Dale picked up the pace heading east as the night deepened. It had taken him longer to leave Ivarstead than he’d intended, and he’d started dashing through the undergrowth as soon as he could make use of his vampiric speed without being noticed. He’d stopped once, along the way, to refresh himself at the expense of a bandit, someone who’d been threatening a group of merchants making their way west. It was easy enough for him to join the merchants in taking the bandit down, his condition well-disguised by his illusion spell, and then to drain the bandit after the merchants had moved on. The whole affair, though, had taken time he hadn’t intended to spend.
Agryn would have wanted me to feed, though. And so would Vyctyna. They made it clear that they wanted me as strong as I could be, as quickly as I could get that way. And I’ve certainly been doing my best to sample all of the necks between Bruma and Whiterun Hold.
He remembered that first night in Bruma, vividly. He’d been so thirsty he could hardly bear it, and burning up with fever. He had intended to head out for Skyrim that night, until his illness made it clear that he needed to find a quiet room. He’d decided on taking one at the Restful Watchman because it – therefore, he – was unlikely to attract any attention. But he’d been refreshing himself at the Jerall View because he liked Stantus, because the place reminded him of his mother, and because the company there was generally higher-brow than the blind drunk, smelly folk who frequented the Watchman. He’d enjoyed one more round at the far end of the bar from a red-haired Nord who seemed to know Stantus very well. The drink had done absolutely nothing to slake his thirst, and he had stumbled his febrile way across town to flop down onto the narrow, dubious cot in the narrow, dubious room. And there he’d died, and had come to himself later bearing fangs and a powerful thirst of a different kind.
He’d been grateful to Agryn and his partner for their preparations, beforehand. “I can’t come with you, Ondale,” Agryn had told him. “Things here in Chorrol are at a delicate state and we need to see them through before we can follow you to Skyrim. But I don’t want to leave you to fend for yourself, either. Here’s everything you’ll need to know.” And he’d taught Dale the illusion spell he would need, the special vampiric calming spell that would allow him to feed on targets without killing them, and all of the basics. “Feed as much as you can, as often as you can, but be discreet and careful,” he’d added.
Vyctyna was much younger than Agryn, and tended to put things more bluntly. “Gorge yourself, Dale. Till you can barely breathe. The more you feed the stronger you’ll get, and we need you to be really strong. You’ll meet the head of the Volkihar one of these days and, trust me, you’ll want to be able to look her square in the eye and not flinch.”
He remembered arching one brow. “Her?”
“Yeah,” Vyctyna had told him, grinning. “Serana. She’s really something. You’ll like her, I’m sure. And….”
“Tyna!” Agryn had tsk’d, even as he shot her a sly grin. “It’s true; all the former heads of the clan were male. It hasn’t been the case here for, oh, sixteen years or so.”
“And what, Mistress?” Dale had said while grinning at Vyctyna, knowing that his formality would be understood as the joke it was meant to be.
Vyctyna laughed. “And you’ll need all of your strength if she likes you, too. That’s all I’m saying.” Then she’d swapped a knowing glance with Agryn that actually had Dale feeling a bit flushed and completely without doubt what she’d meant.
So he’d done as they asked, and had gone to Skyrim, working out of the convenient but vulnerable cellar hideaway in Falkreath. Every chance he’d gotten, he’d fed. He’d been directed to turn a few select folk in the area, and he’d done so, dutifully, never stepping out of the traces to choose his own course. They had some sort of plan; and given how very ancient Agryn was compared to him, and how long that plan must have been in place, it had felt right to him to simply follow his sire’s instructions. In fact, the only deviation from orders that he’d made in all these months was to take a couple of extra hours for himself in Ivarstead. And therefore, he hurried now.
He hadn’t gotten an impression of urgency from Agryn’s message, but neither did he want to take too long reporting to his master. He laughed to himself, thinking of the face Agryn would make if he heard himself referred to as “master.” Agryn Gernic had always impressed him as a level-headed, generally unflappable, and utterly unpretentious man who would never flaunt his position over others.
