During the hours on Wulf’s ship, Qaralana told Chip more about why they were returning to their father’s homeland. He’d frowned at her, at first, when she told him about reaching Falskaar almost by accident.
“You’re telling me that Jalamar was right, then? There really were screams coming from the mine?”
She nodded. “Yes. There was a Dwemer steam centurion down there that had torn the people before me apart. One of them had the key to the portal and didn’t get to use it, so I tried it. I didn’t know why the wall started glowing, and when I stepped toward it I went through.”
Chip rubbed his chin. “I suppose that’s no more far-fetched than me chasing spirit animals all over Skyrim,” he murmured.
“Right. And it turns out there was this old prophecy, of sorts. Nobody knew how to activate the portal, but it was said that whoever came through it was called the Traveler. And ‘when the Traveler appears, the worst begins.’ Or something like that.”
“So you’re the worst?” He stuck his tongue out at her and grinned.
“I might be if you don’t cut it out,” she grumbled. “I don’t know about the prophecy, but things did start falling apart for Amber Creek not long after I got there.”
While the ship ploughed through the gentle sea she’d tried to make the long string of events since then into some kind of comprehensible tale. It seemed to take forever, as Chip would ask a question and she would find herself needing to backtrack and insert some otherwise crucial bit of information she’d forgotten to share. Finally he shook his head and snorted.
“So they left you, someone from a completely different land, to go to this unknown place all by yourself to search for the one piece of information that might make the difference between surviving as a hold and becoming a city of something not much better than slaves,” he said.
“Yeah, that about covers it. Assuming that Yngvarr would even leave them alive. I couldn’t just abandon them after promising to help. Besides,” she said, shrugging, “it feels like we’re connected to Amber Creek somehow. I know it’s pretty vague, but I just couldn’t do it.”
“Well, I’m glad you came to get one of us, then. Although something tells me you might have enjoyed Harald more,” he said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I think you know,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“Chip!” she cried, poking him in the arm. “He’s just my friend.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding while Qara sputtered at him.
Qara also explored the edges of Chip’s apparent melancholy all the way from Dawnstar to the Falskaar docks. She did it quietly, at intervals, trying to learn any reason why he might be so subdued.
“I see you’re wearing face paint now,” she said at one point. “Looks like mine.”
He gave her a half-hearted grin. “Yeah. It looks good on you; I figured it would probably look good on me as well. Although at first it was blood.”
She gulped. “Blood? What…”
Chip sighed, and paused as if trying to decide on what words he would use. “Remember I told you about ending up with Hircine’s bow and staff and all? It turns out that some of the Companions… were looking for Hircine artifacts as well.”
She frowned. “The Companions? Like the people at Jorrvaskr, the ones who are fighters?”
“Yeah. I ended up helping them. Ok, joining them. For the past while now. There were some… incidents. People got killed who shouldn’t have gotten killed. I was angry and I did the war paint with blood and … I kind of like it.”
She had stared at him, nodding slowly. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t the whole story, not by half; she knew her brother well enough to know when he was not telling the whole truth. That was a trait he shared with their father.
It’s just that Daddy is much better at it than Chip is. I’m never sure when he’s not telling the whole story. Chip is much easier to read.
But whatever it was clearly bothered Chip a great deal, so she let the matter go for the moment. Besides, they had far more important issues to deal with in the short term. The weather deteriorated as they neared Falskaar; and they approached the docks in pouring rain.
“We’re not going to stop in town or anything like that,” she told him as they disembarked. “We’ve got to get to Watervine Chasm. It’s off to the west, and…” She stopped to look her brother over, carefully. Chip had somehow grown broader of chest and arms since the last time she’d seen him, and she knew he got constant practice with his bow.
“Why are you staring at me like I’ve grown another head?”
“Well the fastest way for us to get there will be to climb over the mountains. It’s pretty strenuous but if we can do it we’ll cut a big chunk off our travel. I did it coming from the other direction when I was meeting the brothers I told you about, but I don’t want to insist or anything.”
