The two skeletons outside the cave caught him by surprise.
Dale had been ready for something dangerous to be inside the cave. There was something about the tone of the man’s voice describing “unnatural magicks” that said he’d been telling the truth. It wasn’t that the skeletons presented much of a problem to him, aside from their being outside during daylight. He didn’t regenerate well in the sun, being barely more than an infant in vampire years, and the couple of hits he took definitely hurt. It was just a surprise.
He didn’t like surprises.
He was still rolling the issue of Riften around in his mind. It wasn’t as though Brynjolf knew him – but Brynjolf knew who he was, and that bothered him. He would have much preferred to be a stranger. He’d planned to be more or less incognito, but he’d been surprised.
“Well. It is what it is. Right now I need to focus on this cave. Too bad you have no blood for me, old man,” he said to the skeletons’ constituent parts, checking them for stray coins. “I guess I’d best get inside and heal up.” He hadn’t been badly injured, but swords still were swords, no matter what wielded them.
He waited inside the mouth of the cave for a few moments while the darkness restored him. It was like any other tunnel into a cave, as far as he could tell; but there were definitely people here judging by the lanterns. Peering carefully into the first open chamber, he found an old handcart, a pickaxe, and a skeleton on the floor. More bones hung in chimes at the chamber’s exit.
Miners. And I’d be willing to bet they didn’t die natural deaths. So what’s down here now?
There were more bones in the dark, twisting tunnel beyond the mine cart, as well as numerous empty wine bottles which Dale carefully avoided. Even the slightest brush of those against the stony floor would create a sharp enough sound to alert anyone.
He heard a noise up ahead and froze, peering into the dim light of the next chamber. A figure bearing a greatsword moved around as if searching; its clumsy, shuffling movements told Dale all he needed to know.
Draugr. Of course. That’s what took out the miners. This should be fun; I can’t feed from draugr to heal up if I get hurt.
Dale jumped up onto a nearby dirt ledge as the draugr shuffled down the tunnel toward him. He considered attacking with his blades, but it was a narrow space, and that sort of attack would be noisy enough. Instead, he waited until the creature turned back; then he dropped down to the floor of the tunnel and used his bow instead. It only took one shot to send the draugr back to death.
Just past the freshly-dead draugr the passage opened up in several directions. It was the branch to his right that drew Dale’s attention. There were brighter lights there; and, much to his surprise, he heard a woman humming.
Necromancer. Who else lives with draugr without being attacked?
The problem was that he had no clear line of sight to the woman. That meant that there could easily be someone – or something – else in the chamber, and he would have no way to know it. If he attacked with his short blades he risked being overwhelmed; and for all he could tell it might be the same if he tried to use his bow. Instead, Dale decided to look for a better vantage point.
Not far back along the tunnel, a dirt ramp led up and out of sight behind roots and ferns. Dale took that route; and as he had hoped, it emerged from the darkness onto a ledge overlooking the lighted chamber. To his surprise, there was a door there, set into an ancient Imperial tower. He couldn’t imagine why such a thing was here. What was more important, though, was that if he shifted to the right along the ledge, he could see the seated woman, silhouetted against a small fire. Someone larger stood next to her; Dale would definitely have been at a disadvantage if he’d just blundered his way in. He considered his options for a moment and then smirked.
Well, I don’t personally need to do all the slaying, do I? Let’s see if I can’t set these two against each other.
He raised his right hand and prepared a fury spell, aiming it at the larger figure. He had no way to gauge what level of magic resistance this person might have, but it was worth a try. To his great satisfaction, as soon as the red ball of energy struck the man – for the cry of “Never should have come here!” revealed that it was a male Altmer – the two mages began struggling with each other, casting ice spikes and frost clouds.
