“What do you mean, no?”
Brynjolf stared at Agryn’s golden eyes and nearly flinched at the intense, unwavering stare he had in return. It wasn’t like him. Agryn had always deferred to his former status as the unofficial leader of the Volkihar clan, even after he’d taken the potion that removed his vampirism. After all, Brynjolf had taken a major part in the battle that killed Harkon, and had nearly taken down the former Archmage, Edwyn Wickham, as well.
They’d talked about it often enough over the years. Agryn Gernic could make a strong case for being the Lord of the Volkihar himself. He’d been Edwyn Wickham’s closest lieutenant and in a direct line of vampiric ancestry from Harkon himself. But Agryn recognized the more immediate claim Brynjolf had, as the closest lieutenant to Andante, the vampire who had served as Lord so briefly after Harkon’s demise. Both of them had been vampires before encountering Harkon; but Harkon created Andante as a Vampire Lord, and Andante had passed that status on to Brynjolf. Their standing in the bloodline wasn’t as direct as Agryn’s, but it was valid. Edwyn Wickham, on the other hand, had simply entered the castle and announced that he was the new Lord after Andante died. He’d never been fully accepted as Lord by the rest of the clan, perhaps because of his attitude, but especially after he’d murdered the venerable Altmer scholar, Vingalmo. Brynjolf had been not only accepted, but supported – even by Serana herself.
“It’s as I’ve told you, Brynjolf,” Agryn had said on several occasions. “Even with Serana leading the day-to-day operations at the castle both she and I recognize you as the legitimate successor to that throne. I was too closely associated with Edwyn, and they all despise Edwyn. Besides, I don’t know who I can trust there aside from her; and therefore I choose to trust nobody. This arrangement suits me perfectly. Perhaps some day when you’re no longer here I’ll take my place on that throne. Until then, we’ll continue to do business as we have been.”
They’d worked together seamlessly for all these years, watching each others’ backs to ensure both the safe passage of goods throughout Tamriel and the peaceful existence of the Volkihar. Additionally, Brynjolf made sure that Agryn had a certain amount of access to information from High King Ulfric’s court. That information came through circuitous channels but they were channels Brynjolf trusted; he made sure to pass along those things that were important to share.
Agryn held to the old standards of the vampiric orders from days gone by in Cyrodiil. It was to his advantage to do business with the living and not thin their ranks too much; therefore Brynjolf was never in any danger from them. He would have offered his neck in a pinch – he distinctly remembered what it was like to be a vampire and be hungry – but they’d never taken advantage of him in that way. For the past nearly sixteen years Brynjolf had only needed to ask, and his wishes were fulfilled.
For all these reasons, he was stunned at Agryn’s attitude.
“Was I not clear, Brynjolf? I said no, I will not turn you again.” Agryn’s posture and his entire demeanor said that he would not be moved. “I cannot imagine a set of circumstances in which such an act would not be an unmitigated disaster.”
Brynjolf was about to object, but Vyctyna interrupted him.
“Which is a much nicer way of saying what I’m thinking, boss.”
“Which is?”
“Have you lost your mind? Are you completely nuts? First of all, you went to Oblivion and back to turn human again!”
Brynjolf nodded. That was true enough.
“Second, even though I never met Andante face-to-face, from everything I’ve heard about him he would be so mad at you if you did this. He wanted you to be human to be with your family.”
Brynjolf nodded again. “He did. But my children are grown and no longer need me.”
Vyctyna snorted. “Oh, now that’s just bullshit, boss.”
“Tyna,” Agryn said in a warning tone.
Vyctyna shook her head “Well I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry. It just is. They’re just barely grown. Of course they need you; and besides, what about your wife?”
Brynjolf felt himself flinch. “She…” He grimaced. “It doesn’t matter. If neither of you will do it, I’ll go to Serana instead!”
Agryn sighed. “And you’ll have the same response from her, Brynjolf. I’m certain of it. And before you start having any other thoughts, no, you can’t get Babette to turn you, either.”
