are only a handful of people in Tamriel who would even recognize the language.\u00a0 For another, before his death Gallus was working on something big, some sort of heist requiring an intimate knowledge of the Falmer tongue. Sadly, we never had a chance to speak of the details.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how did he learn it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the same person I\u2019m sending you to. Calcelmo. I just hope that the materials he used to learn the language will still be available to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dag sighed.\u00a0 \u201cI needed to go to Markarth anyway.\u00a0 But first I need a drink.\u00a0 May I sit with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d Enthir said, smiling.<\/p>\n
Dag got herself some warm mead and food, and took the seat beside Enthir.\u00a0 \u201cWhat can you tell me about Gallus?\u201d she asked him.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m learning little snippets here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enthir talked for some time.\u00a0 Gallus was a brilliant scholar, but an even better thief.\u00a0 They had met when he caught Gallus trying to rob him; Gallus had stalled him with a question about his research and the two had struck up a genuine, deep friendship as a result. It was clear to Dag that Enthir had considered Gallus a dear friend, admired him a great deal, and was still truly devastated at his loss all these years later.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Falmer language, Enthir,\u201d she asked him.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 I thought the Falmer were just creatures of some kind.\u00a0 They have a written language?\u201d<\/p>\n
No, he told her, they were not discussing Falmer as they currently existed.\u00a0 Originally they had been what were known as Snow Elves, an advanced, beautiful race of mer with a culture rivaling those of the Altmer, Dunmer or Bosmer.\u00a0 But in ages long past the Dwemer \u2013 the dwarves \u2013 had enslaved the Snow Elves, tortured them, and imprisoned them in deep caverns with little light.\u00a0 Over the centuries they had lost their sight and become the grotesque, twisted, destructive beasts they were now \u2013 capable of organized action, possessing enhanced hearing and scent, but destructive and deadly.\u00a0 Enthir\u2019s tone changed as he was describing the Falmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lost many good friends to those creatures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds like they were the victims,\u201d murmured Dag.\u00a0 \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t make it any less difficult to lose people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose you\u2019re right,\u201d he admitted.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s far too easy to forget the suffering they endured.\u201d<\/p>\n
They talked well into the evening, and Dag promised to return to Winterhold as soon as she found anything that might help translate Gallus\u2019 notes.\u00a0 She rented a room at the inn.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to be just as warm as possible, even if I\u2019m miserable, before I head out onto that ice tomorrow, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Dag found the steep, icy path leading under the College\u2019s bridge and followed it down to the shoreline.<\/p>\n
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There were no carriages from Winterhold.\u00a0 Maybe she\u2019d found the limits to Nord tolerance of cold, and none of the drivers wanted to sit out in the extremes of weather.\u00a0 West of Winterhold was basically nothing but an ancient broken glacier, anyway, running all the way from the mountains to the Sea of Ghosts, not the type of terrain one drove a carriage through.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know the area at all, but she did know that there were great crevasses in a glacier, cracks big enough to swallow a mammoth; there were snow trolls and ice wraiths and more of the huge bears she\u2019d encountered near Snow Veil Sanctum, and she wanted nothing to do with any of it.\u00a0 It would be cold and probably dangerous at the shoreline, but at least she\u2019d skirt all of that.\u00a0 She intended to make it to Dawnstar.\u00a0 Maybe she could hire a carriage there.<\/p>\n
Dag had lived with the effects of ocean on the climate, all her life.\u00a0 That much water usually kept a place milder than it would otherwise have been, milder than even a day\u2019s march inland.\u00a0 When the great storms rolled in across the sea it could be brutal, but even so the coast was usually the best place to be, in her experience.<\/p>\n
This was not a place that was within her experience.\u00a0 It was desperately cold along the thin strip of land tucked between the glacier and the ocean.\u00a0 Even though there were isolated patches of tall grass, with barnacles and clams hugging the exposed sand spits, the icy wind sweeping in off the water went through every layer of clothing and seemed to bite into her bones.\u00a0 There were islands offshore, the rugged survivors of the great collapse that had taken most of Winterhold, and between them and the shore was pack ice that made the wind even colder.<\/p>\n
There were horkers down here at the shoreline, and not the fat, lazy, annoyed type she had met in Solitude.\u00a0 These were aggressive, jealous of their territory.\u00a0 Fortunately they had the same slow, blubbery bodies, and she was able to outrun them.\u00a0 But there were also a great many of the large, vicious wolves she\u2019d run across north of Windhelm.\u00a0 They were persistent, too; no flame magic would dissuade them.\u00a0 She exercised her blades over and over again.\u00a0 In spite of how beautiful the wolves\u2019 coats were, she didn\u2019t want to take time to skin them.\u00a0 If she came back this way, she\u2019d be able to find the route just by following the trail of carcasses.<\/p>\n
Dag pictured the bright yellow of the trees around Riften, and the soft breeze rolling off Lake Honrich, and laughed at the thought that she\u2019d wanted to keep moving south to get to a warm place.\u00a0 If she ever got back there, she\u2019d be happy just to have another shot at her warm tub. But thinking of Riften didn\u2019t help; all it did was make her more anxious.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on there, she thought.\u00a0 Has he already gone back and poisoned their minds?\u00a0 Will I return and find that I\u2019m going to be hunted for the rest of my days as Karliah has been?\u00a0 Will I ever see my friends again?<\/p>\n
Odd how they all felt like friends now, even the annoying and arrogant Brynjolf.\u00a0 It hadn\u2019t been long past that she\u2019d felt trapped in the Cistern and the Guild against her will.\u00a0 Now she wanted nothing more than to help bring them some kind of raw justice for having been betrayed and lied to.<\/p>\n
It took more than a day for Dag to pick her way along the shore to Dawnstar.\u00a0 She had managed a few hours of rest along the way by building the biggest campfire she could wrangle, just outside a crack in the ice that blocked some of the wind.\u00a0 It hadn\u2019t been anything like real sleep; but she was rested enough to continue.<\/p>\n
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Walking into Dawnstar was a relief. It was a small town, clustered around a lovely natural harbor, and it was the hold\u2019s capital, but it was very small. She found the inn, got a warm drink and a warm meal, and sat down to enjoy it.\u00a0 It was then that she learned the awful truth: there were no carriages from Dawnstar, either. Sometimes drivers would drop passengers off on their way to Solitude, or Whiterun, or Markarth, but they never stopped long enough to collect new fares. She checked at the docks; perhaps she could book passage to Solitude from here.\u00a0 A man with a lovely Falskaar brogue that gave her a twinge of sadness told her that he could take here there, to Falskaar, but that was all.<\/p>\n
It was going to be a long walk to Solitude.\u00a0 She would go there, she decided, and hire a ride to Markarth; because if she walked all the way to Markarth, Mercer would have time to kill everyone in the Guild before she got back.<\/p>\n
Winterhold was a tiny, bleak, frigid place, made up of only a few buildings aside from the Jarl\u2019s longhouse.\u00a0 On the northern side of the road through its center, most structures had collapsed. At the end of town, beyond the tiny inn, a long, precarious stone bridge led to an enormous structure resting on … <\/p>\n