Dale smiled as he watched the show for a moment. The smile faded quickly, though, as he heard the unmistakable sound of a conjuration coming from the other side of the wooden door. The door flew open, and from it emerged another mage and a draugr, the latter of which cast fireballs. A moment later, it leaned forward. An enormous percussive sound hammered its way through the cavern and a huge gout of flame leapt from the draugr toward the mage Dale had targeted.
Fire breath shout, eh? That’s a surprise. Best avoid that one, shall we?
He didn’t like surprises. But if he was surprised at a distance, he could at least take a moment to formulate a plan. In this case, he cast fury on the woman who had been seated earlier, and faded back into the shadows to watch the chaos unfold.
Chaos it was, with mages shouting, fireballs exploding and ice spikes smacking into their targets. At some point it seemed he’d missed another mage entering the room; for the first woman dropped dead, but three figures in mage’s robes remained running about. Someone raised the dead woman, to provide another fighter. And then a flame atronach floated through the open door into the cave.
Oh very good. More fire.
He froze for a moment, listening. The draugr was closer, somewhere near the ramp up to Dale’s position. The mages were on alert, running back and forth to the doorway and into the darker corners of the cavern, clearly knowing that he was somewhere but so far unable to find him. After a moment or two the atronach expired. The zombie mage would, at some point, follow suit; that was a good thing, but the draugr wasn’t a conjuration and had no time limit.
Dale shot a practice arrow into the wall farthest away from him, drawing the attention of his opponents. But as he did so, he inadvertently kicked what was left of a skeleton, sending the bones clattering over the side of the ledge. The flame-wielding draugr looked up at him and ran for the exit. Dale tsk’d and shot a more substantial arrow at the zombie mage; to his amazement both she and the figure next to her disintegrated into a combined pile of ash.
So the male raised two of them. That means he is more powerful than I’d hoped. Time to be very careful.
Now he could hear not only the shuffling of the draugr, but the more well-padded footsteps of the mage, both off to his left. He held his breath and waited, hoping that they’d move away. The draugr did; it returned to the chamber below him. But even as he was drawing his bow to take a shot at it, he heard the mage much nearer than before.
“Is anybody there?”
Not a soul. Only a vampire. You don’t hear him, you don’t see him; it’s nobody to concern yourself with.
The mage returned to the chamber, raising another body. Dale waited until the mage moved away, and then took down the zombie. When the mage ran back to the ashes of his creation, Dale surprised the Altmer with an arrow in his back, killing him.
I hate using archery like this, but there’s no other good approach when everything is aflame. Now for this draugr.
He sank an arrow into the draugr’s back. That drew the creature’s attention, and it ran to a spot just beneath Dale’s position, looking up but not spotting him in the darkness.
And then Dale made a mistake. He decided to conjure a minion of his own – a gargoyle, to be exact. It was one of the spells he’d learned after becoming a vampire and was endlessly useful. But he miscalculated the range of his spell; instead of manifesting on the cavern floor next to the draugr, as intended, the gargoyle appeared beside him, up on the ledge. The draugr looked up and tossed a fireball at Dale.
I swear that damn thing just smirked at me!
It wasn’t a smirk. The draugr was simply preparing itself for what came next: a fire breath Shout. Dale was burning, hard, and his life force was dwindling with every breath. He yelped, backpedaled further into the darkness, and focused on channeling every bit of magic he had into healing spells.
Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die…
If I die I’ll just be another pile of ash in this cave, and Agryn and Vyctyna will never know whether one of them was me or not.
About the time he reached half of his normal health he heard snarling below him. The gargoyle had made it down the ramp and was engaging the draugr. Dale, his legs still wobbling beneath him, waited for his magicka to replenish and watched in horror as the draugr cast another spell. Another flame atronach appeared.
I thought it was the mage conjuring the atronachs, not the draugr! What kind of fearsome person was this during his mortal lifetime?
Dale pelted the atronach with arrows. It took four to destroy her; he heard each of them clatter against her shell as it struck home. She finally disintegrated in a ball of flame; and just as that happened, another sound beneath Dale’s feet told him that the gargoyle was finished as well. He conjured another and gritted his teeth in pain as the fireball he was expecting struck him, burning hard.