But that’s what he is, really, at least for now. All these years I never met anyone I felt was worthy of my loyalty aside from my dear departed mother. These two are. And now that I’ve gotten stronger, I sense that I am ready to find out why they chose to bring me into their inner circle.
As he approached his destination he veered off the road to the south, trying to keep well out of the sight of any hold guards that might be in the area or, even worse, Stormcloak law enforcement patrols. The High King of Skyrim had managed to keep things fairly calm in the years since taking his throne – at least to the extent that Dale had been paying attention as a child in Cyrodiil – but he was fairly sure that he didn’t want to test the royal troops’ comfort level with vampires, regardless. So far he’d run across more wolves and bear than anything else, but he was sure that was about to change. Ahead of him he could see the rooftops of Riften against the sky, so he knew he was nearing the place.
He smiled at the sight. Riften. The conversation with the young woman he’d met in Ivarstead, Qaralana, had kept replaying in his head as he’d run east through the night. She’d been bright, witty, and friendly, and certainly attractive to look at.
Those were the most entertaining couple of hours I’ve spent in awhile. I’ll certainly keep my eyes open whenever I have cause to be in Riften. It would be amusing to run across her again.
He stopped and ducked into cover behind a large tree as torchlight flickered ahead of him. There were two guards patrolling around what seemed to be a large mill building and – once the guard walked back toward it and illuminated it – a farmhouse beyond. His instructions had told him of that farm; he needed now to turn to his right, toward the front line of foothills, and find the cavern entrance to Agryn’s home. He pushed through the tall grasses and around the trees, keeping an eye out for the overhang that he’d been told concealed the entrance. “It looks like a capped-off well,” the note had told him. Once the solid walls of the mountain opened up into a cave, he saw that Agryn’s description had been exactly correct. The old well cover was not only inconspicuous, but far enough inside the cave that a person had to be specifically looking for it to find it.
He dropped down through the opening and made his way through the old crypt toward its far side. He was looking around when a sudden grinding noise made him jump. A section of the far back wall was swiveling inward as if on a hinge. Once it stopped moving, a familiar form emerged from the darkness beyond.
“You made it,” Agryn Gernic said with the slight smile that seemed to be his natural expression. “I hope the travel wasn’t difficult.”
Dale shook his head. “No, not at all. Besides, as it happens it was a good time for me to pick up and move.”
Agryn turned and began descending stairs into the darkness beyond the door, waving for Dale to follow. “Why do you say that?” he asked, stopping for a moment once they had both cleared the door to tug on a chain pulley that activated the false stone wall to close once more.
“There’s been some fair amount of activity in that corner of the hold in the past few weeks,” Dale told him. “Dragons, lots of people on the roads, and one night not long ago I smelled a werewolf in human form sniffing around at the entrance to the hideaway. I’m fairly certain he knew I was there, but for whatever reason he didn’t investigate. It just seemed prudent to get out at that point.”
“Good call,” Agryn told him, leading the way down the stairs and across the main opening to a pair of chairs. “It’s been some time since we had an influx of dragons. But here we are,” he said, his hand sweeping across the space. “Our palace.” He chuckled. “Have a seat, and let me talk to you for a bit about our plans. Tyna will be joining us later.”
“Alright,” Dale agreed, sinking gratefully onto one of the chairs and watching as Agryn did the same.
“Now then,” Agryn began. “How much do you know about the recent history of the Volkihar?”
Dale shook his head. “Only what you and Vyctyna have told me.”
“Alright then. I’ve told you a bit about myself, how I was turned by Lord Edwyn Wickham of High Rock, so long ago now that I barely remember it…”
And for the next long while Dale listened in astonishment as Agryn wove the tale of his own “upbringing” as a vampire and how he and Edwyn Wickham had been serving the larger purposes of Lord Harkon, the head of the Volkihar clan. It had been an audacious idea that Harkon had, to take control of all the vampire clans on Tamriel, and to hear Agryn tell the story they’d been right on the cusp of making the push to solidify power when it had all gone wrong. Harkon had become obsessed with the idea of being able to blot out the sun, and had begun putting every iota of energy into finding the artifact that would allow him to do so.
