by Greg Keyes
Annaïg didn’t have to be told twice.
The pitcher contained an effervescent beverage that had almost no taste, but reminded her of honeysuckle and plum, though it wasn’t sweet. The fruits were all unknown to her: a small orange berry with a tough rind but sweet, lemony pulp inside; a black, lozenge-shaped thing with no skin that was a bit chewy and was a lot like soft cheese; tiny berries no larger than the head of a needle, but clustered in the thousands, which exploded into vapor on touching her tongue. The ferns were the least pleasant, but the various jellies in the small bowls clung viscously to them, and those were delightfully strange.
She couldn’t taste alcohol in the drink, but by the time she felt sated, things were getting pleasantly spinny.
“This is nice,” Annaïg said, looking around. There were two beds, also on the floor. “Do you think this is our room? One room just for the two of us?”
“Like our little hideaway in Qijne’s kitchen.”
“But bigger. And with beds. And—ah—interesting food.”
Slyr closed her eyes. “I’ve dreamed of this,” she said. “I knew it would be better.”
“Congratulations,” Annaïg said.
Slyr shook her head. “It’s because of you. These things you come up with … when Toel figures that out, I’ll be out of his kitchen, just as your lizard-friend was out of Qijne’s.”
“That won’t happen,” Annaïg said. “Without you, I wouldn’t have known where to start, and now I don’t know where to start again. I need you.”
“Toel will have cooks of more use to you.”
“He won’t,” Annaïg said. “It’s both of us or neither.”
Slyr shook her head. “You’re a strange one,” she said. “But I—” She put her head down.
“What?”
“I said I didn’t care about anyone in Qijne’s kitchen. But if you had died, I think I might be sad.”
Annaïg smiled. “Thanks,” she said.
“Okay,” Slyr said, rising unsteadily. “Do you care which bed?”
“No. You choose.”
Annaïg soon found her own bed. Like the robe, it was a delight, especially after weeks of hard pallets and stone floor.
She was dropping off to sleep, feeling content for the moment, at least in a creature sort of way.
She thought maybe she should open her locket, contact Attrebus, let him know how things had changed.
But then it struck her: Her amulet was gone.
Even with worry as her bedmate, when she woke the next morning she was more rested and felt better than she had in a long time, even before coming to Umbriel. Slyr was still dead to the world, but the frog-creature had returned and was waiting patiently near the table.
“You’ll break your fast with Lord Toel,” he said.
“Let me wake Slyr,” she said.
“Not her,” it said. “Only you.”
Slyr’s fears from the night before were still fresh in her mind. “I’d rather—” She began.
“You’d rather not protest Lord Toel’s wishes,” the thing interrupted.
She nodded, reminding herself that she had a greater mission. Besides, she could never put in a good word for the other woman if she never got to talk to Toel.
“What’s your name?” she asked the creature.
“Dulgiijbiddiggungudingu,” it sputtered. “Gluuip.”
She starred at the froth the name had formed on the creature’s mouth.
“Dulbig—” she started.
“Dulg will do,” he added.
“Lead the way, Dulg.”
“You don’t imagine you’re going in that?” Dulg asked. He gestured toward a curtained area.
She followed his gesture, and in the enclosure discovered a gold and black gown. Like everything else here, it might have been spun of spider silk, or something far finer.
She never wore things like this. It clung embarrassingly to her contours and was uselessly ornamented with fine beaded webs at the cuffs and collars. She felt clunky and far more out of her element than she had in Qijne’s fire pits. Although her father held a noble title in High Rock that had once had currency in Black Marsh, since before she was born there had been no balls, no cotillions, no evenings at the theater. All of that—and the frippery that went with it—was swept away when the Argonians retook control of their land.
And good riddance to that, at least. Or so she had always thought.
But she felt herself wondering if Attrebus would think she looked passable in this outfit.
“Come, come,” Dulg called impatiently. “Your hair and face must be tended to.”
An hour later, after the services of a silent, slight, blondish man, Dulg finally led her through a suite of richly furnished rooms and into a chamber with fresh air pouring through a large door and beyond …
Toel was there, but she could not make her gaze focus on him. There was too much else to wonder at.
She was outside, and Umbriel rose and fell all around her.
She stood on an outjut in a cliff face that was steep but not vertical, and that looked out on a vast, conical basin. Below her spread an emerald green lake and, above, the city grew from the stone itself, twisting spires and latticed buildings that might have been built with colored wire, whole castles hanging like bird cages from immensely thick cables. Higher still, the rocky rim of the island supported gossamer towers in every hue imaginable, and what appeared to be an enormous spiderweb of spun glass that broke the sunlight into hundreds of tiny rainbows.
“You like my little window?” Toel asked.
She stiffened, afraid to say anything for fear it might be the wrong thing, but just as fearful of saying nothing.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know that anything in Umbriel could be beautiful, you mean?”
She opened her mouth to try and correct her mistake, but he shook his head.
“How could you, laboring down in the pits? How could you have imagined this?”
