The force and light of it blew his eyelids and mouth open, and radiance shredded through the specter like a high wind through smoke. This time it didn’t manage to make a sound, but was instantly and utterly gone. Colin lay there then, watching the slight rise and fall of his chest, unable to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He didn’t recognize where he was either. And he couldn’t move. He ought to have panicked, but he was too tired. Across the room, a woman he did not know was watching him, silent, unmoving. He remembered being a boy in the city of Anvil, tarring boats and staring out to sea, dreaming of distant lands. He remembered his mother, her back permanently bent from her work scrubbing clothes. He remembered killing a man. He hadn’t known his name. It was on a bridge, and the man was looking out across water at a light. The man had seen his knife and tried to fend off the sharp blade with his hands. He tried to beg, but Colin had stabbed him until all of his life spilled out. He remembered that was his final test before becoming an inspector. As his memory returned, so did the feeling in his legs and arms. It was as if a million needles had been thrust into them. By the time he could push himself up, he knew where he was again. He faced the woman, who still hadn’t said anything. She was a Redguard, with tight, curly hair and a strong, handsome face. She was probably about fifty. “Are you Delia Huerc?” he asked. Her eyes moved at the sound of her name, but otherwise she didn’t react. Some ghosts remembered everything, some nothing. Some didn’t even know they were dead. “You went to Black Marsh, with Prime Minister Hierem. Do you remember that?” Her head turned a bit. She looked down, and her hand came up a little. He followed the gesture and saw she was pointing at one of the baseboards. He went over to it and found it loose. In a hollow in the wall he discovered a soft leather bag, and in that a book. “May I look at this?” he asked. Her hand dropped back to her side but she didn’t answer, so he opened it. It was written mostly in Tamrielic, with some asides in Yoku, which he had passing knowledge of. It was a journal, and flipping toward the end, he found several pages of entries about Black Marsh. He’d only read a page when he heard steps in the hall and realized he’d been on the floor most of the day. He went out the empty window, taking the book with him. Delia watched him go without objection. There wasn’t much sun left, but he wanted to be in it, to try to forget the thing in the apartment.


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He went through the Market District and bought apples, pork pies, and lemon water from street vendors, then found a good place on the roof of a building overlooking the alley behind Arese’s house. There he ate and read the journal, stalked by pigeons trying to get at his scraps. Huerc described the preparations for the trip in detail, and it became clear to him that she thought the Emperor, at least, was aware of the trip. Hierem had explained that the secrecy and misdirection were to avoid any of the Emperor’s enemies learning what he was about. She hadn’t been privy to the meeting with the An-Xileel, but worked out that some agreement had been reached. She’d been led to believe that Hierem was there to propose an alliance against the Thalmor. But he was vague about what the negotiations actually entailed. Most interesting, the agreement involved Hierem performing some sort of ritual at the City Tree. She had written: The tree is enormous. The only one I have ever seen taller was in Valenwood, but the Hist was more massive, more spread out. And I could feel a palpable presence in it. I had never quite credited the Argonian claims that the trees are intelligent, but when I stood in its presence, I could no longer doubt it. Further, I thought I felt a certain malevolence in it, but that might well have been my imagination, for the whole situation was anything but friendly. The An-Xileel have been uniformly rude and arrogant, the city itself is a festering, putrid place. From the moment I entered Lilmoth, I have wanted nothing more than to leave it. The minister, on the other hand, seems quite excited, almost jubilant. The An-Xileel sang to the tree, an awful cacophonous chant that went on so long that I might have drifted off a bit. At some point, Hierem added his voice to theirs, but in a sort of counterpoint. He lit a brazier, and I’m sure he did some sort of sorcery. In his younger years he was in the leadership of the Mages’ Guild, before that organization utterly collapsed, and so I know him capable of these things, but I was still somehow surprised. It was my impression that he was calling something, for he repeated the word “Umbriel” many times. It seemed like a name, although the language he spoke was not one I knew, and so I may have been mistaken, for nothing came, although everyone seemed pleased anyway. Tomorrow we sail for home, and I could not be happier. He read on, but the only other passage of interest to him was one in which she began to question whether the Emperor had authorized or was aware of their trip, and she had determined to ask Hierem about it. He read the final few sentences with a little chill: At lunch today Hierem repeated his assertions, but I still have my doubts.


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I have a meeting with the Emperor tomorrow. I will ask him myself. I hope I shall feel better. My stomach is unsettled, and there is pain in my joints. Perhaps the soup did not suit me. Colin thumbed back through earlier parts of the book, but it was dark now. He settled against a chimney, watching Arese’s unlit window. Neither moon was in the sky, but there were no clouds, and the stars were glorious. He rested there, letting the fall of night ease into him; first the swifts, then the fluttering of bats, the lonely imprecation of a barn owl. Tree frogs chirped and insects whirred. A dog barked somewhere in the Market District and was answered nearby, which set off a chorus of canine comment from all quarters of the city. A couple argued not far away about what the proper price of the cockles for dinner might have been, and the strains from a lute drifted along in the breeze. Arese would be with her sister now. He had a few more hours to wait, a little more time to decide what to do, whether to show Arese the journal or not. Was she really an agent of the Emperor? He’d been assigned to find Prince Attrebus. The prince had gone, against his father’s wishes and in secret, to find and fight the menace of the flying city. He hadn’t gotten far; Colin had found his entire bodyguard slaughtered—and it seemed, at first, the prince, too. Attrebus, it turned out, was a careful creation of his father and his ministers. All of the battles and duels he had won were set up that way, and the bards and authors who sang and wrote of him were heavily subsidized by the court. The prince himself hadn’t known this; few outside his guard had. Whenever the prince decided to go off on some sort of adventure, his right-hand man Gulan always reported it to the office of the Prime Minister, and it had been handled. But not this time—or at least not the way it usually was. This time the prince had been ambushed. That was what had led Colin to investigate Arese; he knew Gulan had gone to her, as usual. He discovered that she had set up the attack on the prince herself, and later followed her to a house where—as he listened—she killed the crime boss who had facilitated it, along with all of his guard and household. He still didn’t know if she had summoned something or transformed into the nightmare that had turned the house into an abattoir. And yet, Arese had admitted this to him. She had offered an explanation for it. Most traps are simple. He sighed, ran his hand through his hair, felt the breeze on his face. He heard a faint noise that seemed somehow out of place and opened his eyes.