“Wait,” Dale said at one point. “I don’t mean to interrupt, my lord, but…”
Agryn chuckled. “You don’t need to ‘my Lord’ me, Ondale. I may be old, but I’ve had enough of such courtesies for twice as many lifetimes as I’ve already lived. Being with someone as young as Tyna tends to rid you of unnecessary pretense, as well. Go on.”
Dale chuckled. “Well, alright. It’s just that I vaguely remember it, from when I was a kid. The sky got dark and the sun went all blood-red. It stopped happening after awhile – it wasn’t for very long a time – and somehow over the years I decided I must have been having some kind of vivid dream. You’re saying it was real?”
Agryn nodded. “Oh yes, it was very real. And that’s when things got intense. You see, as Vyctyna and I were making our way to Skyrim from High Rock, the vampire who found the artifact – Auriel’s Bow – managed to kill Harkon and take charge of the Volkihar.”
Dale’s brow furrowed. “I thought Serana was…”
“She is now. But she wasn’t always. Harkon was her father. I’m not entirely certain of all the details, but the vampire who killed Harkon – he was called Andante – died not long after they’d rehabilitated the castle. Edwyn Wickham and Tyna and I had come here at Harkon’s instructions, with Edwyn engaged in taking over the College. Edwyn Wickham and Tyna and I had come here at Harkon’s instructions, with Edwyn engaged in taking over the College. That turned out to be a much more difficult goal to accomplish than he’d thought. Between Edwyn being in battle there, and Tyna and I arriving later, we couldn’t prevent Harkon from perishing. Tyna and I didn’t attempt to contact the new Lord Volkihar for fear of being killed ourselves. When Andante perished, Edwyn took over for a time and, sadly…” and here he stopped to heave a weighty sigh and shake his head. “It doesn’t matter any longer. Edwyn also lost his mind. The fact is that I spent many a decade working toward the original plan, and Tyna and I want to continue moving in that direction.”
“To… rule all the vampires?” Dale was secretly astonished at the audacity of the idea.
Agryn nodded. “Yes, in a manner of speaking, but for a different reason. It does us no good to be continually at each others’ throats, hunted as we are by the mortals already. All these power struggles are counterproductive; and yet the only way to stop them is to exert power. I want to unite the clans under one leader and try to keep mongrel groups from springing up. To that end, I am hoping you will help us. But in order to have any sort of chance at rebuilding that possibility we must, in many ways, start over. I have contacts throughout Tamriel, of course, but their loyalties are wildly divided between Lady Serana and others. It’s going to take a long time; but we’ve exercised patience before and we will again.”
He rose from his chair to face Dale and then, with a quick motion for which Dale was completely unprepared, transformed from an unremarkable Breton to a huge, gray creature who commanded the entire space. Dale knew about vampire lords, of course, but hadn’t seen one close up and couldn’t help but shiver a bit in his chair.
“It is time for you to accept the full measure of your own potential, if you are willing, Ondale,” the oddly distorted and yet familiar voice said. “Accept the gift, the same gift passed down through the Volkihar line since the beginning. Become a vampire lord, and then help us take the reins of power and put our people back on track.”
Dale rose unsteadily, but nodded. He trusted this being before him, and understood his goals as being best for the continuation of their kind. “I will. Gladly,” he said quietly, and then stood with his eyes closed as Agryn Gernic, the vampire lord, bestowed on him the final gift he had to give.
Everything went black for a moment; but when Dale opened his eyes, he realized that there were two vampire lords standing there in the close confines of Agryn’s library, not simply one. For the next few minutes, he underwent the same training that Agryn had received from Edwyn Wickham centuries before, on how to use this new and more powerful form. He flexed his wings, considered the magic that he could command in either hand, and admired the enormous claws on the ends of his fingers.
“Well aren’t you two pretty!” came an amused voice from the stairwell. “I’d join you, but it would get awfully cramped in here.”
