“Are you now lecturing me on strategy and tactics?” his father snapped. “I took this city with under a thousand men. I routed Eddar Olin’s northward thrust with barely twice that, and I hammered this empire back together with a handful of rivets. Do not dare to question that I have this situation in hand.”
“Besides,” Hierem added, “you don’t know that it is coming here at all, Prince. It seems to have come from nowhere, probably it will return there.”
“That’s a stupid assumption to make.”
“If it comes for any part of the Empire, we will be ready for it,” the Emperor said. “You will not chase after this thing. That is my last word on the matter.”
The tone was final. Attrebus glared at his father and the minister, then, after the most perfunctory of bows, he spun on his heel and left.
He sat outside on the steps for a few moments, trying to cool off, get his thoughts together. He was almost ready to leave when he looked up at approaching footsteps.
It was a young man with a thin ascetic face, freckles, and red hair. He wore an Imperial uniform.
“Treb!”
Attrebus stood and the two clapped each other in a hug.
“You’re thin, Florius,” he said. “Your mother’s not feeding you anymore?”
“Not so much. It’s mostly your father doing that now.”
Treb stepped back and regarded his old friend. “You made captain! Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“I should never have let my father have you,” Attrebus said. “You should be riding with me.”
“I should like that,” Florius said. “It’s been a long time since we had an adventure together. Do you remember that time we snuck off into the market district—”
“I remember my father’s guards dragging us back by the ears,” Attrebus said. “But if you want to arrange a transfer …”
“I’ve been assigned to command the garrison at Water’s Edge,” Florius said. “But maybe when that assignment’s done.”
“I’ll come looking for you,” Attrebus said. “Divines, it’s good to see you Florius.”
“Do you have time for a drink?”
He paused, then shook his head. “No—I need to see to something right now. But I will see you in future.”
“Right, then,” Florius said, and the two men parted company.
Attrebus nodded to himself and went to meet Gulan. He found him near the gate.
“How did it go?” Gulan asked.
“Gather everyone at my house in Ione. We can supply there and be on our way by tomorrow. Be quiet about it.”
“That well, eh?” He shifted. “You’re going against the Emperor’s wishes? Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Which is why he’s likely to suspect, and have you watched.”
“Which is why we’re being discreet. Disperse the guard as if I’ve given them a holiday, and have them come individually to Ione. You and I will take the way through the sewers.”
Gulan looked doubtful but he nodded.
Attrebus clapped him on the shoulder.
“You’ll see, old friend. This will be our greatest victory yet.”
TWO
“You’re the new skraw,” the man said. It wasn’t a question.
Mere-Glim nodded, trying to size the fellow up. He looked more or less like one of Annaïg’s race, although with a noticeable yellowish cast to his skin and eyes. He had a long, doleful face and red hair. He was wearing the same black loincloth that Glim now wore.
“My name is Mere-Glim,” he offered.
“Yeah? You can call me Wert. And what are you, Mere-Glim? They say you don’t need the vapors.”
They’d been walking through a stone corridor, but now they entered a modest cave. Water poured from an opening in the wall, ran in a stream across the floor, and vanished into a pool in the middle of the chamber. Several globes of light were fixed to the ceiling, nearly obscured by the ferns growing around them. The rest of the cave was felted in moss. Mere-Glim found it pleasant.
“Eh?”
Glim realized he’d been asked a question.
“My people call ourselves Saxhleel,” he said. “Others call us Argonians. I’m not sure what you mean by vapors.”
“You didn’t come out of the sump,” Wert said. “Nothing like you has ever come out of the sump. Which means you ain’t from Umbriel, ain’t that so?”
“It is,” Glim replied.
“So I reckon you’re one o’ them they was searching for, down below.”
“They found us.”
“Makes you—well, there ain’t no word for it, is there? A From-Somewhere-Elser. Well, then, welcome to the sump. Lovely place to work.” He chuckled, but that turned abruptly into a nasty cough. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, and Glim noticed it came away bloody.
“Vapors,” Wert explained.
“What are they?”
“Well, see, I’m told you can breathe down there. But none of us can, not without the vapors. We go to the yellow cave, and we breathe ’em in for a while, and then we can stay under until they wear off.”
“How long is that?”
“Depends. A few hours, usually. Long enough to get some work done.”
“So what do we do?”
“Well, I’m to show you, I am,” Wert said. “That’s where we’re on to right now. I’ll go take the vapors—I won’t be back here, because if I don’t get in the water right away, I’ll suffocate. So you just swim out and wait for me. Don’t wander by yourself. And please don’t try to run away. You won’t make it, and I’ll pay the price.”
He watched Wert go, then walked over to the pool and lowered himself in, letting the mild current take him along. The pool bent into a tube, and he could see light ahead. A moment later he emerged in shallow water, just about as deep as he was tall.
The sump spread out before him, a nearly perfectly circular lake in the bottom of a cone-shaped cavity. Umbriel City climbed up and away from him in all directions. Some of it hung above him. He thought that if crows could build cities, they would look something like this—vain, shiny, lopsided, brash, and bragging.