He was stunned for a moment. “How… do you know Babette?”
Vyctyna tsk’d. “Really, boss? Do you really think we wouldn’t have contacts in the Brotherhood? Babette has been around nearly as long as Agryn.”
Agryn shot her a quick grin.
“I…uh…” Brynjolf was taken aback. He had been thinking of Babette as a fallback. It would have taken some finagling to get in touch with her – after all, he couldn’t very well ask Sayma to deliver the message – but for just a moment he’d been formulating what he would say to Delvin to get him to deliver a note through his back channels.
So that won’t work either. Vyctyna doesn’t act like much but she knows me well.
“Besides, Brynjolf,” Agryn said quietly, “and possibly more importantly, I don’t even know whether your body could take another such change at this point.”
Brynjolf was stung. He climbed through the high mountain passes, regularly, on foot and in the cold. Sometimes he took a carriage if he was traveling within Skyrim, but mostly he did those errands on foot as well. He was in fine condition.
He harrumphed. “You mean I’m old, don’t you.”
Agryn finally cracked the tiniest of smiles in his direction. “No, friend. I’m old. I mean that it takes many years – sometimes decades of them – to make a powerful vampire under the most normal of circumstances. Some don’t survive the turning. Some become feral. You’ve seen those. Some go mad.” He sighed. “Sometimes, even the strongest go mad eventually. You saw what happened to Harkon and Edwyn, and that was only one transformation for each of them. Who knows, perhaps eventually I will go mad myself.”
“Aggie!” Vyctyna cried, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. Clearly, she’d never pondered that possibility before. Agryn gave her a sympathetic look, but then turned his attention back to Brynjolf.
Brynjolf frowned. “I don’t buy it. I just don’t. How was my situation – my status as a vampire – possible, in that case? I was nearly as strong as Andante after he turned me. I was a Nightlord not long after that. And then we both became Lords. That didn’t take decades. It barely took months.”
Vyctyna had wandered away shaking her head, but she called back over her shoulder. “Good blood.”
“You mean Andante’s?”
“No, boss, I mean yours. Something about you was able to take on all of Andante’s strength right from the start and that only happens once in awhile.”
Agryn turned to look at her. “Hmm. You may be right. It’s not surprising that Brynjolf started out strong, but there must have been something else that allowed him to be that advanced…” He paused, rubbing his chin in thought. Then he turned back to Brynjolf. “Regardless of that, we simply can’t risk turning you again. It might destroy your mind.”
Brynjolf sighed as memories of the last few weeks with Vitus ran through his mind. It’s probably true, now that I think about it. He changed form three different times, and at the end he told me he couldn’t control his killing urges anymore. Maybe he was actually damaged by the turnings, too, even if he wasn’t as damaged as some weaker vampires.
He shrugged. “Blast. I suppose you’re probably right about this. And after all, both of you know more about being vampires than I do.”
“I’m happy to see that you recognize the obvious, Brynjolf,” Agryn said with a smile, relaxing as he did so. “But tell us why you wanted this at all.”
I don’t even want to think about it, much less…
“Is something wrong between you and Sayma?” Vyctyna asked. “Don’t even try to pretend we didn’t hear you change the subject earlier.”
Brynjolf blew out a deep breath. “Yes, well… alright then. Before she came to Skyrim, before she met me, she had a … partner. A first love. Back on Stros M’Kai.”
“Oh she’s from a long way off, then,” Vyctyna said.
“Yes, but that was twenty years ago. That man and their best friend got on the wrong side of skooma, which, um… Let’s just say it’s been a touchy subject between us over our lives together.”
“Addicts?” Agryn asked.
“Yeah. They pushed her away and she ended up here just looking for a new life. She found me.” He grimaced. And she found Roggi, and Dardeh, and the Dark Brotherhood, and who knows what else? Ah what am I thinking… it’s not as though I haven’t kept things from her as well. “As far as she knew, both of them were dead and gone.”