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Fifteen yards away he saw the shadowed figure of a man, dressed in the black quilted jerkin so many of the Dark Brotherhood affected these days. The fellow was in profile, kneeling on the roof of the building across the alley. As Colin watched, he slipped like a spider down a rope too dark and thin to make out from his vantage point. He settled, still like a spider, on the casement of Arese’s window. After a moment Colin saw the window reflect starlight as it swung open, and then, a few heartbeats later, shut again. The breeze picked up. It felt cool, and Colin realized he was sweating. Someone wanted Arese dead. He hesitated long enough to feel ashamed, trying to sort out what the smart thing to do was. If she died, he could step out of this whole thing. But then he would never know what was going on, and maybe he would have to watch the Empire collapse knowing he might have done something. But it was more than that. There had been something about her, brittleness, vulnerability … He recognized her, he understood in that moment. She was what he might become after a few years of this. He had seen, however briefly, the hollow place in her, the weariness. He still wasn’t sure if he believed her or if they were on the same side. But he didn’t want her to die. He looked back up at the sky. Almost time for her to come home, of course. The assassin would know that, too, wouldn’t he? He didn’t have any rope or cord. He could make the jump to the window, maybe, but the odds were against it, and it wouldn’t be quiet. But he could jump to the next building, get to her front door before she did, and avoid the whole confrontation. But then he saw light in the window—not in the room itself, but diffuse light, coming from another room. Muttering a curse, he stepped back a few paces, assessed the distance, and leapt. His toes hit the window ledge and he curled forward, elbows over his eyes. Glass panes shattered but the wooden frame did not, and so he bounced back, spine toward the street thirty feet below. He kicked a foot through one of the broken panes and managed to hook it on the wood, which swung him back and smacked his shoulders into the brick. Gasping, he jerked up, tightening his stomach muscles, and drew himself up to the window. By the time he got it open, of course, someone was coming for him. He dove past and to the side of the dark blur and rolled toward the lantern-lit room farther in, drawing his knife. He absently noticed that his hands were slick with blood.


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A knife thudded into the floor next to him as he scrambled up, and the assassin was close behind; he had a dark blade in his left hand and was drawing a bright one with his right from beneath his jerkin. Colin’s breath rushed in, and for an instant everything slowed and golden light seemed to infuse the room. His arms moved but he seemed outside of it. The next thing he knew, he hit the wall hard, pain trying to make him scream as he fell, but his throat wouldn’t open to let it out. His attacker was leaning against a bookcase across the room. He made a sort of snarling sound and took one, two steps toward him. With the third step his knee kept bending and he slammed face-first into the floor. Colin could see the bloody point of his knife standing out between the downed man’s shoulder blades. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet, feeling them wobble beneath him. Under his breath he said a little prayer to Dibella, but he couldn’t tell if she heard. He wasn’t sure how long he could stand. He made it to the fallen man, though, and took the black knife from his hand. He stuck it in between the first two vertebrae below the skull and wiggled it. Then he had a look at himself. His arms were cut up from the window, nothing so deep as to be dangerous. The assassin’s other knife had driven through the pectoral muscle where it stretched up to meet his shoulder. The feeling of the impact came back to him, and he realized the blade must have hit a bone and skipped up instead of slipping through to his heart. In any event, if the dagger hadn’t been poisoned, he was probably going to survive. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a second man, coming from the direction of the window, and he tried to turn, far too slowly. But there was a clap like thunder, and the man went staggering back, and in the next instant something appeared, something horrible. Colin had a glimpse of slits of green balefire, scales, and claws like sickles. The man almost managed to scream before his lungs and viscera were spattered across the room. Then the thing turned on Colin, snarling. “Stop!” a voice shouted, and the daedra stopped, panting. Arese stood behind him, her eyes wider than he had ever seen them. It made her look very young. The sleeve of her white shirt was soaked in blood, and a red patch on her temple and eye would probably soon prove itself a bruise. “Hunt and guard,” she told the daedra, and it turned and reluctantly slouched back toward the window. “How did you—” Arese managed. She was breathing so hard and shallowly it worried him. “Come here,” he said. “Are you cut anyplace else?” “I never saw him,” she said, staring down at the body. “Never heard him.


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I didn’t have time to do anything.” “Let me look,” he said. “You got your arm up,” he remarked, examining the defensive wound on her wrist. It wasn’t deep. “I heard a crash, like glass breaking. I guess I threw up my hand when I turned, but he was there already.” “The crash was me,” Colin said, searching for punctures anywhere vital. “I don’t understand.” “I was waiting on the roof across the alley. I saw him come in.” “He came to kill me.” Her breath was still too quick, and her skin was hot, much hotter than it should be. “That seems obvious,” he said. “They would have killed me if not for you.” “Well, that second guy would have had me,” he said. “Divines, you’re bleeding everywhere.” “Nothing serious,” he said. “But speaking of bleeding, your arm—” She looked at it, then back at him. He realized he had one hand on her shoulder and another on her stomach. He felt her belly quiver, and something happened to her eyes. Stupid, he thought. This is stupid. Her skin felt almost molten. She gasped when their lips came together, as if trying to get the air from his lungs. He smelled something like burning cloves and felt a shock of energy race through him like nothing he had ever known before, filling the emptiness left in him from two hard fights with impossible strength. She buried her face in his neck and he in hers, and they went down on the rug in a tangle, both wrestling furiously at ties and buttons. Slick with blood, the salt from their sweat burned his wounds, but not enough to matter. Later, much later it seemed, he lay back while she cleaned his wounds, first with warm water and then with a white ointment that left a pleasant warmth behind it and smelled a little like mustard. It did more than feel good; he could see the flesh draw together almost as if stitched. They had moved to her bedroom, where she had laid out a thick cover over her sheets and let him rest stretched out. She sat on the edge of the bed, the skin of her throat and breast like pearl in the moonlight—except for where the streaks of dried blood still clung. “Feel better?” she asked. “Much,” he said. “Although I have to say, I didn’t feel it that much a little while ago either.” She looked down. He thought she seemed embarrassed. “Reaction,” he offered. “When you realize you’ve almost died, sometimes—you know.” She shook her head. “When I summon daedra, I have to touch them with my mind. I have to be strong enough to keep them from turning on me. Daedra are—violent, passionate. Sometimes I feel something of what they do.” She looked away. “I think—” She shook her head and dabbed at the cut on his chest. “It’s also been a long time, for me.


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I haven’t felt I could trust anyone enough to—do that. I haven’t felt secure enough.” “And you trust me?” She smiled. “No. But—” She smiled. “Reaction. And there is something about you.” She cocked her head. “You’ve no reason to trust me either, I know. I’ve given you every reason not to. But I’m just trying to get through this. Alive. And sometimes it doesn’t seem worth the cost.” “Cost?” “This isn’t a life, Colin. I’m thirty-one years old. I’ve been a spy in Hierem’s ministry since I was twenty-one. I’ve been with one other person in that time, and it was a disaster. I work, and I fear, and sometimes I do awful things. I have drinks with my sister for an hour or two most evenings and come home. I can’t talk to her about what I do. She stays out, gambles, goes for rides in the country, has affairs. I’m careful. I protect myself. And now I’m going to die anyway.” “They failed,” he pointed out. “But someone sent them, probably one of my rivals or Hierem himself. They’ll send more. I’ve made a mistake somewhere—probably to do with those two on the island. They know.” She lifted his hand and kissed it. “You’re very young,” she said. “You can get out of this. You should. I won’t stop you.” “Are you giving up?” he asked. “No. No, I can’t do that. But I don’t have to pull you down with me.” He sighed. “I was in this already,” he said. “I have to—I have to do something right. Do you understand?” “You did something right tonight,” she said. “You saved my life. Can’t that be enough?” “Not if you die tomorrow.” “We all die. You gave me at least a day more than I would have had. And not a bad one.” “It’s not enough,” he said. “Why?” “It’s just not.” “Don’t get angry,” she said. “I’m not,” he replied. “You sound it.” “Okay,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m not, though.” But he was, wasn’t he? She didn’t say anything, but then he felt a tender kiss, just at the edge of his lips. “It doesn’t have to be rough,” she said. “I can be gentle.” He thought of the two men she had killed on the island, of the many who had perished in that house he had followed her to. He thought about the assassin he had just slaughtered, and realized he felt nothing. He kissed her, and outside the night birds sang as if everything were normal, quiet, and in its place.