A few moments later Wert’s head appeared a few yards out. He gestured for Glim to follow.
The shallows teemed with strange life: slender, swaying amber rods covered in cilia, swimmers that seemed like some strange cross of fish and butterfly, living nets composed of globes propelling themselves with water-jets and dragging fine webs between them, centipede-things as long as his arm and little shrimplike things no bigger than his thumb-claw.
He stopped when he saw the body. At first he saw only a thick school of silver fish, but they parted at his approach. It had been a woman with dark skin and hair; now bones were showing in places and worms clustered on exposed organs. Shuddering, he turned away, but then he saw another, similar swarm of fish. And another to his right. He started at something in the edge of his vision, but it was only Wert.
“They drop the bodies from above or send them down the slides. This is where they start.” His voice was weird, thick with the water in his lungs.
“Why were they killed?”
“What do you mean? Most just died of something or other. I suppose a few mighta been executed. But this is where we all end, ain’t it—in the sump.” He waved his hand vaguely. “We collect a lot of stuff for the kitchens here. Orchid shrimp, Rejjem sap, Inf fronds. Other things we fish for deeper, especially shear-teeth. You’ll learn about that, but mostly you’ll work in the deep sump. That’s perfect for you. So come on, let’s go to the Drop.”
They swam on, with the water getting gradually deeper at first. He didn’t have to be told what the Drop was—he knew it when he saw it. The sump became a steeply curving cone that drove deep into the stone of Umbriel. And at the very bottom, in the narrowest place, an actinic light flashed, like a ball of lightning.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Well, Glim thought. There’s something Annaïg would want to report to her prince. If only I had some way of talking to her. He glanced at Wert; he seemed not to be a bad fellow, but in the bigger picture—Annaïg’s picture—that wouldn’t matter. Though Wert could temporarily breathe underwater, his body was clumsy, not built for swimming. Glim knew he could easily escape him. If he killed him first, that would probably give him more time.
But if he survived long enough to find Annaïg and give her this bit of news, then what? How could he hide when he was the only one of his kind on Umbriel? He couldn’t. Not for long.
No, before he did something like that he’d need to have a lot more information to pass on. Could the ingenium be damaged from the sump? From anywhere? If so, how?
They descended about two-thirds of the way down the sump, and Wert began moving toward what appeared to be translucent sacs stuck to the wall. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, in all shapes and sizes. As he drew nearer, he could make out vague forms within the sacs.
“These are being born,” Wert said.
Curious, Glim moved closer, and to his astonishment found himself looking into a face. The eyes were closed, the features not fully formed, but it wasn’t a child’s face; it was that of an adult—just softer, flabbier than most. It was also hairless.
“I don’t understand.”
Wert grinned, plucked something from the water, and handed it to Glim. It was a sort of worm, very soft. It pulsed in and out, and with every contraction, a little jet of water squirted from one end of it. Other than that, it was featureless.
“That’s a proform,” Wert said. “When someone dies, the ingenium calls one of these down to the conduit and gives it a soul. It comes back up here and attaches to the wall, and someone grows.”
“That’s interesting,” Glim said. He looked at the proform. “You all start as this? No matter what you end up looking like? This is what you really are?”
“You’ve got funny questions in your head,” Wert said. “We are what we are.”
“And everyone is born like this?”
“Everyone, from lord and lady to me and—well, not you. At least not yet.”
“How are they born?”
“Well, that’s one of your jobs—to recognize when one of these is about to start breathing. You can tell by the color of the sac—it gets a sheen, like this one. Then you swim that up to the birth pool—that’s another cave up in the shallows.”
“What if you don’t do it in time?”
“They die, of course. That’s why this job is the most important, really. And it’s why you’re so suited for it, see? Nah, they won’t waste you much on gathering. This is where you’ll be.” He doubled over suddenly, and Glim realized he was coughing. A dark stain spread from his mouth and nostrils.
“Are you okay?”
Wert gradually unfolded, then nodded.
“Why do the vapors hurt you like that?”
“Why is water wet? I don’t know. But I have to go up soon. Not lasting so long, this time. So let’s go see the birthing pool.”
As they started back up, Glim glanced back down toward the light, but he didn’t see it. Instead he saw a maw full of teeth gaping at him.
“Xhuth!” he gargled, jerking himself to the side and stroking hard to turn.
The fish turned, too, but not before he saw the thing was fifteen feet long, at least. Its tail was long, whiplike, and it had two great swimming fins set under it, like a whale.
But those teeth would shame a shark to blush.
“Sheartooth!” Wert shouted. “You’ve made it mad somehow.”
Glim swam desperately, but the head kept right toward him, so he slashed at it with his claws. They caught but didn’t tear the creature’s tough hide. He let go, then struck again, this time at the back, behind the head, and there he dug in. It couldn’t bite him there.
It could try, though. It thrashed like a snake in a hot skillet; he saw Wert stab at it with his spear, only to be struck by the tail. The skraw went limp in the water.