“And?” Vyctyna asked when he paused.
He looked at each of them in turn. “And a little while ago I hired a new guy to help with the manufacturing side of things. A Redguard. Former pirate. Excellent cook, and he picked up our recipe without even breaking a sweat. He’s an addict, but he’s got it under control for the most part, same way as Andante did.”
One of Agryn’s eyebrows rose.
“Don’t look at me like that. Yes, he was also an addict. You wouldn’t ever have noticed it, though, because he was a vampire.”
“Annnnddd?” Vyctyna asked again, staring him down.
She’s like a dog with a bone. She’s not going to let me wiggle out of this.
“Turns out that he’s the long-lost first love.”
“Oh,” Agryn said. “That’s… difficult.”
Brynjolf nodded. “Yeah. Even better? It turns out that his last name is Sendu. Same as the name Sayma took for herself.”
“Ouch, boss,” Vyctyna said. “That’s harsh.” She walked over to stand in front of him and wagged her finger in front of his face. “And you were mad, and you thought you’d get back at her by becoming a vampire again, is that it?”
“Vyctyna, behave yourself,” Agryn snapped.
“No, Aggie, he needs to hear this,” she said, glaring at Agryn with a level of ferocity Brynjolf had rarely seen from her.
She’s formidable all on her own. I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” she said, turning back to stare at Brynjolf.
He shook his head and laughed. “Shor’s beard, lass. Alright, you win. Yes. I was angry. I still am. But I suppose she’s not to blame for him turning up again. It’s just that…”
What is it, exactly? It’s not as though she thought she’d ever see him again. It’s not as though at that point she thought she’d ever see me again, for that matter. She picked a name that gave her a little bit of comfort at a difficult time in her life.
And somehow knowing that doesn’t seem to help me feel any better.
“You don’t know what to do about him being around and so close, yes? I can understand that,” Vyctyna filled in.
“Yes,” he responded, knowing full well that while that was part of the truth it wasn’t the thing that was eating at him. He glanced at Agryn.
Agryn’s not buying it, though. He’s better at reading me than she is.
“And somehow you decided that being a vampire again would solve this problem for you?” he asked quietly.
Brynjolf felt his temper flare a bit; but he knew better than to confront someone as strong as Agryn. The fact that neither of them had ever hurt him was no guarantee that they wouldn’t, if provoked. He threw up his hands.
“Yes! No! I don’t know, Agryn,” he growled. “It would be something. Something that was mine. Being Guildmaster isn’t mine; I took it over when Sayma left it behind, and before that I was second-in-command for so long I can barely remember anything different. Second. Not first. If Andante had lived I’d have been second-in-command, not first. But being a vampire, on my own? That would be mine. I had a little taste of that about the time you and I met each other. It felt good.”
“But not good enough to make up for possibly losing your family, Brynjolf,” Agryn said in a tone that left no room for argument. “That’s a treasure you can’t replace with taking a few necks. And thus no, we will not turn you again. Not now, not ever.”
“Don’t even think about it, Bryn,” Vyctyna added. “And you,” she said, poking a finger into Agryn’s chest, “had better stop scaring me with things like ‘maybe I’ll go mad some day.’ You’re not Harkon and you’re not Edwyn. Cut it out.”
Agryn chuckled. He reached out and pulled Vyctyna closer to him, smiling down into her face. “That’s true. But Edwyn was my sire, and my closest friend for several centuries. It’s hard not to wonder how much of the crazy got passed along.”
Brynjolf watched the sparkle in each of their eyes as they gazed lovingly at each other. Sayma and I were looking at each other like that just before Coe – no, Coyle – shocked her into passing out for a moment. I guess I should give her the benefit of the doubt.
Alright, you win, he thought at the other presence in his mind. He cleared his throat to get the vampires’ attentions.