She nodded.
“Do you fear me, child?” he asked.
“I do,” she admitted.
He smiled slightly at that, and then walked closer to the rail, putting his back to her. If she were quick and strong, she might send him toppling over.
But of course he knew that. She could tell by the easy confidence with which he moved. He knew she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do any such thing.
“Do you like your quarters?” he asked.
“Very much,” she replied. “You are very generous.”
“I’ve elevated you,” he said. “Things are better here. I think you will find your work more enjoyable, more stimulating.”
He turned and walked to a small table furnished with two chairs.
“Sit,” he said. “Join me.”
She complied, and a slight man in a vest with many buttons brought them a drink that hissed and fizzed and was mostly vapor. It tasted like mint, sage, and orange peel and was nearly intolerably cold.
“Now,” Toel said. “Tell me about this place you are from.”
“Lord?”
“What is it like, how was your life there? What did you do? That sort of thing.”
She wondered at first why she felt so surprised, but then it occurred to her that no one—not even Slyr—had ever asked her about her life before coming to Umbriel—not unless it concerned her knowledge of plants and minerals.
“There’s not much left of it, I think,” she said.
“No, I imagine not. And yet some of it lives in you yet, yes? And in Umbriel.”
“You mean because their souls were consumed here?”
“Not merely consumed,” he replied. “Mostly, yes, Umbriel must use living energy to remain aloft and functioning. But some of it is cycled, transformed, reborn—it’s not all lost. Take solace in that, if you can. If you cannot, it’s no matter to me, really, but a waste of your time and energy.”
“You think grieving a waste?”
“What else could it be? Anger, fear, ecstasy—these states of mind might produce something useful. Grief and regret produce nothing except bad poetry, which is actually worse than nothing. Now. Speak of what I asked you.”
She closed her eyes, trying to decide where to start, what to say. She didn’t want to tell him anything that might help Umbriel and its masters.
“My home was in a city called Lilmoth,” she said. “In the Kingdom of Black Marsh. I lived with my father. He was—”
Toel held up a finger. “Pardon me,” he said. “What is a father?”
“Maybe I used the wrong word,” she said. “I’m still learning this dialect.”
“Yes. I know of no such word.”
“My father is the man who sired me.”
Again the blank stare.
She shifted and held her hand up, palms facing each other.
“Ah, a man and woman, they, ahh … procreate—”
“Yes,” Toel said. “That can be very entertaining.”
She felt her face warm and nodded.
“You think so, too, I see. Very interesting. So a father is the man you used to procreate with?”
“No. Oh, no. That would be—no. I mean I’ve never—” She shook her head and started again. “A man and woman—my father and mother—they procreated and had me.”
“‘Had you’?”
“I was born to them.”
“You’re not making sense, dear.”
“After they procreated, I was conceived, and I grew in my mother until I was born.”
He sat back, and for the first time she saw his eyes flash with real astonishment. It looked very strange on him, as if he had never been surprised at anything.
“Do you mean to say that you were inside of a woman? And came out of her?”
“Yes.”
“Like a parasite—like a Zilh worm or chest borer?”
“No, it’s normal, it’s—weren’t you …?”
“That’s revolting!” he said, and laughed. “Absolutely revolting. Did you eat her corpse after you came out?”
“Well, it didn’t kill her.”
“How big were you?”
She shaped her hands to indicate the size of a newborn.
“Well, I have to say, this is already one of the most interesting—and disturbing—conversations I’ve ever had.”
“Then you people aren’t born?”
“Of course we are. Properly, from the Marrow Sump.”
“So when you use the word ‘procreate’—”
“It simply means sex. Copulation. It has no other sense, that I know of.”
Annaïg suddenly felt the world rearranging itself around her. She had been assuming that all the talk about coming from the sump and returning to it was a metaphor, a way of talking about life and death.
But Toel wasn’t kidding, she was sure of that.
“Please, go on. Tell me more such disgusting things.”
And so they talked on. After his initial outburst, however, he did not interrupt her much; he listened, with only the occasional question, usually concerning terms he didn’t know. She talked mostly about her life in Black Marsh, about history, about the secession of Black Marsh from the Empire and the subsequent collapse of the Empire. She did not say anything about the revival of the Empire, about the Emperor or Attrebus—but it was a challenge, because the way he listened, the way he hung on her every word, made her want to keep talking, to not let it stop, to keep that attention on her forever.
When she finally forced herself to stop, he steepled his fingers under his lip. Then he nodded out at his world.
“You speak of vast forests and deserts, of countries whose size almost surpasses my imagination. I have never walked such lands—I never will. This, Umbriel, is the only world I can ever know. This, Umbriel, is your home now, and the only place you will ever know again. The sooner you understand that, the better. Waste no time on what you have lost, for you will never have it again.”