Agryn laughed, and reverted to his much smaller human shape. “You should do so as well, Dale,” he said. “It should come naturally to you.”
Dale thought for a bit and focused on his shape. A moment later he found himself standing in the middle of the space, looking down at both Agryn and Vyctyna seated before him. He smiled at both of them, and took a deep breath.
“Well that certainly is different,” he said, grinning.
“You’re pretty cute as a Lord,” Vyctyna said, giggling when Agryn shot her a sharp look. “Oh, don’t worry, hun. So are you.” She turned back to look up at Dale and smiled. “You’re probably wondering what’s next. Aggy and I are working on some angles out here,” she said. “We also have a fairly influential friend in town who has the ear of the High King through some intermediate channels, and we help him out in exchange for, well, protection. What we don’t have, though, is a toehold on the other end of Skyrim.”
Dale frowned. “Not even with the castle being out there?”
Agryn shook his head. “That’s the thing, you see. Some of those people have been there for centuries, since long before we came to Skyrim. We don’t know which of them is truly loyal to the clan and which might be a spy. We…”
“We can’t even really trust Serana, Dale,” Vyctyna said sourly. “I mean, she is the head of the clan and all, and I’m sure she’s with us – I think – but we can’t be there to watch her. There are too many walls with too many ears. And for all we know, her mum might be plotting against her.”
“What?” It was quickly becoming too convoluted and too confusing.
“Don’t worry about it, Ondale,” Agryn said. “What’s important at this moment is that we need you to infiltrate Solitude. We had a place there once. Briefly. But the Jarl took it over and it’s just not available to us any longer.”
Vyctyna reached up and squeezed Dale’s hand. “Don’t worry, though. I found you the perfect place. It’s right out on the end of the peninsula. Just off the road, but in an area nobody goes. Really. The road is half-buried by snow almost all the time. But you’ll be able to fly across to Morthal in moments, and it’s an easy trip to the castle, too.”
“Alright,” Dale said, trying to be agreeable. Internally, though, he was a bit annoyed. They’ve had me come all the way east and are now sending me in the opposite direction again. What a pain.
“I set it all up for you,” Vyctyna continued. “And I left you a new set of armor too.”
Dale snorted. “Why do I need new armor, exactly?”
Agryn grinned. “I know it’s a lot to take in but try not to get too distressed by all the changes, Dale. You’ve done a stellar job so far, on everything we’ve asked of you. The fact of the matter is that what you’re wearing is really distinctive. You’re going to need to be able to blend in, and that armor is not the best for that.”
“Oh,” Dale said, feeling stupid. “Of course. I’m a fool.”
“No, no, not a fool. Uninformed. That’s why we wanted you to come here first,” Agryn told him. “Now then, here’s what you’ll need to do…”
The night passed with the three vampires deep in conversation and planning. Dale emerged into the mercifully overcast daylight feeling more than a bit dazed by all he’d learned since arriving in the Riften area, and by the changes he’d undergone personally. He made his way slowly north toward the lake, intending to look around Riften proper before taking the carriage west to Solitude.
It’s too soon for me to see her again. She’ll not have left Mammoth Manor, yet, I would imagine. But now that I can fly, it won’t be difficult for me to visit this fine city from time to time.
“My family calls me Qara, unless I’m in trouble for something,” she told me. Then she blushed so prettily when I asked whether she was often in trouble. I believe it would be a delightful pastime to discover whether we might create some trouble together.
He pushed open the gate to the city, smiling at the guards but really amused by his own thoughts. Yes, they would undoubtedly remember seeing a young man in this distinctive armor, if they were ever asked about it. He would make sure that particular young man never appeared in Riften again. The voluminous hood he wore with this armor had, over time, had another purpose besides protection – it concealed the equally-distinctive scar on his face that was the souvenir of an encounter he’d had with one of Cyrodiil’s fierce timber wolves. He didn’t regret the scar. He’d been on an herb-gathering trek into the woods with his mother when the beast had attacked, and a scratch on the cheek had been far preferable to losing his mother. He thought of her, fondly, whenever he saw his own reflection or felt the ridges of the scar. But it would serve him well, he thought, that the guards wouldn’t recall that particular face as time went on.