Chip snorted. “I can climb a mountain, sis, and I’m fast. Let’s go.”
They ran through the wee hours, through the dripping-wet grasses, heading in what Qara hoped was the same direction she’d used to find Ulgar and Svegard. They circled carefully around a giants’ camp marked by a huge bonfire, and as Qara started for the incline up toward the lowest part of the ridge, Chip hissed to catch her attention.
“A cave. Over there. Do you suppose it goes all the way through?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. It might. It’s worth a shot I suppose. Let’s give it a try.”
There were wall-mounted sconces with torches alight just inside the tunnel. For a moment she wondered whether she’d made a mistake, and this was the same Bearclaw Cave they’d searched for the Key of Strength. But there was no camp outside, or any evidence that a firepit had been there. She would have remembered seeing a giant’s bonfire. And she was almost certain they were farther south than Bearclaw.
Even if it doesn’t go all the way through, it’ll be light by the time we get back outside. That’s no small consideration on wet rocks.
Inside, it was a long, winding stone tunnel they followed. Qara snuffed out each of the torches they passed so that they wouldn’t be quite so easy to spot, in case anyone was there. But there were no signs of life that she could sense. After a few minutes they came out of the tunnel into an old stone fortress, and Qara looked around in confusion.
“This… feels familiar. But I could swear I’ve never been in that cave entrance before.”
Chip sniffed. “I don’t smell anyone. Just decay.”
The hair on Qara’s neck rose. “You don’t smell anyone?”
Chip didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. “No.” Then he pointed behind her, to a ladder leaning against the wall. “This goes up. We need to go up to get over the mountains, right? Let’s at least see where it leads.”
“Ok. Be ready, though.” Chip rolled his eyes at her.
I deserved that, I suppose. He’s older than I am and has done things I haven’t. I don’t need to tell him to be careful.
They emerged into the early dawn, into an open guard tower of the old Imperial fortress. There was one bandit standing guard at an open doorway. He didn’t last long with both Qara and Chip against him. When they stepped past the body out into the open, Qara looked around and grinned.
“Yes! I know where we are!”
“That’s handy,” Chip said sarcastically.
“Yes it is, wiseguy. I saw this old fort off to our left as we were heading to Hjorgunnar Manor and that means that we’ve made it over the mountains. If we head northwest from here and hug the north side of that ridge over there, we’ll be heading straight for our destination. Let’s go!”
“Maybe the sun will come out, too,” Chip mumbled. “I’m tired of smelling wet.”
She laughed. “You are kinda pungent, big brother. What have you been doing, hanging out in a betting den with the pit wolves?”
He grinned. “Something like that, yeah.” He started loping ahead, just fast enough to take him out of her earshot.
I’m going to find out what you’re keeping from me. You think you’re such a sly dog running away like that but I’ll figure it out.
It did in fact clear up as they ran through the high meadows. At one point when they stopped to catch their breath Chip looked around at the now sun-drenched environment and sighed in amazement.
“Wow. It’s so beautiful here. It looks like home, only…” He shrugged as though he couldn’t find the right words.
“More,” Qara said, grinning. “You can see why Daddy likes the Rift, can’t you?”
“You’re sure he comes from here? I mean that’s kind of an old story, and…”
Qara snorted. “And have you ever known him to tell us something deliberately false? He’s said he only has vague recollections of the place, but I don’t have any reason to doubt him. Not after being here.” She looked down at her map and pointed. “We should be close. I think it’s just around that corner of the ridge.”
“Alright then. Lead on.”
It was clear as soon as they entered the cave that they’d be facing people. There were carefully laid wooden ramps leading down into the tunnel, and sturdy braziers along each wall. Qara had hoped it would at least be dry, but a stream running downhill covered the full width of the place, making footing a bit treacherous. Fortunately, a dry tunnel branched off to the right just a short distance in.
