by Greg Keyes
“What?” Attrebus said, trying to gain more ground.
“Take the sword from him, you idiot.” He seemed to have a hard time talking. His gaze was full of fury.
Then his eyes changed, and so did his tone.
“Please,” he whispered.
Then he flung himself at Attrebus again. Attrebus jumped back and tripped, throwing Flashing’s point up in a feeble attempt to ward off the thing that had been Elhul Sathil.
But Elhul stopped in mid-stride, his mouth open as if to scream again, though no sound issued. Instead a smoking green fluid vomited out. He clapped his free hand to his head as the same viscous stuff jetted from his eyes and ears. Holes began to burst in his abdomen, and he crumpled, breaking into pieces. Where the vitriol touched stone, it too began to dissolve.
“Get back,” Sul said. “Don’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t considering that, believe it or not,” Attrebus said, trying to keep his breakfast down. “That was—” But he didn’t have a word strong enough for whatever magic Sul had just used.
“It worked,” Sul replied. “I was starting to think nothing would.”
“Congratulations. How’s your arm?”
Sul glanced at the wound as if he had forgotten it.
“Not bad,” he said. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
Attrebus looked back at the remains—which now consisted of a fuming green puddle—and the sword, which seemed untouched.
“What now?” he asked. “We can’t pick it up without becoming like him, as I understand it.”
“Probably not,” Sul said. “Look around—find something to wrap it in. It’s going to be a while before all the acid is gone anyway.”
Only then did Attrebus notice the bodies. Most were merely bones, but a few were still fresh enough to smell. The light from his lantern and the dying flame that had been Sul’s were enough to reveal half a dozen. He didn’t want to know how many lay outside that illumination.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to hunt hard or long; in a moldering pile of clothes and bedding they found a sheath. After about twenty minutes, when the floor finally stopped smoking, Sul pushed the scabbard onto Umbra. He stared at the blade for a few minutes, then picked it up by the sheath. His eyes widened and he muttered something under his breath that might have been some sort of incantation.
“Even in its sheath,” he said, “stay away from this, Attrebus.”
He tore one of the blankets and cut it into strips, first winding them around Umbra’s grip—careful not to touch it—then around the scabbard as well, until there were several layers of wool covering the whole weapon.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Yes,” Attrebus said. “About that …”
Nirai was still there, and when she saw them—and the bundle they carried—she began to weep.
“You did it,” she said. “I had begun to believe it was impossible.”
“You’re going to let us out now,” Attrebus said.
She lifted her head. “No,” she said, “I’m not. Not unless you leave the sword.”
“You know who I am,” Attrebus told her. “I’ll be missed.”
“You’re already missed,” Nirai said. “But no one knows you came here except a handful of us in this castle—and we keep to ourselves. Besides, from what I’ve heard, the Empire has more to worry about than a wayward prince.”
She glanced at Sul and shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “These bars are sorceled to turn spells back on their casters tenfold. Try to harm me, and you will pay the price.”
“Wait,” Attrebus said. “We can talk about this. I know you don’t want us to die.”
“I don’t,” she agreed. “Go back into the cave. Leave the sword there. I will return here with sufficient guards to protect me and set you free, on your honor to never return.”
“What you just said about trouble in the Empire—you’re talking about Umbriel,” Attrebus said. “But that’s exactly why I need the sword. We need it to destroy Umbriel.”
“For all I know, it already controls you,” she said. “I’m not at all certain the sword must be wielded to possess its owner. Proximity might be enough. But even so, at some point someone will put hand to it again, and then the sword will walk its new thrall right back here to kill all of us.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you know anything about that thing?”
“Some.”
“My father sent for every book and manuscript in existence, and some that were believed lost were found.”
“Tell us what you know,” he said. “Convince me that we should leave Umbra here.”
She dithered for a second or two, and he knew in that instant that Nirai wasn’t going to let them out no matter what, but was still trying to make herself easier about it, to convince herself there was no other choice.
“The daedra prince Clavicus Vile wished a weapon made,” she said. “It was to be an instrument of mischief in Nirn, a source of amusement for him, a weapon that would send him souls. At first, however, he couldn’t find a smith who could do the work. He spent months—some sources say years—in frustration, until the witch Naenra Waerr came forth. She made the weapon, but it was unstable, and she told the prince that he would have to imbue it with some of his own power to make it whole and communicate with it on the mortal plane. Vile gave her the power she asked for. But it appears she tricked him, and some even speculate the witch was actually none other than Sheogorath, the Madgod, in disguise.”
“Tricked him how?”
“I said appears,” Nirai said. “It’s unclear whether what happened was part of a plan or merely the result of tampering with daedric forces. The sword is a soul stealer, and over time it comes to possess its owner. But whether by design, or by contact with human souls, or simply because it is in the nature of daedric energies, in time the part of Vile that was in the sword became a thing of its own, a sentient being.”
“Yes,” Attrebus said. “We know of that. The being of whom you speak has escaped the sword and now empowers the city of Umbriel. We wish to draw him—or his energies, I guess—back into the sword.”