The gargoyle didn’t last long between the draugr and the new atronach it conjured. Dale had no better magic at his disposal and no vampiric abilities that would help in this situation, so he conjured yet another gargoyle and stepped back behind a pillar of dirt just in time to avoid most – but not all – of another Shout. Grimacing in pain, he stepped back out into the open, electing to focus whatever energy he had left on his arrows, and the draugr. It had to die.
To his amazement, the draugr was down on one knee. This gargoyle was stronger than the others – or perhaps the accumulated damage they’d dealt was finally enough. Dale didn’t know, didn’t care which it was; all he knew was that he had to take the thing down. Amidst the snarls of the gargoyle and the snorting of the draugr he shot three more arrows at the creature. Finally it collapsed; and with it, the atronach as well.
Dale dropped down from the ledge to survey the area. Against all reason there was still one intact human body on the floor. He sighed happily and took refreshment from the still-cooling blood remaining in the corpse. Once he felt settled and healthy, he made his way up the several steps to the door and into the Imperial ruin.
Beyond the tower’s far door, the man-made stone surfaces gave way to a deep pit, doubtless carved out over eons by weather from the opening to the sky, far above. There was no place to go but down. Dale saw a ledge not far below him but his jump missed its mark. He fell all the way to the bottom, happy for his vampiric resilience. The only way forward was a narrow, descending passage rough-hewn through the dirt and stone.
As soon as he stepped out of the passage he knew why Varnius had been hearing strange noises. A vast cavern, its only natural light from another opening far above, held a substantial complex of nested towers, some intact and some in ruins. Braziers here and there glowed yellow; but more impressive were the spinning tendrils of purple magic converging on a central figure enclosed in a radiant sphere of energy. The cavern itself seemed to hum and hiss with magic.
The voice of a Nord woman rose, somehow filling the huge space.
“Wolf Queen, hear our call and awaken. We summon Potema!”
Dale gasped. Potema? But she was… Before he had a chance to finish the thought a chorus of other voices responded.
“We summon Potema!”
Potema was Queen of Solitude in the Third Era. Daughter of Pelagius the Second, aunt to mad king Pelagius the Third. And one of the world’s most famous necromancers. They’re trying to summon her spirit?
This… can’t be good. I need to stop it, and not just because I need to curry favor with Falk Firebeard.
“Long have you slept the dreamless sleep of death, Potema. No longer! Hear us, Wolf Queen! We summon you!”
“We summon Potema!”
Dale could just make out figures on a walkway directly across from him. There was nothing to lose. He cast his Fury spell, its sound covered by the response of the summoners; but by the time the magic reached the bridge, the figure had moved. Dale grimaced and dropped his hands, looking for a nearer target. Other figures moved about the huge space, their tiny appearance telling him that they were too far away as well. He’d be no less likely to strike any of them with an arrow than with magic.
A passage on his left led downward into the complex. Against his better judgment, he headed that way, into another partially-ruined tower. A necromancer in novice robes patrolled the tower and a descending staircase on its far side. The ramp near Dale was soaked with oil, a firepot dangling overhead. He snarled and jumped across the oil – or at least he hoped so. When the man reappeared, Dale stepped forward, using his vampiric drain life power to take the man down as silently as possible, and then followed the stairs down.
Bone chimes and chains guarded the exit onto the top of another tower, about halfway down the cavern. Two more short flights led down to the bottom; and from below a draugr was plodding slowly up them.
Dale conjured his gargoyle, which immediately made for the draugr. He realized that he’d been surprised once again when an ice spike fired from below and to his right pierced his thigh. He dropped down over the edge and whirled to face the mage – and a draugr – standing in a doorway he hadn’t noticed before. The draugr was an easy kill with a couple of quick slashes of the blade in his right hand; his left cast vampiric drain toward the Dunmer mage, countering the frost she cast back at him.