He could both see and hear the marketplace, across a gap that must be Riften’s famous canal. Rather than head directly there, though, he turned right and wandered past a shrine to Talos and through the city’s graveyard, heading for the alley behind what looked to be the hold’s seat of government and a row of stately wooden mansions. Someone had gone to great expense to create a beautiful public garden from the space behind the graveyard; and Dale stopped to pick a blossom of dragon’s tooth before continuing down the way. He was still daydreaming about setting the vivid yellow flower in a head of short and curly red hair when he came back onto the main street just inside the north gate.
He strolled quietly down the street, turning right toward what turned out to be a not-so-carefully-disguised brothel, beyond which was a small home perched at the edge of the water. He noticed the markings low on the doorframe. A Shadowmark, that he knew; but he couldn’t recall which one this was. It had been there for a long while, though, judging by the weathered look of it. He crossed the footbridge over the canal and meandered past a general store and the meadery. He stopped to admire the blacksmith’s wares, and then made the full circuit around the outside of the central market. There were the usual suspects: an Argonian jeweler, a Dunmer selling suspiciously ordinary wares as exotic items from Morrowind, and a sour-sounding, middle-aged woman trying to sell armor. He found that particularly amusing given her proximity to the blacksmith, but people did what they needed to do.
He had just about decided to investigate the tavern when a voice from behind him stopped him in his tracks.
“A little light in the pockets, lad? Care to make a little coin?”
Dale froze. It was a deep, gentle brogue, and he’d heard it before, or something very like it.
Why is this such a familiar voice?
He didn’t turn around, merely chuckled at the obvious con. It was a forced chuckle and it sounded false to him; but the man behind him would have no way to know the sound of his genuine laugh.
“I don’t know what would give you that impression, sir, but I assure you that you’re wrong.”
To his great surprise, he heard a deep, exasperated sigh from in back of him. It had been quiet enough that nobody else would likely have heard, but Dale’s keen hearing picked up the frustration in the man’s breathing and his voice.
“Honestly. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I’m losing my touch. Sorry to have bothered you, then.”
He heard the soft padding of dress boots across paving stones, and the clink of glassware as the man cleared his throat and started calling out to passerby to purchase a bottle of his genuine Falmerblood Elixir. Only twenty septims, each. Dale couldn’t help but snicker quietly. He had intended to simply go inside, out of the daylight; but hearing the silly sales pitch set the question in his mind poking at him again.
I’ve heard this man before. I’m going to talk to him and see if I can figure out where, or it will bother me for the rest of the day.
He pushed his hood down off his head and turned around, stepping inside the circular marketplace.
The tall man with the greying red hair and the faded, jagged scar down his left cheek had been looking over his shoulder to his right, peering at the activity near the blacksmith’s forge. He turned back when Dale cleared his throat, and then stopped, frozen in mid-sentence. He was a pale man to begin with, but it seemed to Dale that any color he’d had drained out of his face.
“Oh, now I remember!” Dale said as the memory came to him. He’d been wearing a handsome set of dark armor, not quilted green finery, but this was the man who had unknowingly shared a part of the night he’d turned. “The Jerall View. But you’ve, um… smoothed out that accent a bit since the last time I saw you.”
He wasn’t expecting what happened next.
The redhead cleared his throat, and turned to carefully, gingerly place the oversized red flask back on the stall’s ledge with the others as if he wasn’t certain of his grip on it, his hand visibly trembling. Dale watched him, perplexed; he wondered for a moment whether the man was well, or whether they’d be calling for a healer shortly. But the distress the redhead was in didn’t seem to be physical. Once the flask was down safely he slowly turned back to face Dale, frowning slightly, his lips parted just slightly.
“Lad,” he breathed, clearly more to himself than to anyone else. “It’s not possible. How…?”