Wonderful.
He was starting to get dizzy and his arms and shoulders were aching. He’d have to do something soon.
Here’s hoping your belly is softer, he thought. He let go with one set of claws and swung underneath. He was almost thrown clear, but one of the fins actually buffeted him back to the belly, and he slashed with all his might. Again his claws caught. He sank in the other hand.
The sheartooth gyred into a loop, and the force was such that he knew he could only hold on for another few seconds.
But the same force dragged Glim down the belly, opening it up like a gutting knife, and he was engulfed in a cloud of blood.
He kicked hard and swam free of the still-twisting monster, but it had lost interest in him, focusing instead on its own demise.
He realized suddenly that he’d forgotten Wert.
He had drifted down fifty or sixty feet. His eyes were closed and his chest was moving oddly.
Glim slung Wert over his back and kicked straight for the surface. He could feel the man quivering on his back. The light of the sun seemed a long way off.
He burst into air and reversed his hold, keeping Wert’s head out of the sump as he vomited water from his lungs and began to struggle. His eyes opened, looking wild. He began to make a horrible sucking sound that wasn’t breathing.
“Should I take you back under?” Glim asked.
Wert shook his head violently, but Glim wasn’t sure if that meant yes or no.
But then he seemed to draw a real breath, and then another. They reached the shallows, where Glim could stand and Wert could lean against him.
“Shearteeth—usually not so vicious,” he said. “Usually don’t attack us. Something about you set it off. Maybe because the sump was still learning you. Thought you were—intruder.”
He glanced at Glim. “Thanks, by the way. I wouldn’t have made it back up.”
“I thought you were going to die anyway.”
“It’s always bad between,” Wert explained. “You don’t want to be underwater when you start breathing air again, but then again, you still can’t breathe air.”
“That’s horrible,” Glim said. “There must be some better way to do this.”
“Sometimes a lord or lady will come down for a swim, and they have other ways, not like the vapors. But the vapors are cheap, my friend. And so are we—always more of us being born. You’re different—for now.”
“For now?”
“Well, the sump knows you now. So does the ingenium. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more of your sort, pretty soon. And when there are enough of you—well, you’ll be cheap, too.”
THREE
When Attrebus, Gulan, and Radhasa arrived at Ione, dawn was just leaking into the sky. It was cool, and the breeze smelled of dew and green leaves. A rooster gave notice to the hens it was time to face the day. The town was waking, too—smoke from hearths coiled up through the light fog and people were already about in the streets.
“It’s not much to look at, this town,” Radhasa noticed.
Attrebus nodded. Ione wasn’t picturesque; a few of the houses were rickety wooden structures faded gray, but most were of stone or brick and simply built. Even the small chapel of Dibella was rather plain.
“It’s not very old,” he said. “There wasn’t anything here at all fifty years ago. Then—well, do you know what that is?”
They had reached the town square, and he didn’t have to point to indicate what he was asking about.
The square was mostly stone, oddly cracked and melted as if from terrible heat or some stranger force. Two bent columns projected up in the middle, each about ten feet high, and together they resembled the truncated hor
ns of an enormous steer.
“Yes, I’ve seen them before—the ruins of an Oblivion gate.”
“Right. Well, when this one opened, it opened right in the middle of a company of soldiers recalled from the south to fortify the Imperial City. More than half of them were killed, including the commander. They would have all died, but a captain named Tertius Ione managed to pull the survivors together and withdraw. But rather than retreat all the way to the Imperial City, he instead recruited farmers and hunters from the countryside and Pell’s Gate. Then he made them into something more than what they were. They returned and slaughtered the daedra here, and when they were done with that, he led them through the gate itself.”
“Into Oblivion?”
“Yes. He’d heard that the gate at Kvatch had been closed somehow by entering it. So Ione went in with about half of his troops and left the rest here, to guard against anything else coming out.”
“It looks like he closed it.”
“It closed, but Captain Ione was never seen again. One of his men—a Bosmer named Fenton—appeared weeks later, half dead and half mad. From what little he said that made sense, they reckoned Ione and the rest sacrificed themselves to give Fenton the chance to sabotage the portal. The Bosmer died the next day, raving. Anyway, Ione was gone for a long time before the gate exploded, and in the meantime his company built some fortifications and simple buildings. Once the gate was gone, it was a convenient and relatively safe place, so a lot of people stayed, and over time the town grew.”
He turned about, spreading his arms. “That’s why I like this Ione. Because it’s new, because it speaks to the spirit of heroism that lies at the heart of each of us. Yes, there are no quaint old buildings or First Era statues, but it’s an honest place built by brave people.”
“And you have a house here?” Radhasa asked.
“A hunting lodge, in the hills just across town.”
“That’s quite a hunting lodge,” the Redguard said when they entered the gate.
Something about the tone irked him, made him feel a bit defensive. It wasn’t that big. It was built on the plan of an ancient Nord longhouse, each beam and cornice festooned with carvings of dragons, bulls, boars, leering wild men, and dancing, longtressed women.
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