You don’t use frost against a vampire. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that? It works… in a manner of speaking… but it’s very slow. Try fire next time. Oh, wait. You won’t have a next time, will you? So sorry.
He stepped over the now-dead necromancer and her draugr and ran up the stairs she had descended, to a room thoroughly soaked in oil. Circling around the oil as best he could, he arrived at the opening to a bridge being patrolled by a lone draugr.
And there you are, my friend. I can reach you with my magic this time instead of trying to cover half the width of this cavern.
He conjured another gargoyle, but the draugr ran right past it, headed for Dale. He grimaced and extended his left hand, draining the draugr’s life force. It was surprisingly easy and quick to take down the ancient man. Dale made a quiet sound of surprise and looked in wonder at his hand.
Am I getting better at this? I do hope I’m not imagining things.
His path forward led upward, just under one of the tendrils of magic. There was another short flight just before him, a brazier mounted in the center of the top step. Just as he neared its base, though, the distinctive snort of a draugr sounded from the top – once, twice – and a woman’s voice followed.
“Over here!”
Dale looked to his left and saw a pile of rough stone debris, obviously fallen from near the cavern’s ceiling. He leaped for it and scurried into the deepest shadows he could find, whirling once he’d settled so as not to have his back to the enemy.
“FUS- ROH DAH!”
The blast of the draugr’s Shout was followed by an ice spike fired wildly into the spot where Dale had been just a moment before. He heard the sound of magic dissipating, and heard the woman’s voice.
“That’s the last of them!”
Dale shook his head in confusion. Then it dawned on him: his gargoyle must have run ahead and engaged the woman. He’d completely forgotten about the gargoyle.
Well, well. That one lasted a long time. I wonder where I got that kind of magical ability. Dear old Dad?
Brynjolf probably didn’t realize how effusively he’d praised Dale’s father in that short visit they’d had. Apparently Vitus had been an expert archer, good with a war axe, and a very talented mage to boot in addition to being a skooma addict. Brynjolf probably didn’t realize that in his babbling he’d let it slip that Vitus had also cooked a mean batch of skooma in his day. Dale didn’t indulge, but it did amuse him a great deal that his own father had kept up what he understood to be the “family business.” He grinned to himself.
Thank the gods for Mother. That’s all I can say.
He jumped down from the rubble and approached the stairs, quietly, watching the magic being cast around him. Just as he reached the bottom step another woman’s voice rang out, this one strong and harsh.
“Yes! Yes! Return me to this realm!”
Potema!
He couldn’t help it; a shudder of dread ran up his spine. Potema was one of history’s most prolific and most talented necromancers, and universally considered to have been an evil influence on Tamriel. The idea that after hundreds of years she might once again be an active force in the world was just…
Even for a vampire, this is too much.
And then a most remarkable thing happened. The Nord woman who had been directing this ritual summoning cried out again.
“As our voices summon you, the blood of the innocent binds you, Wolf Queen!”
The others responded. “Summoned with words, bound by blood!”
They’re trying to bind her with a sacrifice? This is madness!
He cast another gargoyle. Suddenly, things went completely sideways. The gargoyle attacked a draugr, who swore at it in words Dale didn’t understand. Several necromancers joined the fight. Dale came out of the shadows, draining one of them with his left hand and slashing at him with the right, even as the woman behind Dale tried to slow him with frost. The male necromancer went down; Dale turned to find that the female was attacking his gargoyle. He crept up behind her, draining her as he went; and then, as if by its own accord, his right hand reached around her and drew the short blade across her throat, ending her.
He blinked at what he’d done, and shook his head; but he didn’t have time to waste on surprise. He and the gargoyle turned to the draugr and finished it. But there was yet another Dunmer mage to their left, as well as another draugr. Dale was well on the way to finishing the mage when the gargoyle dissipated; so he dropped back several steps and conjured another with the little magicka he had remaining. The gargoyle attacked the remaining draugr and Dale, having to rely on his blades, stepped close in to slash at the Nord woman until she went down. A sudden loud roar next to him had him turning his head to watch the draugr’s final moments.