“I surmised that the creature Umbra was no longer in the sword,” Nirai said. “It still steals souls, but it is unstable, driving its wielder insane almost instantly. I believe this is because it is still in communication with Vile in some way. I have, in fact, come to believe that when Umbra left, Vile himself—or some significant fraction of what comprises him—is now, in turn, trapped in the sword. Whatever the truth is, no mortal mind can long survive the rage and madness in that weapon.”
“Then let us make it whole again, and bring down Umbriel.”
“But that’s what Vile wants,” Nirai replied. “And if that is what Vile wants, he shall not have it.” Her voice firmed up, became more confident. “And so I’m sorry. You must remain here.”
“I thought that was your father’s obsession,” Attrebus said.
“So did I,” she replied.
“What if we agree to leave the sword, as you offered before?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” she replied. “I no longer believe you would honor such a truce. You might have ways of making the sword invisible, or come back for it with others. I cannot release you.”
The air quivered and then snapped in sharp report, and a slavering fiend appeared, hurling itself against the gate. Nirai screamed and leapt back, but the monster’s cry was ear-splitting. It caught fire and melted in great gobbets.
“You see!” she gasped, then turned and fled.
“You might have summoned it on the other side,” Attrebus said to Sul.
“I tried,” he replied. “She’s right about that gate. There’s power at work that I can’t undo.”
“What then?” Attrebus asked. “I have a feeling she’s not just going to let us starve to death now.” He brightened. “If she sends guards, they’ll have to open the gate to get to us.”
“If it were me,
I would send down clouds of noxious fumes,” Sul said, “or seal the passageway and let us suffocate. Or pour down barrels of oil and set them aflame, if there is no one here with such arcane knowledge.”
“If her father made that weather at the valley, I’m sure he can do something pretty nasty to us if we’re trapped down here.”
“My thought, too,” Sul agreed.
“Can you take us into Oblivion?” Attrebus asked.
“I don’t sense any weak spots in the walls between the worlds here,” he said. “At least not of the usual sort. Even if there were, it could take us anywhere. When we traveled to Morrowind, we were on a trail known to me, one it took me decades to work out. When we escaped Vuhon, we survived only due to the whim of a daedra prince.”
“Then—wait, what do you mean, ‘of the usual sort’?”
Sul glanced at the wrapped-up weapon in his arms. “I sense something here,” he said. “And if what Nirai says is true, we might have a chance at entering Oblivion and escaping this place.”
“But wouldn’t that take us straight to Clavicus Vile?”
“I think so, yes.”
“And didn’t you tell me that would be a bad thing?”
“Yes,” Sul said, “but now our options have dwindled, and here we’re faced with the bad thing and the worst thing.”
“Maybe there are options we haven’t considered.”
“Name them. I will consider them.”
“Just let me think.” Sul nodded and sat down.
After thinking for about fifteen minutes, Attrebus heard odd sounds coming from the stairwell.
“Anything?” Sul asked.
Attrebus shook his head. “Nothing. Not a single thought. Except that even if we get through that gate and out of the castle, we’ll still never reach Umbriel before it gets to the Imperial City, not unless you have some other little trick I don’t know about.”
“If we could get back to the ruins of Vivec City, I could take us back onto my track. But getting there will take weeks, probably.”
“Assuming we can find a boat that will sail boiling water without cooking us. No, I think we might as well pay Clavicus Vile a visit. Maybe he’ll be in a hospitable mood.”
Sul took out the ointment he’d made back in Water’s Edge, what seemed ages ago, and dabbed some on Attrebus’s forehead. Then he stood the sword on its tip; he didn’t unwrap it, but instead closed his eyes and put his skull against the wrapping on the hilt.
For a long time nothing happened, except the air began to stink.
Then something like a fist seemed to grab him, yanking him so hard the blood rushed from his head and black spots danced before his eyes. He struck something, hard, and the wind left him.
The air still smelled bad, but it wasn’t the same stench that had been building in the cave. And as Sul managed to lift his head, he saw they weren’t in the cave any longer, but elsewhere.
ONE
Annaïg drifted across a floor of rose-colored crystal that gently rose and fell like the frozen swells of an ocean. It met the walls in gradual curves and then lifted into a vast, lucid canopy veined with softly shifting hints of color. Men and women danced on the uncertain floor, stepping, sometimes gliding, often leaving the surface altogether for a time, as weight was less present here than it was elsewhere in Umbriel. Filmy gowns of viridian, azure, hazel, and lemon spun out impossibly wide as they turned, and each garment chimed musical notes that subtly harmonized or clashed with those around them.
“Who are they?” she asked Rhel.
“Why, your peers, of course,” he replied.
“There can’t be this many chefs in Umbriel.”
“Certainly not,” he replied. “Only eight chefs stand high enough to join this company. But surely you don’t believe cooking is the only art valued by the lords of Umbriel? We love artistry of every sort, and thus value artists of all kinds. These are the most successful of them. Luel, there, he helped create this very room. Ten days ago it was a dark jungle, an homage to the first land we saw on coming here—your homeland, as I understand it. It was wonderful, of course, but a few days and everything becomes boring. There is no worse taste than stasis, and I won’t be accused of it.”