“I guess I’ll be going…”
Vyctyna caught his attention. “Maybe you should just take a night or two for yourself, boss,” she said. “Go visit Dardeh and Roggi. Or go up to Windhelm or something. Just get away from it for a bit.”
Brynjolf considered that for a moment. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea, really; but…
“I think I’m going to stay in the Cistern tonight. I don’t want to leave it too long before I go back home, but I definitely need to cool off.”
He started toward the stairs and then turned back to smile at them. “Thanks for talking me out of it. I almost made a bad mistake.”
Brynjolf hadn’t been gone very long before Agryn blew out a large breath.
“Tyna.”
“Yes?”
“Dale’s going to come report in about Solitude pretty soon. He was expecting to meet our other business partner. What are we going to tell him?”
Vyctyna crossed the room and opened up the cabinet that held their supply of blood potions. She cracked one of them open, pouring half each into two snifters and handing one of them to Agryn.
“I think,” she said, “that Brynjolf needs a little time to settle before he meets yet another vampire who might serve as a temptation. We can’t have him turning again. It’s too risky.”
“And so…?” Agryn took a sip from his drink.
“So,” she said slowly, “if he should ask, we will tell him that our business partner isn’t doing well right now and needs a chance to get stable again.”
Agryn nodded. “Good. That’s the truth, really. And in the meantime I’ll send him out to deal with that feral in Rannveig’s Fast. That one needs to be taken care of anyway.”
“Good.” Vyctyna frowned at the stairwell. “I hate it when he’s not doing well, Aggie. That man has had too much to deal with in his lifetime.”
Agryn nodded. “True. Fortunately, he’s human now. So that lifetime will be mercifully short.”
It was convenient that it was pitch black, Dale observed as he neared the old barrow tucked into the side of a ridge, and not simply because he was a vampire and therefore stronger at night. The other convenience was that this old barrow was apparently infested with souls who had not found their eternal rest; and these ghosts glowed, making them easy targets, even moreso at night.
He jumped down from the ledge he was on, and took down the first ghost he encountered in a quick flurry of blade strikes. He had the fleeting impression that the spectral Nord was happy to be released, as he cried “I don’t want to do this!” just before crumpling into a pile of ectoplasm on the ground.
Hmm. So that’s what Agryn meant when he said this Sild is a sick man.
Reanimating a corpse to use as a temporary assistant in battle was common enough among necromancers. Summoning Daedric-plane creatures for the same purposes was something many mages did, as was trapping the souls of defeated enemies in soul gems. He himself used a conjured gargoyle. But this was something different. This was even worse than the necromancers trying to restore Potema from the dead. There was something supremely eerie and innately wrong about subjugating the sentient – and unwilling – ghosts of defeated enemies.
I suspect that nobody will weep over this Sild if I remove him from this plane of existence along with the vampire I’m charged to slay. There are some things that are just wrong.
He grinned, amused with himself.
Says the assassin.
There was still another advantage to it being night, he realized as he headed for the stairway up to the old barrow. A distant – but still very loud – roar from just over the ridge made him happy that the dragon making it could not spot him easily. He was a skilled fighter and an increasingly strong vampire, but he harbored no illusions about being able to kill a dragon. That was something he would leave to the mighty Dragonborn he’d heard so much about.
Something tells me that I’d not make much more than a tasty hors d’oeuvres for a dragon. Just enough to whet the appetite for something more substantial – like a few fat horkers or bears. Or an entire Stormcloak patrol.
After pushing open the huge door into the barrow, he stopped for a moment to look around in impressed silence. He’d grown up around the remains of ancient Ayleid monuments, so generally the Nordic ones didn’t render him awestruck the way they did some people. This one, though, was impressive. The huge, cavernous space was well on its way to being reclaimed by Nirn, its floor covered in soil and those places where light shone in colored green with moss, ferns, and even a few pine saplings. Yet the towering stone pillars still bore the fine carvings and inlays that marked the space as a barrow. It must have been quite the sight when it was first carved out of the mountain around it.