“Don’t like the looks of this,” Chip murmured, turning his head as if to listen more closely, and sniffing the air.
Qara nodded. She didn’t, either. Chip was behaving oddly but she could tell that he was onto something. A moment later that something became obvious. There was another turn in the tunnel, but at the intersection was a guard post – a wooden platform with a chair and table. Oddly, the person they’d sensed was sitting facing the wall, her back to the open tunnel. Qara looked back at Chip and pointed; he shrugged. She slipped up behind the Bosmer bandit and ended her life.
“And this was the guard?” Chip whispered. “We’ll be fine if that’s the case.”
They headed down the tunnel, moving silently as Delvin Mallory had taught them. Still, it startled Qara when a man walked right past her, missing her in the shadows. Fortunately, Chip hadn’t been surprised; he dealt with the bandit easily.
He has gotten stronger. Interesting.
The tunnel they were in must have been one of the stream’s meanders at some point, for it opened up into a much larger chamber into which that same stream entered from the left. Qara saw a bandit patrolling just ahead of them and rushed forward to attack. She hadn’t checked the area carefully enough; there were two other adversaries here in the cave. Chip took the nearest of them on while she dealt with the first.
Unfortunately, the third foe was a mage, who tossed a steady barrage of fireballs at them. Qara found herself seriously damaged after several struck her; she was forced to retreat into the comparative safety of the tunnel, healing herself and hissing as she watched Chip being pelted by flame as well. Finally, she felt able to rejoin the battle, approaching as the mage cast another fireball at Chip.
“Are you serious?” the woman sneered.
What counters flame? Qara thought, breathing deeply.
“FO-KRAH!”
A huge plume of frost raced toward the bandit, knocking her down. Qara rushed toward her, daggers at the ready; but the woman lay dead atop a bed of mushrooms and stones.
“Did you just… freeze her to death?” Chip asked, approaching her from behind.
Qara felt a shudder ripple out from her core. “I… did, I guess. Wow. I learned one of the words on my own but I must have had the other from Uncle Dar.” She spoke quietly as they continued deeper into the tunnel that once again followed the stream bed, explaining as best she understood it how some of his knowledge had transferred to her. “It just comes out sometimes. I never know when it will.”
“Huh. I know how that goes,” Chip muttered.
She shot him a sharp glance. “You are going to tell me what’s going on with you,” she hissed. “You’ve been dropping these cryptic hints ever since I opened your front door. Don’t think I’m going to let you get away with it.”
“Not now, Qara,” Chip growled. “It’s not the time. And it’s definitely not the place.” He pointed ahead of them. “See the ramps? We’re going to run into more people. Be on your guard.”
Sure enough, there was a series of ramps covering slippery spots in the tunnel floor; and at the top of an upward-sloping section a man stood guard. She crept up behind him and attacked. The surprise helped; but it still took her several moments to finish him, and there was no room for Chip to fight beside her. She pointed ahead, though, as she caught her breath. There was another man walking away from them; he disappeared around a corner to the left. Chip nodded and squeezed past her.
They silently pursued the man around several turns and dips in the tunnel, until he stopped just before a column Qara recognized as one belonging in an ancient Nord barrow. Chip was the one to launch the sneak attack this time, once again with his blade; Qara stepped up behind him and helped finish their adversary before he could do much more than moan.
The passage turned left and emptied into an enormous cavern, lighted in part by a huge opening in the rocks above. There was no question that this place was the work of water; far beneath the hole in the roof was a good-sized pond, large enough for trees to grow on the tiny island in its center. The cavern extended both above and below them by many stories, so large that halfway up, where they stood at one end of a stone bridge, there was plenty of space for more full-sized pines to thrive. There was a wooden shed hugging the ledge across from them, and one or two people moving about near it.
“Would you look at that! No wonder they call this place… what was it again? Watercress Salad?” Chip whispered from just behind her.