“Well I suppose I am a lad to you,” Dale said, slightly annoyed, “but I’m hardly a child.” Then he decided it would serve no purpose to be angry about an unintentional slight. “You don’t remember me, I take it? We met – or rather, we shared opposite ends of the bar one night in Bruma, a number of months ago. Stantus spotted you a mead because I’d been drinking him out of house and home that night.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Never did quite quench that thirst.”
For a few moments he watched the man’s eyes as he took in every detail of Dale’s appearance with a hungry, almost desperate gleam. He could hear the man’s heart hammering in his chest. This was absolutely the last thing Dale had expected.
“Let me see if I can remember,” he said, more to break the tension than anything else. “Stantus called you … something beginning with B, it seems to me. Brand? No, that wasn’t it.”
“Brunulvr,” the man whispered, shaking his head slightly. “He called me Brunulvr because that’s the name I use in Cyrodiil. But…”
Dale smiled. “But that’s not your real name. Fair enough, I’ll keep it under my hood, so to speak. And your name is actually…?”
The redhead shook his head and stared down at his feet for a moment, drawing several deep breaths as if to calm himself down. His heartbeat quieted.
Not-Brunulvr looks like he’s seen a ghost. What in the name of all the gods have I done?
“Listen, you seem really distressed. What can I do to help?”
“What…” The redhead paused and looked back up at Dale. “I’m Brynjolf. And I’m sorry to be so strange, lad. It’s not like me at all. It’s just that you look exactly like someone I used to know, very well. I do remember seeing you, now. Or at least your armor. I didn’t see your face, or we’d have spoken before this. I noticed you that night in Bruma because you sound just like… well, the person you resemble. What is your name?”
Dale relaxed. He hadn’t done something horrid, and the man wasn’t going to expire right here in front of him. That was a huge relief. He chuckled.
“I’m Dale. Ondale Perdeti, on my first visit to Riften. I’m pleased to meet you, Brynjolf.”
To his horror, Brynjolf’s heart started racing again, and his eyes opened wide.
“Perdeti? Is that what you said?”
“Yes, why?”
“I… uh…” Brynjolf took another deep breath and expelled it. “He. The man you look like. He was a Perdeti as well.”
Dale laughed. “Oh, I see. Well, there have been a few of us over the years. Let me guess. You knew my father. I never met him, but everyone tells me I look just like he did when he was alive.”
“And what was his name, lad?” the older man whispered hoarsely.
“Vitus. His name was Vitus Perdeti. At least that’s what I’m told.”
Brynjolf stared at him with a completely unfathomable expression on his face. “Yes. That was his name.” He looked utterly unfocused for a moment. “I… I didn’t realize that he had a son.”
Dale pondered his reaction for a moment longer. There was definitely something more going on here than he understood. But he needed to get going. He had to make it to Solitude and set up shop in his new home before undertaking the tasks Agryn had set for him. Still, he didn’t like the idea that he’d inflicted what was clearly some sort of emotional shock on this man. He plastered a smile on his face and spread his arms wide, bowing slightly from the waist.
“Well, if it’s of any consolation to you, I don’t think he realized it, either. Never met the man. What you see before you is to the credit of my mother and my mentor, and not much else. Listen, let me buy you an ale before I have to leave town. Maybe you can tell me something I’ve not heard about him. Come on. Inn’s right there, although I suppose you already know that.”
Brynjolf nodded, slowly, and stowed the flasks in the storage under his market stall. “Sure, lad. Let’s go get a drink.”
Brynjolf led the way out of the marketplace and toward the door of the Bee & Barb. Just before he followed, Dale felt they were being watched and looked around. The old blacksmith was staring at them, his brow furrowed in the same sort of confusion that Brynjolf had exhibited earlier.
Yes. Vyctyna is wise. It’s going to be a good thing for me to change my look. I don’t know what sort of fellow my father was, but it seems he made an impression here.
He would buy this Nord a drink and talk for awhile. Then he would scurry out of time and see what he could do about allowing the good folk of Riften to forget the man in the black armor with grey fur.