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Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel SIX “Halt here,” Captain Falcus shouted. “Brennus, Mazgar—take three more and check out the village.” “On it, Captain,” Mazgar said, trying to keep the fatigue out of her voice. Then realizing she’d spoken out of turn, she looked to Brennus. “I’m not trained for this,” Brennus said. “We both know that. You choose.” She nodded. “Merthun, Tosh, Na-Nasha, come on.” The others were as weary as she, and in fact she was beginning to worry about Brennus. He was a scholar, not a warrior or battlemage, although his skills had saved her a few times in the past weeks. But he didn’t have the constitution or the training for this sort of forced march, and it was starting to show. They had managed to fight their way through the southern end of the encirclement on the ridge, but none of the horses had survived and they had lost almost half their number. Since then they had been able to keep ahead of the undead creatures, but only by pushing themselves to their limits. What provisions they had were now gone, and they couldn’t stop to hunt or fish, because the band that attacked them wasn’t alone; it was part of a massive wave moving across the mountains into Cheydinhal County. They half trotted, half stumbled down the hill to the village, if village was even the word for ten houses arranged around a central area of bare dirt and a well. She looked longingly at the latter, but had a job to do before she could drink from it. There were about seven people in the square when they entered it, but within moments more began appearing from the houses. They didn’t look threatening; none of them even seemed to be armed. “We’re Imperial troops,” Mazgar shouted. “Who’s in charge here?” An older Redguard woman with frizzled white hair stepped toward her. “I suppose that would be me,” she said. “I’m Sariah, charter-holder of Mountain Watch, such as it is.” “Sariah,” Mazgar said, “just keep your people still for a moment. We mean you no harm.” They went quickly house to house, despite the sudden burst of protests and complaints from Sariah and a few others in the square, only confirming what Mazgar already reckoned—that this was a bunch of farmers and hunters. Then she whistled—one short, one long, two short. A few moments later Captain Falcus and the rest came down. “Captain, this here is Sariah,” Mazgar said, introducing her, “the charter-holder.” “What’s this about, Captain?” Sariah demanded. “Since when can Imperial troops search houses without permission?” “By order of his majesty, or in time of war, lady,” Falcus said. “You and all of your people are about half a day from being dead, every one of you.” “What are you talking about?” Sariah asked. “Mountain Watch, eh?” Falcus said, and spat. “You aren’t watching too well.” He raised his voice. “Listen up! You people have fifteen minutes to pack.


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Take nothing you can’t eat, drink, or fight with, and I mean it. Any horses you have, bring those up now, and bring my men provisions.” “What gives you the right to order us out of our homes?” Sariah snapped. “I don’t aim for any of you to die,” Falcus said. “I intend to get you all behind the gates of Cheydinhal ahead of what’s coming. But if you delay me with this senseless prattle—if anyone does—it means some or all of you are going to die. Even now it may be too late. Now—do what I told you. Now!” The charter-holder’s eyes widened, but she didn’t dissent anymore. Nobody ever argued with Falcus when he used that tone of voice. He might as well have been the Emperor himself. They took turns at the well, drinking and filling their skins, and those not at the well helped gather up the grand total of six horses the village had to offer. They hooked four of them to two wagons, to carry the youngest and the infirm. Falcus and Kuur, the battlemage, took the other two. A bit of grumbling started to resurface, and it took more than fifteen minutes, but within the hour they were shepherding forty people ranging in age from two months to sixty-something down a weather-worn track that couldn’t quite be called a road. Mazgar and Brennus took positions along one of the wagons. Brennus looked pale. “There’s room in the wagon,” Mazgar suggested. “I’m fine,” he murmured. “Thank Akatosh I don’t have to carry around all that muscle and bone, like you do.” “No, all of your weight is in your head,” she replied. “Seriously. A little rest will help you.” “He can have my place,” a child’s voice said. “I want to walk.” Mazgar glanced in the wagon and saw that the speaker was a little human in brown twill breeches and a yellow felt shirt. “See?” she said. “The boy is willing to give up his spot for you.” “Yeah,” the kid said, “but I ain’t a boy.” Mazgar studied the short brown bangs, snub nose, and slight frame. “The girl, then,” she corrected. “It’s all right,” Brennus said. “Come on,” the girl said, hopping out. “I’m seven now. I can walk as good as anyone and better than most.” Brennus shook his head, but in the next step he stumbled. “Well, considering that,” he sighed. “Right,” Mazgar said. “We need you fresh when the wormies catch up to us, and that’s no lie.” She expected a quip back from him, but he just nodded and started trying to clamber in. She gave him a little shove to help him along. “There,” she said. Then she looked down at the girl. “Think you can keep up with me?” “I can keep up with anybody,” she said. “We’ll see about that.” “You’re an orc,” the girl said. “Is she, now?” Brennus said, perking up a little.


“Here I’ve been thinking that somewhere out there a bear and a pig are living in wedded bliss.” “What do you mean?” the girl asked. “Don’t pay attention to him,” Mazgar said. “He’s only trying to get me to mash his face in.” “Why?” “Some people are funny that way,” she replied. “Well, I’d like to see it!” “Maybe when he’s feeling a little better. What’s your name?” “Lorcette, but everybody calls me Goblin.” “Why?” “I don’t know, they just always have. Mom always said I had ears like a goblin.” “Huh,” Mazgar said. “Now that I look, you sort of do. Which one of these is your mom?” “Oh, she’s gone,” Goblin said. “Died when I was six.” “Mine died when I was seven,” Mazgar said. “At the sack of Orsinium. They say she killed thirty before death took her.” “My mom didn’t die in a battle. She just got sick.” The girl cocked her head. “Who was your mom fighting?” “Redguards and Bretons,” Mazgar replied. “You became an Imperial soldier because of her?” “I became a soldier because of her. I became an Imperial soldier because if it hadn’t been for the Seventh and Fifteenth legions, a lot more of us would have died. They put themselves in harm’s way for us, got the survivors to safety in Skyrim.” “Kind of like what you’re doing now.” Mazgar remembered the terror, the chaos, the walk that went on for weeks through bitter cold—and never having enough to eat. “Let’s hope not,” she said. “What’s a wormy?” Goblin asked after a few moments of silence. “What?” “You said something about wormies catching up with us.” “Yeah. That’s what I call ’em. They used to be people—then they died and some kind of witchery brought them back, and now they’re all full of maggots and such—so I call ’em wormies.” She thought the girl would look scared, but instead she looked thoughtful. “My mom is buried back there,” she said. “Do you think they’ll bring her back?” “Nah, they like fresher bodies than that. Anyway, it wouldn’t really be your mom, just your mom’s body with a daedra in it.” “Why would anyone do that?” “To conquer Tamriel, it looks like,” Mazgar replied. “But I wish whoever it is who had the itch to do that would have chosen less smelly troops.” “I could say the same about some of his majesty’s elections,” Brennus said. Mazgar was preparing a retort, but then she saw his eyes were closed. “Mauloch,” she muttered. “Even when he’s asleep.” They marched along like that, with the girl prattling and keeping good pace. When night fell, however, she and Brennus switched places. The mage seemed much better for the rest, and Goblin dropped off pretty swiftly. “You let that girl talk your ear off all day,” Brennus said, “and you never once looked like you were going to clout her in the head.