There were a number of candles and sconces lighting the way toward a rounded passage at its rear. Dale drew his blades and walked cautiously toward, and then into, the tunnel, dropping into a crouch once he reached the bottom of the first descent.
There was another ghost just around the corner from him. It turned to stare at him just as he rushed forward.
“Stay away! I don’t want to do this!”
The ghost, like those outside, fell to Dale’s attack easily. Dale stared down at its remnants for a moment, frowning. For all his earlier amusement about it, this really wasn’t right. Keeping these people’s spirits here against their will was practically torture; and while the Dark Brotherhood was known to employ such methods on occasion he personally didn’t like it one bit.
Have some self-respect. If you’re after a target, just take the target out and be done with it. Anything else is a cruel and needless self-indulgence.
He knew there were those who laughed at him for having this viewpoint. For him, though, being an assassin was simply a way of earning coin, like any other occupation. He’d needed to help his mother out, after all, and he did so by using his best skills. It was a matter of simply completing the assignment he was given and moving on to the next.
The passageway he was in eventually opened onto a landing overlooking another great hall. This one was more formally designed than the cavern behind him; it was long and straight with niches along either wall. Through the mist that hung near the floor he could just make out a platform with a curved surface just behind it and what might be – if he squinted hard enough – a chest placed just in front of that surface. Of more immediate concern, though, were the apparitions stepping out from the niches.
One of them crossed the room and stood staring at the niche before it. As Dale crept nearer it became aware of him and turned. Dale rose to attack, and the specter raised a mace to return blows.
“I don’t have any choice. I’m sorry!” it cried out, trading attacks with Dale but eventually falling to his short blades.
Once the ghost was down, Dale moved slowly toward the convex, ornately-carved wall. He was just about to step forward to examine the chest when a change in the color of the floor beneath his feet caught his peripheral vision. He crouched in the dim light to examine the place, to find that it was a dark-colored metal hatch, rigged to open downward from either side.
A trap door, eh? Interesting. I’m glad I spotted it.
He hopped up onto the platform beside the hatch and checked the chest. There was nothing in it, nothing that would warrant crossing the hatch to get to it. But it was a large chest, and placed directly behind the hatch. Now that he was close enough to examine things he saw that the convex stone surface behind him was another of the dragon-language walls that were scattered across Tamriel, but primarily in Skyrim.
I don’t know what it says. But I do know this chest has nothing to do with it. It was put here as bait. I’ll bet this is how Sild gets his souls.
Sorry to disappoint.
He looked around the hall, trying to sort out which way he should go next. A locked wooden door concealed a dead end holding another chest – a smaller one, but with a nice cache of coins and gems. Turning back toward the balcony where he’d entered, Dale spotted a well-lit corridor entrance tucked back into the wall in such a way that he hadn’t seen it coming in.
So let’s see where you’re hiding, Sild. Your visitor is my assignment, but you’re going down, too.
There was a metal gate at the end of the corridor; closed, but the lights beyond it told him that was where he needed to be. He nodded to himself. It was time to go on the hunt, and the first objective was the lever that would raise that gate. It was fairly straightforward. The only passage he hadn’t yet explored wound its way up along two short flights of stairs, ending in a small room holding some collapsed furniture and, as he’d expected, a floor-mounted lever. He threw the lever and whirled in surprise as the sounds of mechanisms triggering sounded not only from the space beneath him – which he had expected – but from directly behind him. There had been another gate, tucked just behind a carved pillar. The stone bridge just beyond its opening was tempting; he stared at it for a moment and then shook his head. He was on the hunt and needed to stay focused on his prey.
There was another specter standing just beyond the gate he’d opened on the lower level. Dale growled silently and dispatched the spirit, who like some of the others cried that he’d had no choice.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to himself. “I don’t want to do this either. But I have no choice. Rest well.”