Qara turned to glare at him. “Watervine Chasm. Don’t make me hurt you.”
But the twinkle in his eyes and the grin he couldn’t quite contain dampened any irritation she might have otherwise felt. This was tense work, they were under the pressure of time, and Chip was doing his best to make it bearable. She chuckled.
“You’re worse than Daddy sometimes, you know that, I hope.”
“I feel accomplished.”
Qara led them to the left rather than heading straight across the chasm. It made for a much clearer and more complete view of what they were facing; and a good thing, too, for just after they’d cleared the tunnel opening a bandit walked across the stone bridge to where they’d been just moments before. Qara pulled out her bow and took aim on the man.
“Wait!” Chip hissed; but it was too late. She’d loosed the arrow and, as Chip probably suspected would be the case, missed her shot.
“Let me do the archery!” he whispered. “I don’t mean to be a jerk but I’m better than you at long-range stuff.”
“I know!” she hissed back. “I’m just used to being on my own. I didn’t think.”
The bandit she’d failed to kill was running back toward the cabin. They kept moving down the edge of the cavern, down a set of ancient stone steps, toward and then into an old stone Nordic hut. That got them out of the lines of sight for a moment. There was a Khajiit seated on the platform just outside the open hut; amazingly, he didn’t seem to be responding to the ruckus on the bridge above him. Qara made up for her earlier failure by drawing her blades and taking him down with a sneak attack from behind.
There was another large set of steps just beyond the platform they were on. The bandit she’d missed came running up them and then turned in the opposite direction. They looked at each other in bewilderment for a moment and then moved out to track the man down. He turned just as Qara approached, saw her, and grinned as he pulled his bow out in front of him.
“What do we have here?” the man rasped, firing an arrow that just grazed the armor covering her shoulder. Qara couldn’t stop her momentum in time to completely avoid him; so she slashed him several times before turning to skitter back toward the stairwell once more. She pivoted back toward the fight to find Chip in action, firing arrow after arrow at the man.
“I give up!” the bandit cried, running back toward Qara and then up into the deepest shadows of the boulders at the cavern’s edge. Chip never took his eye off his prey; he simply waited for the man to stop moving for a moment and finished him off with a perfectly-placed arrow.
They made their way down the massive central staircase to the floor of the cave, Qara marveling at how ancient the place must be. The small forest at its center was enough to tell that story; but the burial urns, wrapped mummies and draugr visible beneath the shifted lids of looted coffins also spoke of great age. It had likely been built long after weather and years had done most of their work, making it likely as old as the barrow beneath Hjorgunnar Mansion. There was a man wandering around the far side of the pond, though, and that warranted their immediate attention.
The sudden clatter of an arrow landing on the rocks near them propelled both Qara and Chip into action. There were two bandits running toward them and one on the rock bridge above. Chip fired at the man in dark armor who Qara had seen first; she drew her blades and circled in behind the bandit in scanty armor and a bright white fur cloak, who was also attacking Chip. The man was a tougher challenge than she’d expected. His cloak absorbed much of the force of her blows, and she had to wait until the momentum of an overpowered swing of his warhammer turned him around to face her. His chest and belly were bare. She buried a blade in each of those unprotected spots, and the man dropped his hammer and fell dead.
Chip had just finished with the other bandit when a lightning spell crackled across the cavern toward them. Qara swerved to see a mage descending the stairs, firing with both her hands. Chip couldn’t avoid being struck; and in spite of his noisy snarl he stopped, his legs clearly made sluggish by the shock. Qara turned back toward the bandit.
It worked once, maybe it’ll work again.
“FO- KRAH!”
This time the frost breath didn’t kill its target. Perhaps the distance was too far; Qara couldn’t tell. But it did slow her down, put her down on one knee for just a moment. Qara used that moment to sprint toward the mage, daggers flying. It took only a single set of attacks to kill the woman.