That’s not like you.” “Isn’t it?” “Remember that kid that hung around our camp on the way up—that little mountain town? The one you threatened to tie to a tree by his bowels?” “Well, he was annoying.” “About the same as this one, really,” he said. “Something’s changed in you.” “In me?” she snorted. “I think maybe you’re starting to think about spitting out a few little bear-pigs yourself, that’s what I think.” “You’re more out of your mind than usual,” she said. “Children? Me?” “Just an observation,” he rejoined. “You’re not getting any younger, and we’ve lost a lot of comrades. Makes you think.” “Makes you think,” she said. “And way too much.” “Still—” “Rest it!” she snapped. She must have said it louder than she meant to, for a number of heads turned her way. She couldn’t tell if the look on Brennus’s face was smugness or contrition. Humans. A bit after noon the next day, Mazgar saw the high steeple of the chapel of Arkay peeking up through the trees below them. On foot they would have been there quickly, but the wagons were having a hard time going downhill. Mazgar felt the familiar itch of danger at her back growing more and more pronounced, and glanced often over her shoulder, though Coals and Merthun were on the rearguard and both were more than competent. But it wasn’t Coals and Merthun who sent up the alarm—it came from the north, their left flank, from Na-Nasha and Glavius. The two men arrived a few moments behind their signal. “They’ll cut us off from Cheydinhal if we don’t hurry,” Na-Nasha said, wriggling his reptilian fingers oddly, as he often did when agitated. “That’s it for the wagons,” Falcus said. He turned to the refugees. “We’re going to make it, but we’re going to have to run. Leave everything, you hear? Cheydinhal is just down this hill, not even half a mile.” Mazgar dumped her backpack and reached for Goblin, but the girl shook her head. “I told you, I can run. Carry Riff Belancour, there—he’s got a funny foot.” Mazgar nodded and took up the boy, who was probably about six and weighed half as much as her pack. The horses were cut loose and the most elderly put up on them in tandem. Mothers clutched their infants. Falcus set the pace, a slow trot, and the boy on Mazgar’s shoulders giggled, obviously thinking it was all a game of some kind. True to her boast, Goblin kept up, running alongside her. Falcus picked up the tempo a little as they burst into a field; the walls of Cheydinhal were visible through the next line of trees. But the wormies were coming fast, toward their left flank, ranged in a rough phalanx, and Mazgar could easily make the calculation that they weren’t going to make it. A few of the townsfolk screamed or began to cry, but most broke into full-on, terrified flight.


Falcus began shouting orders, but Mazgar couldn’t make them out. A moment later, though, Na-Nasha, Coals, Casion, and Sugar-Lick broke off and formed a semicircle with Kuur behind them. “Captain!” she shouted. “Permission to join—” “Denied,” Falcus shouted back. “Keep with your charge. Make it count. Go!” She exchanged a glance with Brennus. “I’m with you,” he said. “Whatever you want to do.” Mazgar glanced down at Goblin, felt the weight on her back. “I don’t make the orders,” she snarled. So they ran. She looked back once before they reached the trees, because she felt the heat on her back and heard the dull thud of an explosion. She couldn’t see anything but black, greasy smoke and billowing flame. They came through the trees into the clearing around the walls. The gate was off to the right. It was open, and a picket of about a fifty soldiers was formed up there. They had maybe thirty paces to go when Goblin shrieked. Mazgar looked back and saw six wormies coming up fast. She set Riff down and drew Sister. “Get them through the line,” she howled at Brennus. Then she got her footing and charged. Sister caught the first—a half-charred Dunmer man—right at the juncture of clavicle and neck, and the heavy blade clove halfway through his ribs and stuck there. Bellowing, she punched the next in the face as he lifted his heavy curving blade, and had the satisfaction of feeling the cartilage and bone crush under her knuckles. She used Sister to turn the corpse into the next two, temporarily deflecting them while she reached for another, this one unarmed, and she roared the battle cry her mother had in her last battle. Red sleeted before her eyes, and rage took everything. The next thing she knew, Goblin was shouting at her. She looked dully down and saw the pile of bodies, Sister still stuck in one. Twenty yards away, about sixty wormies were charging toward her. She put her boot on the dead thing and heaved out the sword, then turned and pounded toward the gate, where the others were waiting. Falcus ordered them all to eat and rest, and no one argued. The wormies didn’t have siege engines, and Cheydinhal had its own soldiers, after all, and a mixed company of Imperial troops as well. Within an hour a camp had been set up near the castle that dominated the north end of town, and Mazgar had the first hot food and cool ale she’d had in a long time. She didn’t remember falling asleep, and the next thing she knew was light coming softly through an open tent-flap. She left her armor in the tent and went outside to stretch, wandering down to the river that flowed through the city. The sun wasn’t showing over the walls yet, but things were waking up. Wagons of bags and crates made their way across the bridges, pulled by thick, sturdy horses.


Across the river, a Dunmer woman was casting a net, which came up wriggling. Mazgar could smell sausage frying somewhere. But most of the people she saw were up on the walls. She watched the river flow for a while. She knew Brennus by the sound of his gait. “Nice place,” he said. “Have you ever been here before?” “No,” she said. “The houses look funny.” She nodded across the river. The timbers of most of the structures in town were exposed. In the lower floors they were covered with stone, but the upper ones had plaster between the beams and struts, which were often arranged in whimsical patterns. The roofs were concave peaks, and the shingles looked like scales. “That’s called half-timbering,” Brennus said. “It’s Morrowind architecture, really—or was.” She tossed a twig in the river and watched it float off. “Have you heard anything?” “No,” he replied, “but I need to have a look with my instruments.” “Going up on the wall, then?” “Higher,” he said, pointing to the structure of stone and stained glass that towered over everything else. “I’ll go with you,” she said. “I don’t think I need a guard at the moment,” he said. “You never know,” she replied. Inside, the chapel of Arkay was all hush and colored light. They found a priest who, after a bit of explanation, showed them the way up to the highest spire. From there even the people on the walls looked small. She gazed first out over the forest, hills, and distant Valus Mountains. Only reluctantly did she focus nearer. The wormies had taken up positions a few hundred yards from the gates. “They’re out of range of ballista and catapults,” she said. “They’re not stupid.” “No, they aren’t,” Brennus replied. “Necromancers have been known to make such creatures as these, but they are generally mindless. And slow. We’re dealing with something new here. Did you hear what happened last night?” “What do you mean?” “A man died of natural causes and rose up as one of these. The watch got him, and afterward they put out the alarm. There were three more cases.” “Just like Jarrow, and the others we lost on the hill.” “Right. Whatever spirits animate them clearly can travel more than a few paces.” “Every time we kill one, we risk a corpse waking up in town.” Brennus nodded. “What do you reckon, then? They’ll try to starve us out?” “No,” the mage replied. “I think they’re just waiting for reinforcements.” As he said it, he pointed. She saw it then, pale as a cloud with distance, unmistakable. Umbriel itself was coming for them.


Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel SEVEN Annaïg picked at the flesh of the green nutlike thing and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly. She felt a little heat like black pepper, followed by a rush in her nose like fiery mustard and green onions. The texture, though, was like a boiled cashew. “That’s great,” she told Glim. “What is it?” “Something new,” he said. “Maybe from Morrowind.” “Maybe,” Annaïg said dubiously. “Wert says that sometimes the sump will go for years without producing a particular thing, then start again, while something else vanishes for a time.” “How does it do it?” she wondered. “Does Umbriel store seeds and eggs someplace?” “I don’t think so,” Glim told her. “I think it’s the trees.” Glim had a sharp, excited scent about him, and he seemed to be barely holding something in. “The trees?” she asked. “The trees in the Fringe Gyre,” he said. “You saw them when we tried to escape.” “Well, yes,” she said. “But it was dark, and I was distracted by—well, escaping.” “I believe that they are cousins of the Hist.” “That’s interesting. I can’t imagine what that means.” “Well—think of water oaks and white oaks in Black Marsh. They’re both oaks because they have acorns; their leaves are arranged in a spiral. But other things about them are different. Like cousins.” “Okay,” Annaïg said. “I follow that, although I never thought of it that way. So are you saying that the trees in the Fringe Gyre are intelligent, like the Hist?” “Yes and no. They communicate, as the Hist do, but in different tones. I didn’t really learn to hear them until Fhena showed me, and then—” “Fhena?” “Yes, one of the gardeners in the trees. She helped me find you. Surely I mentioned her.” “No, you surely did not,” Annaïg said. “Well, she’s just someone I talk to,” Mere-Glim said. She thought he sounded defensive. “A woman?” “She is female, yes.” “Uh-huh.” He made a low growl in his throat, which she understood as embarrassment. “It’s not like that,” he said. “She’s not—I mean, she’s an Umbrielian. She looks like a Dunmer.” “Fine. I’m just wondering, if you’re so friendly with her, why you haven’t mentioned her before.” He blinked at her, and she realized she sounded stupid. Jealous. And what did she have to be jealous over? But the fact that after all of these years as best friends, he hadn’t mentioned her … She pushed it off. “The trees,” she said. “Yes,” he replied. “Some of my people believe that the Hist came to Tamriel from Oblivion. Umbriel is from Oblivion, too, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me that they could be cousins.” “Yes, but it would be a huge coincidence.” “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.


I think the city tree somehow called Umbriel, or the Fringe Gyre trees may have called to the Hist—but I think there was some sort of collusion.” “Are the trees here malevolent?” “No, they are—vaguer than the Hist. Not as intelligent maybe, or maybe just in a different way. Simpler. But like the Hist, they can form their sap into different things, the way you do with your equipment. And they can shape life, change its form.” She thought about that for a moment. “That—makes sense. One of my tasks is to take raw ingredients from the sump and transform them into nutrients for the trees, but part of that process involves getting the roots themselves to release substances. I haven’t worked in the large fermentation vats, but I have noticed there are always roots involved.” “I think it’s the trees who remember all the forms of life on Umbriel,” Glim said. “I think they produce the proforms—the little worms Umbrielians start as. Then the ingenium gives them a soul, and they grow according to some sort of plan the trees remember.” “Well, that’s really interesting,” Annaïg said. “If we could poison the trees, destroy them, that would in essence destroy Umbriel.” Glim’s eyes went wide. “But you can’t—” he began, then stopped. “It would take a long time,” he said. “And it might not be possible.” “If they are all connected at the root, like the Hist—sure, they all draw nourishment from the sump.” An expression flickered across his features that she had never actually seen before, but it reminded her of anger. “Look,” she said, “you’re saying these trees are responsible for the murder of almost everyone we know.” “I’m not,” he said. “I’m saying they were used. Someone used them.” “Glim, you can’t—I know how you feel about some of these people, but—” “I don’t think you do,” he said. “You hate everyone you know here.” “Glim, the one person I showed friendship to tried to kill me.” “I know,” he said. “But the skraws are different. And Fhena.” She sighed. “Look, let’s take one thing at a time. What about Phmer’s kitchen? Can I get in?” “You can’t get in far,” he said. “Any more than I could get into your kitchen.” “But here we are.” “No, no. I can get to your pantry, and so could someone from another kitchen, in the proper disguise. But to go any farther would raise all sorts of alarms and protections. Some are in the walls, living things that see and smell the uninvited. Others, as I understand it, are sorcerous in nature. All I know is, they say at least twenty people from other kitchens have tried to invade past Phmer’s pantry; all were caught or killed. Almost as many have tried to get into Toel’s kitchen since you came to work there.” “I haven’t heard anything about that.” “That’s because they all went into the sump,” he said. “Huh.