The trail of lighted candles and wall-mounted torches led down through a twisting corridor and ended in a long room extending to his right. There was a wooden door just across the room in front of him. About halfway down the room was a fat stone column, with a closed metal gate on its left. To the right was an opening where another gate had been, or perhaps still was but in its open position. Beyond the opening he could see cages – the full-sized cages that would hold a human.
And there was the smell of decay.
Dale cocked his head to the side and listened hard. There were small sounds coming from around a corner at the room’s far end – breathing, soft steps from side to side.
Vampire. Here you are, my friend.
One of the things he’d learned early in life was to avoid being surrounded, or surprised. It was important to know exactly what was where, if at all possible. So he crossed the room and eased the wooden doors open. Stairs led upward to a landing where they doglegged to the right; and up just a few steps from that landing stood another ghost. Dale drew his blades as silently as he could and rolled forward to attack.
“Stay away!” the ghost cried. But such was the power of Dale’s surprise attack that the ghost dissolved almost instantly.
Glad I checked. I wouldn’t have wanted this one to drop down on my head from behind.
The upper level the ghost had been guarding was unremarkable; a small locked chamber yielded up a few baubles that would help support the décor in his mausoleum, so Dale was pleased with that. But the prey was below.
As he descended back toward the main chamber, he heard the vampire muttering to himself.
“The first kill is always the best. The blood has never tasted as sweet since.” The vampire’s voice was deep, with cultured accents, perhaps an Altmer. Dale couldn’t tell for certain.
There’s some truth to that. But I maintain that it’s the novelty of that first taste that makes it seem special. After that, blood is blood just as bread is bread.
He approached the lowered gate carefully. His intention was to conjure a gargoyle to distract the vampire, and then rush in to finish it off. He was just about to cast the spell when another voice stopped him cold.
“Come on. You know you want what’s in that chest! I know you’re up there. Go get the treasure!”
Sild. He must have heard me moving around earlier.
“I could hide down here forever,” the vampire murmured. “Gather a few of the brethren. Strike out on our own.”
“I think not,” Dale said quietly, casting his gargoyle just past the open entrance. “We have other plans.”
The gargoyle roared. Dale wrapped the shadows around himself and moved into the space behind the closed gate, casting his drain life spell against the thoroughly-preoccupied vampire.
He’s stronger than I am, and he’s in dwarven make armor. This could be tough.
But the vampire was completely fixated on the gargoyle, blasting it with flames and striking at it repeatedly. Dale drew his blades and stepped up behind the vampire, using the gargoyle’s roaring as cover as he stood and drew his blade across the vampire’s throat. He crumpled silently onto the floor but, to Dale’s surprise, did not turn to ashes.
Not one of us, for certain.
“I’ll bathe in your blood!”
The harsh cry came from the back of the chamber, between two of the large cages. Dale took a step back from the corpse beneath his feet and watched as the gargoyle, still working in spite of its damage, flew to the necromancer and began attacking.
“That’s rich!” Dale chuckled. He ran forward with his life-draining spell in one hand and a blade in the other, and stepped into the space left by the gargoyle as it dissipated, having been defeated by Sild’s flames. Sild turned toward him and began casting flames in his direction.
The flames hurt, to be certain; but Dale was hunting for his own satisfaction this time and refused to allow anything to stand in the way of his success. He gritted his teeth and stepped closer, still casting life drain. The mage was wearing only the lightest of robes. After just three quick slashes at him Dale’s spell finished the job, pulling the last of Sild’s life energy from him. In a final gesture, Dale knelt to drain the corpse of what little blood it still held.
“There, you sick bastard. You’ll not trap any others against their will.”
On a nearby table was a journal confirming what Dale had suspected. Sild had used the chest as bait to lure unsuspecting adventurers or grave robbers onto the trap door, torturing those who didn’t die in the fall for his own delight before killing them to trap their souls.
This was a good hunt. Very satisfying. Now to get back to Agryn and Vyctyna.