On the far side of the pond was a structure that drew Qara toward it. She examined it, shaking her head.
“What’s that?” Chip asked, approaching slowly while still rubbing his arms and legs back into life. “Looks like one of those… what do you call them?”
“Word walls,” she said. “And yeah, it’s a word wall. Or at least it was. See the scratches? They’re faded but those are words. Or at least they were. But the whole wall is broken.”
She’d never seen one of these broken, before. The stylized dragon head that usually adorned the very center of these walls had dropped down at a strange angle, and fully half of the curved wall itself had slumped down in front of the rest of the structure. She looked up; they were beneath one of the edges of the hole to the outside world. At some point long past, a boulder had broken loose and dropped down onto the wall. She shuddered thinking of what that might have been like.
She could see the opening to another tunnel at the back of the cavern. Between them and it, though, was a partially ruined tower; and from just around that tower came voices.
“It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s definitely something.”
OK, two guys. Two of us. And I have something they don’t have.
The two men came running out of the darkness, swords raised.
“FUS- RO DAH!”
The two of them flew through the air, one traveling so far that he bounced off the wall of the tunnel and back into the cavern. That gave Qara time to take out the nearer of them. She turned to locate the second man, and that turn saved her life. He was bringing his two-handed weapon down in an arc that would have sliced her wide open if she hadn’t moved. As it was, the blow from its handle knocked the breath out of her; she gasped and stumbled out of the way, but at least she was alive. Chip hurled himself at the bandit, and she was able to regain her breath and rejoin the fight. It was over quickly.
They went up through the tower, and found that there was one more adversary standing in the doorway of the shack they’d first seen from across the way. This one, a Khajiit, was an easy kill. He’d been standing directly in the light of a torch, light that blinded him enough that he couldn’t find either Qara or Chip in the shadows, but instead made him a perfect target for two perfectly-placed arrows.
They took a few moments to check the cavern again. When it was clear that they’d cleaned the place out, they started moving once more through the rough tunnels.
“You know,” Chip said quietly, “I’ve heard you do that Shouting thing before but it seems to me as though you’ve gotten…”
“Stronger?” she asked, hoping that was what he meant. “Uncle Dar taught me a few things, and so did the Greybeards and their leader when we went up the mountain.”
“Louder, is what I was going to say,” Chip answered with a grin. “Ok, don’t hurt me. Yes, stronger. That’s good, right?”
Qara sighed. “I don’t know what it means, honestly. But it is useful.”
“How long are we going to be in here, anyway?”
“I’m not sure. Brother Thorlough said these caverns were ‘vast.’ That’s the word he used. We’re supposed to come to an old Dwemer ruin called… what was it? Vizemundsted. But I don’t know where that is in relation to anything else.”
“I guess we’ll get there when we get there,” Chip said.
Qara was glancing behind to look at him when he snorted.
“Look up ahead. Spiders. I seem to be cursed with them lately.” He chuckled. “Farkas will be glad he’s not here.”
“Who’s Farkas?” Qara knew she’d heard the name before, but not where.
“He’s one of the Companions. He and I had to get through a similarly-infested dungeon awhile ago and, well… he doesn’t like spiders.” He snickered again. “I guess you had to be there. This big strong guy and spiders make him cringe.”
Qaralana giggled. “Well, stranger things have happened. These are pretty big webs though. I hope we won’t have any trouble.”
Qara cut through the webs and then backed up past Chip, assuming that he would down the spiders with his bow. There were two of them that she could see, each as huge as the biggest she’d ever encountered in Skyrim. Instead, Chip drew his daggers and rushed into the chamber, dodging and slashing and taking them on close-up, instead of from a safe distance.
I don’t understand him, sometimes, even if he is my brother. Something’s eating at him and I don’t know what it is. But I get the feeling it has something to do with the Companions.
“Take care you don’t bump your head on a bit of low-hanging stone,” he said quietly.