Then, for a moment, it was silent.
Dale took a deep breath and expelled it, trying to settle himself. He drained the dead woman of her blood and, feeling ready once again, circled around the tower toward whatever awaited him at the top.
I do hope they haven’t finished the summoning. If that’s Potema up there I’m a dead man. A… more thoroughly dead man.
He stepped into the highest tower and crept upward, thinking himself well under cover. Apparently, though, the mistress of ceremonies could sense him as well as he could sense her.
“Stop the intruder!” she cried.
Dale sent another gargoyle into the fray before him. It ran ahead and, from the sounds, started attacking; and Dale followed it up to the summoning circle atop the tower.
Two of the necromancers channeling magic were painted to look like skulls; the Ritual Master, the Nord woman, was suspended by magic between them before a carved stone circle. Dale leapt over the circle to attack, he and the gargoyle dancing together as if they’d always been partners; for when he stepped back out of range, his gargoyle would leap forward and slash, and then they would change places. It only took three or four rounds of attacks to bring the man to his knees; then Dale finished him off with a single blade strike.
Both of them then turned to face the women. Dale attacked the necromancer and the gargoyle slashed at the Ritual Master. It took Dale only a few moments to kill his opponent; then he also turned to the Ritual Master. She was doing her best to finish the gargoyle with ice and snow spells, but both of her hands were occupied with magic and she had no way to ward against Dale’s magic. Once again he moved in, draining with his left hand and slashing with his right; and when he stepped back to catch a breath the gargoyle swiped out at the woman and finished her.
As soon as she dropped to the stones, the ritual dissipated with a huge explosion. The tendrils of energy withdrew from the tower and disappeared. The gargoyle roared and returned to Oblivion. And Dale stared around himself in wonder.
Dale didn’t like surprises. This had surprised him in its every detail. But he saw no signs of the luminous figure he had taken to be the spirit of Potema. All of the necromancers were dead, either reduced to ash or drained of their vital fluids by him. The draugr were down.
He didn’t know what any of it had to do with Agryn Gernic’s plan to continue infiltrating vampire society. What he did know was that he’d come into the cave with no clue and no preparation, and had managed to survive the experience.
That seemed like a good day’s work to him.
Brynjolf stood in the kitchen, watching his wife working on the stew she made so well. It was just the two of them for dinner this evening, a fact that made him a bit sad. Over the years he’d known her, he’d grown very fond of the sounds of people shouting in the back, laughing over a tankard of ale, or running about noisily, as the children had done when they were younger.
He heaved a sigh.
“Hi, Red,” she said, without looking back at him. “Why the heavy sigh? Something wrong?”
He almost jumped. He hadn’t realized he’d sighed that loudly. “Well, not exactly wrong, lass. I guess. Just … unsettling, I guess you’d call it.”
“Oh, what happened?” she asked, stepping back from the cook pot and turning to him. “Come on, let’s go sit by the fire while that simmers for a little bit.” She smiled her sly little smile and headed around the corner. It was hard for him not to smile a bit in return, even though he felt as unsettled as he had felt in years. He wandered into the living room and stood by the fireplace, staring into the flames, thinking.
“I thought you were going to sit with me,” Sayma said in a dry tone. “That looks like standing to me.”
“Oh. Of course.” But he didn’t sit. He didn’t even know how to bring up the subject, as strange as it had been. Another few moments went by, and finally he shook his head.
“I met someone today.”
There was a long pause. Finally, Sayma tsk’d loudly, rose, and tapped him on the arm.
“For crying out loud, Bryn. You’re so distracted. Come sit down and tell me who you met. It can’t be all that bad.”