But you think I can get into the pantry.” “At night, if you’re very careful.” “Suppose I was invisible, had no scent, made no sound?” she asked. “You might make it another fifteen paces, as some of the others did.” “Well, then,” she said. “Thanks, Glim, that’s very helpful.” “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he said. “You remember the last time you tried to make someone invisible? For a week all my organs were on display for everyone to see.” “I’ve learned a lot since then,” she assured him. “I hope so. When are you going?” “Tonight.” Annaïg was wakened by a gentle pressure on her arm. She opened her eyes and found Dulg standing there, his little froglike form perched on the stool by her bed. “What is it?” she asked. “Chef Toel requires your presence,” he said. She stirred, rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on?” “That’s not for you to ask,” Dulg replied. She looked around. “Where is Slyr?” she asked. “Summoned earlier,” Dulg supplied. “Did she wear my gold-and-black gown?” Dulg looked a bit puzzled. “You said I could offer it to her.” “Right. I did, didn’t I? Well, just fetch me the black one.” Dulg nodded and bounded off. An hour later, properly dressed and coiffed, she met Toel on his balcony. He wasn’t alone this time. His underchefs Intovar and Yeum stood on either side of him. Intovar was a spindly fellow with dirty yellow hair and an air of the rodent about him. Yeum was a thick woman with an appealing, heart-shaped face and dusky skin. Neither had ever spoken to her except to give her orders. Slyr was also there, of course. On the other side of the balcony—as if relegated there by an invisible line—stood another party. The obvious leader was an impressively tall, narrow woman with close-cropped hair and large emerald eyes. She was accompanied by two men, one brick red with horns and the other a merish-looking person who looked perpetually surprised. “Chef Toel,” Annaïg said, bowing her head slightly. He smiled oddly and gestured at the green-eyed woman. “I should like to present you to Chef Phmer, and also her assistants Jolha and Egren.” “An honor, Chefs,” Annaïg replied. Phmer smiled, but it reminded Annaïg of the toothy grin of the piranhas that lived in the dunkwaters. “I’m told you are to thank—or blame—for many of the fads passing through some kitchens,” she said. Her voice was silk, coiled thick and made into a noose. “I suppose I might be,” Annaïg replied. “And yet your inventiveness would appear to have its limits.” “Everything has limits,” Annaïg said cautiously. “And yet fetching up against these limits has tempted you to do something rather costly,” Phmer went on. Annaïg looked at Toel, whose expression was blank. “I don’t understand,” she said. Phmer’s expression changed, going from one of apparent good humor to barely checked rage.


“Do you deny you broke into my kitchen last night in an attempt to steal the secret of the ninth savor?” “Chef,” Annaïg said, “I do. I certainly do.” “And yet we have testimony that you did. And other evidence.” “Testimony?” But she couldn’t miss the suppressed look of triumph on Slyr’s face. “If you did this thing,” Toel said, “you know I must give you over to her. It is the law.” “It’s permissible to invade another kitchen wholesale and slaughter everyone there, but not to sneak into one to steal?” “I obtained permission for my raid on Qijne’s kitchen,” he replied. “Nor is that here nor there. You are not the head of a kitchen. Did you do this? Did you try to steal from Phmer?” “I’ve already said I didn’t,” Annaïg pointed out. “Well, we shall see about that,” Phmer said. She gestured at a box on the floor, and her red-skinned underchef bent to it. He unlatched one side of the thing, and something crawled out. She thought at first it was a spider, but its legs weren’t rigid; nor were they as supple as those of a squid, but something in between. And—she realized as it unfolded them—it had wings, rather like those of a mosquito, and in fact now it somewhat resembled one, albeit one that could fit into the palm of her hand. The wings blurred into motion, and the little creature lifted into the air; three stalks or antennae began probing about as it approached her. She remained still, wondering if it had some sort of sting, and if she had made a mistake. She tried to slow her heart with simple willpower, but it thudded on irrespective. The tentacles tickled across her face and down her dress, lingering on her left hand, but then the creature darted over to Slyr and began to make an annoying high-pitched sound. Phmer frowned, but Toel’s lips turned up. Slyr just looked puzzled, then aghast. Toel lifted his hand toward Phmer, then turned it gently toward Slyr. Two of his guards took Slyr by the shoulders, and the woman looked wildly at Annaïg. Phmer reached into one of Slyr’s pockets, and then the other. From the second she withdrew a small vial. She uncorked it, sniffed it, and then tasted a bit on her finger. “This is it,” she said. “The scent of my kitchen is on her dress, the ninth savor in her pocket. Do you need more?” “I do not,” Toel said. “The evidence is clear enough.” “How did you do it?” Phmer asked Slyr. “There was sign that you had been in the kitchen, but my best safeguards are those around the taste itself, and you left no trace there. I must know how you did this.” “I didn’t!” Slyr exploded. “It was Annaïg! Somehow she made it look as if—why would I warn you she was going to steal from you if it was really me coming?


Why would I—This is her doing!” She plucked wildly at her clothing, as if discovering it was made of fire. “This is her dress! She’s tricked us all somehow.” “Let me understand this,” Toel said softly. “You warned Phmer against someone on my staff? Behind my back?” Slyr shrank back, like a cornered animal, a little whimper escaping her. “She remains mine,” Phmer said. “Oh, you may have her,” Toel replied. “I have no doubt you will extract revenge enough for both of us.” “First there will be questions,” she said. “Many, many questions.” She nodded at Annaïg. “I would question her as well.” “There is no evidence against her other than the testimony of a thief,” Toel replied. “You may not have her.” Phmer lifted her chin haughtily, but she didn’t argue. Instead she signed for her creature to take Slyr. “Annaïg, please,” Slyr whimpered. She felt her heart soften, remembering her first few weeks in the bowels of Umbriel, nights with Slyr, gazing at the stars. “It’s not in my hands, Slyr,” she said quietly. “Your own actions brought you to this.” And so they dragged Slyr off. She didn’t beg or plead again, at least not in Annaïg’s earshot. When they were gone, Toel indicated one of the chairs. “Sit,” he said. She did as he commanded. “How did you do it?” he asked. “Chef—” she began. “You are safe,” he replied. “Unless you left some sort of evidence that might turn up later, you are safe. I can easily see how you manipulated Slyr into going to Phmer, and how you used the chemical stains of that kitchen to implicate her, how you might scrub them from your own person. But I ask you again, how did you do it—how did you pass the inner safeguards and steal the savor itself?” Annaïg felt her fear melting, then transforming, igniting into triumph. “I didn’t, Chef,” she said. “What do you mean?” “I only entered the outer corridors of her kitchen, to taint the dress. The ninth taste I invented—or reinvented, I suppose—on my own.” For perhaps the first time since she had met him, Toel’s mouth moved as if in speech but without producing any sound. “How?” he asked. “All I had to do was think about it a bit. Once I understood the principle, making the taste was simple enough. And just now, Phmer confirmed that I was right. Until then I couldn’t be sure.” “What is it, then? Do you have more?” “I can make more,” she assured him. “For obvious reasons, I don’t have any with me.” “But what is it?” “The ninth savor is the opposite of all other tastes. It is the utter absence of flavor.” Toel’s pupils constricted, then widened again, reminding her of Glim. “Like the space between words,” he murmured. “I thought of music,” she said.


“There are many pitches, chords, harmonies, and dissonances—but silence—that, too, is a part of music.” His smiled broadened a little and he tapped the table with his forefinger. “I had given up on you, you know,” he said. “I thought all of that talk about showing me what I didn’t know I wanted to see was desperate nonsense, and yet you’ve done it. And Slyr—she never saw it coming. But why did it take you so long?” “I do things in my own time, for my own reasons,” she said. His gaze intensified and he placed his hand on hers. “You’ve pleased me more than you can imagine,” he said. “Come with me now, and let me please you.” She squeezed his hand, leaned forward—and with a slight hesitation, brought her lips to his. They were amazingly smooth, like slippery glass, and an unexpected tingle fizzed down to her belly, leaving her feeling both excited and somewhat sick. He responded, lightly at first, but as he grew hungrier she pulled away. “In my own time,” she said softly. “For my own reasons.” For a breath or two she didn’t think he would relent, but then he laughed. “I will have to kill you one day,” he said. “But for now, I love you. Go now; invent delightful things for Lord Rhel. I will see you tomorrow.” In the corridor, her knees wobbled. “Xhuth!” she swore. She hated Toel, hated him, now more than ever. And yet her body didn’t care about that at all. It was disgusting. Later, in her rooms, she drew out her locket. Maybe tonight Attrebus would answer, finally. But did she want him to? What would she tell him? How could she explain what she had done to Slyr? Or talk about what had happened with Toel? She couldn’t. And so she closed the locket and sought sleep, turning so she could not see Slyr’s empty bed.


Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel EIGHT Colin woke sometime after midnight. At first he thought he was alone, but then he noticed Arese standing at the window. She reminded him of one of the white poplars that grew along streams in the hills outside of Anvil. She heard him approaching and glanced over her shoulder, but her features were shadowed by the moonlight behind her. “I shouldn’t still be here,” she said. “Right,” he replied. “Why are you?” She shrugged. “I guess I thought we weren’t through.” She must have seen the expression on his face, because she laughed. “No, I think we’re done with that for the night,” she said. “I mean—you came here for something, right? To tell me something?” “Yes,” he said, surprised at how unimportant it seemed at the moment. But he explained it anyway—about what Hierem did in Black Marsh. “That only seems to confirm what we already thought,” she said. “It’s something,” Colin replied. “The journal is proof, isn’t it?” “It is proof,” she said. “Just not very good proof.” “How good does it have to be? The Emperor was suspicious enough to plant you in Hierem’s ministry. Shouldn’t this be enough to convince him?” “I don’t know,” she said. “What do you know about Hierem?” “Not much,” Colin admitted. “He’s been around forever. He had a position in the old Empire—he was an ambassador to Morrowind. He was a minister to Thules the Gibbering, the witch-warrior who ruled what little remained of the Empire before Titus Mede took it from him.” “I remember. Not a well-liked ruler.” “Maybe not beloved, but he was Nibenese, and despite his various perversions, many on the council favored him over a Colovian usurper. Hierem is from an old Nibenese family, with a lot of connections. He smoothed over the conquest, helped convince the council to accept Mede as a liberator rather than a conqueror. He’s also extremely influential with the Synod. He’s the second most powerful man in the Empire, despite his servile public appearance, and if Mede were to move against him without an unimpeachable reason, it could lead to civil war.” “I find that hard to believe.” “Only because you don’t know Hierem. I feel certain that Mede would win any such conflict, but it would be costly.” “What then?” She turned back to the window. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll work something out.” “Your life is in danger,” he said. “Go to the Emperor, tell him what you know. Get out.” “It’s not enough,” she said. “And any cover I might have left—” “Surely you have some means of communicating with him. Secret means.” “There is a secret word,” she said. “If it reaches the Emperor’s ear, he will know to go to a certain place. But if I do that, he may do exactly as you say.” “Would that be so bad?” “Yes, because we fail to stop Hierem.


After ten years—I have to have something.” “Then let me go,” Colin said. “I’ll speak for you. I’ll explain it all.” He didn’t hold his breath, but he felt like it. She saw right through it. “You don’t believe me,” she said. “You think I’m lying about working for him.” “I want to believe you,” he said. She looked back out the window and chewed her lower lip. “Jasper,” she said. “The word is Jasper.” The second time Colin met the Emperor it was in a narrow, unfurnished room. He’d been brought there bound and blindfolded, and he didn’t see a door. The stone was the same color as the interior of the White-Gold Tower, but beyond that he had no clues at all as to where he was. This wasn’t court, and the Emperor wasn’t dressed for it. He wore a plain Colovian soldier’s tunic of dark gray wool and leather breeks. His crown was a plain gold circlet. A broadsword in a battered scabbard hung at his side. Two soldiers stood yards away, but Colin suspected that if he tried anything, he would be dead at Mede’s hand before either of them could move. “I know you,” the Emperor said. “You’re the young man who told me my Attrebus wasn’t killed when his men were massacred.” “Yes, sire,” Colin replied. “You’re an inspector in the Penitus Oculatus.” “Yes, sire.” “And yet you’ve come to me over all of your superiors, using a password and sign that only I and one other know.” “Knew, sire. I know it now, as does the man who brought it to you. It’s as few as I could manage to involve, but more than I would have liked.” Titus Mede conceded that with a nod. Then he signed for the guards to leave, and Colin was alone with the most powerful man in the world. “Who sent you?” the Emperor asked. “Letine Arese, majesty,” Colin said. “Why didn’t she come herself?” “Two members of the Dark Brotherhood tried to kill her a few nights ago. She’s afraid that if she came to you herself, she would be followed. She’s in hiding.” “Who sent the assassins?” “I wasn’t able to discover that, sire. Both men are dead, and I cannot find any trace of their shades—it’s rumored the brotherhood has ways of ensuring their members don’t leave behind talkative ghosts. Not surprisingly, they had no material evidence to connect them to anyone either.” “But surely Arese has suspicions about who might try to murder her.” “She suspects your minister, Hierem, majesty.” The Emperor nodded. “Of course. How are you mixed up in this, inspector?” “Arese asked for my help,” he replied. “In finding proof to implicate Hierem in the massacre—in the attempted murder of your son.” “That’s funny,” the Emperor said.


“Hierem has supplied me with some evidence that Arese was behind that herself.” “She arranged the attack,” Colin said, “but the order came from higher.” “From Hierem?” “She believes so.” “Believes so?” Mede paced, hands clasped behind his back. “Ten years she’s been there,” he muttered. “In all of that time, no proof. Nothing I can use against him.” “Sire, I don’t understand. If you’re suspicious of the minister …” “It’s not so simple,” the Emperor said. “I can’t risk an internal conflict—especially when we face this—bonewalker army, if it can be called that.” “Sire, Arese and I believe that’s no accident,” Colin said. “We believe Hierem is somehow involved in this Umbriel business.” He outlined what they had learned about Hierem’s trip to Black Marsh. When Colin was done, Mede stood still and silent for a long time, his forehead wrinkled. “You have the journal?” “Yes, sire.” He handed the Emperor the book and waited while he read it. “Why didn’t you go to your superiors with this?” he asked when he was finished. “I wasn’t sure I could trust them, majesty,” Colin said. “I really don’t know who to trust anymore.” “I can see your point. But now I wonder who I should trust. This might all be true, and it might all be some fabrication of Arese’s.” He stroked his chin. “Find me proof,” the Emperor said. “Real proof. Something the council can’t argue with.” He leaned against the wall. “You know, we had a letter from Umbriel, delivered by a … rotting thing … to one of my generals.” “Really, sire? A letter?” “Yes—very politely written, supposedly from the very hand of the master of that place, who also calls himself Umbriel. They have besieged every path to the Imperial City in the East, and soon enough they will probably hold the West as well. Yet we are told we are free to leave the city unharmed—with all of our arms and possessions. Umbriel wants this city, not its inhabitants. The offer remains good until Umbriel arrives. Doesn’t that seem peculiar?” “Didn’t your majesty offer the chance of surrender to any city he besieged?” “Yes. But according to our reports, Umbriel requires the souls of the living to remain aloft—and no defense has been found by either the College or the Synod to prevent its method of slaughter. Why would they allow the fuel that keeps their engines burning to simply walk away?” “Obviously, majesty, they want something more than fuel. Something here in the city.” “Or perhaps Umbriel has no interest in the city, but rather is aiding the ally who summoned it here. If I take my army and leave, what will Hierem do? Take possession of the throne and then send Umbriel to destroy my army and me?” “From what we know, it seems a possibility,” Colin said. “But not yet enough of one to risk a civil war if I’m wrong. So find out.