Qara laughed. “We’ve just walked into a room full of gigantic frostbite spiders and you’re worrying about the rocks? It’ll be fine, big brother. Really.” She laughed again and then turned around to make sure he could see her face. “But I am really glad you’re with me. Thank you.”
There were more spiders at various intervals down the winding tunnel that led away into the unknown. None of them was as large as the first two they’d had to kill, though, so they took turns taking point and slicing up arachnids, gathering up useful venom and eggs as they went. The exit from the third roomful of the creatures was blocked by another nearly-solid wall of spider web, which took a fair amount of effort to cut down even with Qara’s lovingly-sharpened daggers. Beyond, the tunnel narrowed and lowered.
“What’s up there?” Chip whispered.
“Don’t know. I can’t see far enough ahead. Rocks, I guess.” She moved around a corner to find several more wooden ramps of the kind they’d crossed coming in. “I spoke too soon. There’s wood here. Be ready, we might have more people.”
The farther they went, the more occupied the space seemed, with more lighted torches mounted in wall sconces. Qara was getting more concerned as she went, especially when a support beam at the end of the passage had fairly fresh garlic braids hanging from it.
If these were old they’d be shriveled and dried up. Or on the ground. We may have company.
I wonder how far we’ve come. It feels like it’s been days.
The tunnel resembled a mine now, more than anything else. It had wooden paving beneath and support beams along its length. In one cul-de-sac a partially-buried skeleton grasping a pickaxe lay on the ground, the apparent victim of a support beam that hadn’t held.
“Do you hear that?” Chip hissed.
Qara stopped and tilted her head to the side. It was just as quiet in the tunnel as it had been since they left the spiders behind.
“No, I don’t hear anything,” she said with a question in her voice.
“Listen!” Chip said. “It’s water!”
Qara strained to hear anything and couldn’t. “You’re imagining stuff, big brother. There’s no water…”
“Keep moving,” he said, waving her ahead. “I’m telling you, there’s water up there somewhere. Trust me. I have good hearing.”
Yeah I guess so, she thought as she heaved a sigh and started along the tunnel once more. This has to be the most tiring trip I’ve ever made. I sure hope it’s worth…
Her thoughts stopped and her mouth sagged open as the tunnel opened onto one of the most amazing vistas she’d ever seen. There was, in fact, water. A lot of it. To her left – uphill – some of the subterranean streams and lakes had joined together into a torrent and burst through whatever openings it found to form a powerful river here in the huge cavern that opened before them. It was easy to see what had happened to the mining operation, too. Downhill, and to their right, the neat boardwalk that covered the tunnels behind them had continued toward several platforms, leading to some Nordic-design arches she could barely make out through the mists. That wooden highway had been torn apart, partially washed downstream, hanging at bizarre angles in places. She could see where the miners had staged some of their gear but those barrels and chests were also worse for wear.
“Wow,” Chip breathed. “Just look at that!”
“It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“We obviously have to move downstream, but be careful on those planks. I don’t much care for the look of them and I don’t want to carry you out on my back.”
“Don’t worry, I’m just as nervous as you are,” Qara said, placing one cautious step in front of another on her way toward the arches. She could see that there had originally been several other arches along the length of this cavern. Most of them, though, had cracked and fallen, probably long before the flood that had taken out the boardwalks; but the water certainly hadn’t helped matters.
To her relief, Qaralana found that the intact portions of the boardwalk were just that: intact and solid underfoot. She picked up speed as she neared the bottom of the chasm, for there was something interesting there just beyond the huge Nordic arches. At the end of the boardwalk and up a set of stone stairs was a platform. The water disappeared, apparently having tunneled its way beneath the platform. At the far end of the cavern was a set of familiar iron doors.
“A barrow?” Chip asked as he climbed the stairs behind her.
“Must be. And I think we should get in there. This rock could stay here forever or that river could bring it down any moment.”
“Agreed. Let’s go.”
They both pushed against the forbidding metal and stepped through.