“But my world is all around you,” she said. “I could take you there, show it to you …”
He shook his head. “It is not so simple. The outside of Umbriel, in a sense, is in your world. But here, where you find yourself now—surely you observed the larvae, saw how they lose corporeal form when they move fully into your plane. The same would be true of me, were I to leave. My body would dissolve, and Umbriel would reclaim the stuff of my soul. There is no leaving for me. Or you.”
“But I am not from Umbriel,” she said. “I am not a part of it.”
“Not yet,” Toel said. “But in time you will be as much a part of Umbriel as I am.”
THREE
The man who had named himself Captain Evernal stepped from behind the tent. He was fortyish, with tanned skin, blond hair, and an impressive mustache.
Attrebus could see twenty men, but he suspected there were more.
“What’s this?” Sul asked.
Evernal shrugged. “That depends on your business here.”
“We have no business here,” Sul replied.
“You’re a mile off the main road.”
“Is that a crime?”
“It isn’t,” Evernal said. “But it suggests you were coming to this camp, since there isn’t anything else in this direction.”
“Happenstance. We were sightseeing. Hoping to run across a flock of greems. The lad here has never seen one.”
“Well, then,” the captain said. “You won’t mind us searching your packs.”
Sul gestured at their mounts. Four of the regulators strode over. It didn’t take them long to find the moon-sugar.
“Well, this is interesting,” the captain said.
Attrebus saw Sul’s shoulders relax, slightly.
Oh, Divines, he’s going to try it, Attrebus thought.
“Why is it interesting?” Attrebus blurted. “I paid a fair price for that.”
“Then surely you were warned about the penalties of trafficking with the wild cats.”
“There’s no trafficking here,” Attrebus said. “I’ve not offered to sell anything.”
Evernal rolled his eyes. “Oh, come now.”
Attrebus drew himself straighter. “No, you come now, Captain Evernal. Do you have a charge to make? Based on what evidence?”
“Evidence? I don’t need evidence,” Evernal said. “I know very well that you bought that sugar for these cats. Look around you—there’s no court involved. No witnesses.”
“I see. Then you’re bandits, plain and simple.”
“We’re regulators. We uphold the law.”
Attrebus snorted. “Do you even know what a contradiction is? You just as much as said you could murder us with impunity, and you specifically bragged there are no courts involved. You’re a common brigand, sir.”
Evernal reddened, but some of his men had uneasy expressions, which suggested he’d hit a nerve.
“Go,” Evernal finally said. “Leave the sugar.”
Attrebus felt his stomach unclench a bit. But then he saw the expression on Lesspa’s face.
“What about them?” he asked.
“I told you to go. Count your blessings and do it.”
“Come on,” Sul said.
But then Attrebus noticed something. He pushed away his uncertainties, pulled his center tight.
“No,” he said.
“No?” the captain repeated incredulously.
“Who do you think I am?” Attrebus thundered. “I know you by your Nibenese accent, Evernal. You may work for the thug who runs Rimmen, but your body and soul belong to the Empire. Who do you think I am?”
He saw Evernal waver and his eyes widen.
“Milord …”
“Wrong title,” Attrebus snapped. “Try again. My likeness is common enough, even here, I’m sure.”
The captain swallowed audibly. “My Prince,” he managed. “Your face is a bit bruised, and …”
“Is it?” Attrebus said. “I suppose that it is. And so you are
to be forgiven for that. For that. But I do not care to have my business questioned or my escort detained.”
Evernal looked around at the Khajiit.
“Escort?”
“It is my business, Captain. We’ll be out of your territory in a day, and you’ll never see any of us here again.”
“It’s not that simple, highness—”
“It is,” Attrebus said. “Look around you. There are no courts here.”
Evernal sighed and stepped near. “I fought for your father,” he said. “I’ve heard much of you. But work has been scarce in Cyrodiil.”
Attrebus softened his tone. “Then you know in your heart what’s right. And you know my reputation. I’m on a mission of greatest gravity, and already I am too much delayed. Will you really let it be said that you hindered Prince Attrebus Mede?”
“No, Prince,” Evernal replied. “I would not.”
Attrebus clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he said.
Evernal bowed, then beckoned to his men. In a few moments they were alone with the Khajiit.
“That was quite a gamble,” Sul said when they were gone. “Telling them who you were. What if they had decided to ransom you?”
Attrebus smiled, suddenly feeling a bit shaky.
“I saw he was wearing the badge of the eighteenth legion,” he said. “Just under his cloak, pinned next to a lock of some girl’s hair. I knew he’d not only fought for my father, but that he was still proud of it.”
Sul’s glare lessened a bit.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
Attrebus sat down on the ground. “Right,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t really think. I’ve made so many speeches—and people cheered and followed my orders. But if all of that was a lie—”
“You sounded like a prince,” Sul assured him. “Confident, in command, imperious.”
“Yes, but if I had given it any thought …”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Sul replied. “For Evernal, the tales about you are true. You acted the part, and where we might have died, we live.”
“Become who they think I am,” Attrebus muttered.
Lesspa was approaching, so he stood.
She regarded him silently for a moment, then scratched herself on the chin and reached over to scratch his.