Brynjolf nodded again, and finally settled himself down on the bench. Sayma, in the nearest chair to him, looked at him expectantly.
He cleared his throat, not quite able to look her in the eyes for fear that she’d be able to see what he couldn’t quite figure out himself. Another few moments went by.
“I don’t even know how to say it. I met someone out in the marketplace. From the back he had that air of…”
She chuckled. “Someone who might be good to train?”
He nodded, grinning in spite of himself. “Yes. I keep trying to do my job. None of us is getting any younger and we need to have replacements. But my heart wasn’t really in it and I picked someone who just wasn’t interested.”
“Ok, so what’s unsettling about that? Neither was I, as I remember it. If you hadn’t made me so angry you’d never have seen me again.”
He couldn’t help it; he chuckled a bit at her. “Yes, and I was just as irritated as you were, lass. We were made for each other.” The smile faded away again. “The thing of it was when the lad turned around. I thought my heart would stop, right there and then.”
“Why?”
“He looked exactly like Andante.” He paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “Well, no, not exactly like him. We had a drink after he told me who he was, so I got a good look at him. There are differences. But for a second I thought I was seeing a ghost.” Exactly the same as when I first met Andante and thought he was Dynny. Except that this time it was too hard. I’ve seen both of them as ghosts. This wasn’t the same at all.
“Well they say everyone has a look-alike somewhere in the world, Red. You just found his.”
He shook his head. “No, lass. It’s not like that. He told me his name.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “Dale. Ondale, to be more accurate. And his last name is Perdeti.”
He heard Sayma’s sharp intake of breath before he turned to look at her face. “He’s Vitus’ son.”
She stared at him for a very long time before speaking. “He never mentioned a son.”
“No. He didn’t. This boy – this young man – he had to have been born a long while before we ever met Andante. He told me that he’d never met his father, but his ma told him things that only someone who really knew him would have known. So I’m convinced that it’s true. All I really needed, though, was to see him.”
“Well,” Sayma said slowly, “so Vitus had a son. What’s so distressing about that? He’s been gone for nearly sixteen years now, Brynjolf, and you have children as well.”
“I don’t know, exactly,” he said, just as slowly. “I guess it bothers me that he never told me.”
Sayma paused for a moment and then chuckled. “It’s not as though he didn’t forget things about his past. We both knew him for at least two years before he remembered anything at all. Don’t worry about it. All of us have some serious deficits in our family relationships if I remember properly.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, continuing to stare at the fireplace. She has a point. Several of them, even.
So why do I feel so bad?
“Hey, not to change the subject…”
He laughed. “Purposefully to change the subject…”
“How’s that new hire of yours working out? What did you say his name was? Coe?”
Brynjolf nodded. “Yeah. That’s all he’s willing to give me, but he’s really good at what he does. He’s a hard worker. I get the feeling that he’s had a hard life. Looks it, sounds it… but he’s got a good eye and a good sense of humor.” He grinned. “Oh, and he sings. I’ve overheard him when he didn’t know I was there. You’d like his voice, I think.”
“Well, why don’t you bring him over for dinner, then? It’s been a while since we’ve had any company. I feel a bit lonely rattling around this big house by myself and the Night Mother isn’t exactly up to a cross-province trek.”
He snorted. It still was a little hard to hear about the Dark Brotherhood from her. It reminded him too much of the reason she was now Sayma and not Dagnell – the reason they’d spent those years apart. He’d learned to live with it. After all, she’d reconciled herself to the fact that he’d been a breath away from becoming the Lord of the Volkihar vampires. He smiled at her anyway, and nodded.
“I’ll invite him, then. He’d probably enjoy a meal he didn’t have to scrape together himself.”
Much later, after they’d eaten – Sayma chattering away at him while he listened quietly, still lost somewhere inside himself – they went to bed. Sayma fell asleep almost instantly.
But Brynjolf stared at the ceiling, wondering why it bothered him so much that a man named Dale Perdeti existed.