“This is all yours?”
“Rhel Palace,” he said. “Greatest of the eight, if I say so myself.”
“How long has it been yours?”
Even with eyes as strange as his, she sensed his puzzlement.
“It has always been mine,” he replied. “I built it before Umbriel ever began its voyaging.”
“Oh,” she said.
“I am a high lord, Annaïg. We do not move through cycles as you do. We have always been and we remain. We were here at the beginning, and if there is an end we will be there, too.”
“I didn’t know,” she replied. “No one ever spoke of it to me.”
“I’m sure they assumed you knew, as I did. You mean to say that the lords in your world are not immortal?”
“For the most part, no,” she said. “The world down there isn’t much like this one at all.”
“Well, that’s a pity,” he said. “But you’re here now.” He touched her shoulder. “Enjoy yourself—I must attend to Umbriel.”
She nodded and, not quite knowing what to do with herself, walked carefully to the wall and looked out upon the Fringe Gyre and the landscape of Tamriel beyond. She saw mountains in the distance, forest and fields nearer, and wondered where they were now.
“Congratulations,” someone said.
She turned and found Phmer towering over her.
“Thank you,” she replied, not knowing how else to respond.
“I always knew that Toel’s arrogance would be his downfall,” Phmer said, following Annaïg’s gaze out into the world beyond. “He certainly underestimated you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” she replied.
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” she said, and sighed. “Toel’s body was found in my kitchens. Now—I know that I didn’t put him there. I wondered how you could have done it until it became common knowledge that your friend was the leader of the skraws, and now it all comes together. You set us at each other’s throats. Perhaps you killed Toel by your own hand; perhaps your friend did it. It was all clever enough, I grant you. But I’m going to give you just this one warning, because there is something I like about you. You were able to accomplish all of this because no one knew just how devious you are—you played the guileless foreigner so well. Toel should have understood his danger when you framed Slyr, but—as I said—his arrogance got in the way. I will never underestimate you again, however. I do not think I am alone in that.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Annaïg said.
Phmer smiled, and lifted a finger toward the crystal wall. “Do you miss your world?”
“My world doesn’t exist anymore,” she said. “I don’t even know what country that is down there.”
“It is very large,” the chef said. “I find the idea of such a large world unappealing. One would always be lost, I should think. One would have trouble finding one’s place. Look how quickly you found yours here.”
She wanted to protest, but the fact was, it was true. In Lilmoth her life had been essentially aimless. She might have spent her whole existence without discovering a direction, never learned what a monster lurked beneath her skin, just waiting for an excuse to manifest. But Umbriel had brought it out of her in quite a short time. Maybe this was her destiny. Maybe this was where she belonged. Did she really care what happened to Attrebus and his empire? Hadn’t that just been a childish affectation, like everything else about her before coming here?
She noticed that Phmer was walking away, and was glad. She idled another hour, speaking to no one, and then returned to her kitchen.
Yeum looked up when she entered.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Perhaps Rhel will allow me to send you as my proxy,” she said. “That way we should probably both be h
appier.”
“Toel enjoyed the company.”
“Well, I’m not Toel.”
Yeum bent back to her task. “They caught someone sneaking in from the pantry,” she said. “Do you want to see her, or shall I just have her killed?”
“Sneaking in to do what?” Annaïg asked.
“She had a knife. She was looking for you.”
Annaïg stood still for a moment, feeling as if she were shrinking somehow. How many people wanted to murder her now? How long could she last? Divines, was Yeum even telling the truth, or was this some sort of prank or trap?
“I’ll see her,” she finally said. “Where is she?”
“In the cell, of course.”
“We have a cell?”
“Certainly. Where do you think Toel put his prisoners?”
“I didn’t know he had prisoners,” Annaïg said. “In any case, where is it?”
“I’ll take you,” Yeum said.
She led the way, and Annaïg was careful to stay a few steps behind her.
The woman glared at Annaïg through the bars. She was young and pretty, and looked like a Dunmer. She wore peach-colored knee britches and a brown top. She didn’t look much like a killer.
“Are you her?” the woman blurted. “Annaïg?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“My name is Fhena.”
“Mere-Glim’s friend.”
“So he told you about me,” she said defiantly. “I came down here to kill you. Everyone knows what you did. He thought you were his friend. He loved you. And now his poor body is all cut up.”
“I loved him, too,” she said.
“So you killed him? That doesn’t make any sense.” Her eyes were wide and sad, and Annaïg felt just how fragile her anger was, sensed the artless innocence that lay behind the brave facade.
Or was that only how it seemed? Was she just trying to get a chance to strike?
But this Fhena was Glim’s friend, and she owed Glim.
“I want to show you something,” she told the woman. “If I let you out of there, will you promise not to try to hurt me?”
“I don’t think I could have done it anyway,” Fhena said after a moment. “I just don’t understand. I have to understand why you would do this to him.”