And involve no one else, other than Arese.” Mede reached into his pocket and produced a small metallic key. “Use this carefully,” he said. “It is a key to Hierem’s ministry and rooms. If he finds it on you, he will know it came from me, and things will go bad very quickly. If he is connected to Umbriel, he may know something of its secrets, who commands it, how to stop it. Find these things out for me, and do it quickly. I am not squeamish about methods—you understand? Our time grows short. If you find nothing, he will have to be questioned, no matter the consequences—before the enemy arrives.” “I understand, majesty.”


Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel NINE In her third hour of sleeplessness, Annaïg gave up the fight and sat up in bed. Despite her earlier misgivings, she tried the locket, but Attrebus still didn’t answer, and she didn’t really expect him to. She was beginning to think he was dead. “I’m not sorry for what I did to Slyr,” she muttered, under her breath. “I had to do it.” But for what? And what now? She could play Toel along for a bit, but soon he would get impatient, and she would have to refuse him outright or comply with his desires. Would it be that bad? “Yes,” she told herself. But if it worked, if it moved her nearer to discovering how to rip Umbriel from the sky, then fine. But it wouldn’t work. If she became his mistress she might rise a bit in position, but then he would become bored with her, as he had with Slyr, and she would be worse off than before—or at least no better. What she had to do was escape him, and that meant moving up on her own merit—without him. And her best chance at that was coming up all too soon, and it might not come again. If she could cook the perfect meal, draw the attention of those Toel called “lords”—then she would really be in a position to do something. She had started something and she couldn’t stop now. If she cooked the best meal Lord Rhel had ever eaten—if she could impress him beyond measure—then maybe he would make her a chef, give her her own kitchen. And so she began to plan, and that calmed her down, and finally she slept, and dreamed of cooking. She met Glim again, this time by the light of the two moons, high up on one of the massive boughs of the trees. She strained to see something of the land below, but mist and clouds obscured almost everything. Glim was curiously silent. “Are you listening to the trees?” she asked. “I’m thinking,” he replied softly. He sounded strange—upset. “I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “I had to.” “It’s not about Slyr,” Mere-Glim said. “It’s about this new request of yours.” “It should be easy,” she replied. “Even if the skraws never get past the pantries, they talk to the workers there—I know they do. A little information is all I ask.” “No, you’re asking for a lot of information. And the skraws have already given you a lot of information—for which they haven’t been repaid.” “Is that what it’s come to be between us?” she asked. “Glim, I have to know I can count on you. I have to know you’re my friend.” “I am your friend,” he said. “Of course I am. And I’ve been doing what you ask, haven’t I?


All I am saying is—maybe it’s time you helped me.” “I’m still in no position to manufacture enough water-breathing serum to make a difference,” she said. “I would if I could.” “I understand that,” he replied. “What I need right now are weapons.” “What?” “The tubes that bring processed waste from the midden to the sump are living things. There is a series of sphincters that pass the waste along or hold it back, as needed. I need something that will paralyze the sphincters and an antidote for that. I need concoctions to taint foods, to make them unpleasant or inedible without rendering them poisonous. I need weapons of sabotage for the skraws to wage their rebellion with. I won’t need large amounts of them—just enough. You know how to make these things.” “I do,” she said. “Let me think a moment.” She closed her eyes and felt the pull toward the world below, so close, so impossibly far away. So far, none of her experimentation had given her any hope that she and Glim could leave without fading into nothingness. But there was still some chance she could destroy her prison. Glim was giving her an opportunity to learn how to sabotage Umbriel, and a network to do it with. How could she refuse? “Okay,” she said finally. “But we have to do this carefully. We have to be smart. The first thing is, Toel’s kitchen has to keep running, at least for now. At the same time, we can’t be seen as immune to these attacks, or we’ll draw attention. I think it’s also best that—at first—no one knows the skraws are doing this.” “I don’t understand,” Glim said. “We’re trying to pressure the lords into doing something about the vapors. If they don’t know it’s us—” “I really don’t think you know what you’re dealing with,” Annaïg told him. “As soon as they suspect the skraws, the kitchens—or worse, I’m sure, the lords—will come after you. I’ve seen what that means.” “They can’t kill us all.” “No, but they can kill you. They can find out who the other leaders are and kill them.” “Maybe.” “Try it my way,” she urged. “When everything is completely bollixed up, when they see how vulnerable they are, you step in and set things right, asking only that the vapors be replaced by something more humane.” “What’s your way?” Glim asked. “Well—at first we make the kitchens think they’re attacking one another.” “How is that?” “The banquet, the one I needed the ninth savor for. Umbriel himself will be in attendance. Four kitchens are competing to win the honor of cooking that meal. Would it be so surprising if they started sabotaging one another?” “Now I’m starting to see,” Glim said. “And of course, your kitchen would in the end benefit the most from this—competition.” “Yes.” Glim scratched his arms. “I don’t hate this idea,” he said. “But why do you want Toel to succeed?” “Because if he succeeds, I succeed.


He might get advanced and take me with him.” “Why do you care about that?” “Because the closer I am to the heart of things, the more damage I can do. And the more I can help the skraws.” He nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “I’ll talk to the others.” “And I’ll start work on the things you need. Now come on, let’s go back down before we’re noticed.” “I’m going to stay up here awhile,” he said. “Listen to the trees.” “I’ll see you later, then.” She felt stirrings of guilt, because she didn’t like to deceive Glim, but he had lost all sense of things. She loved him, and she needed him—and if she had to, for both of their sakes, and the sake of the world—she would use him. Toel’s expression began as disgust but quickly became so murderous that Annaïg felt a rush of fear. Then she noticed it wasn’t the vaporessence of fermented duck egg she had given him to try that he was reacting to—he was smelling something else more generally in the air. “It’s the water filters,” she explained. “Sump slurry has them clogged.” “I know what it is,” Toel said, his voice cold. “Do not presume, you. I know every scent of this kitchen. If a single lampen invades the cilia tubules, my nose aches from the stench. We are sabotaged—again. I will not bear it. I will not bear it!” “But who would do such a thing?” Annaïg asked. “Phmer possibly,” he snarled. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? It could be her, or it could be Luuniel or Ashdre.” “Why? Is this kind of thing usual during a competition?” “Not at all,” he fumed. “It is far outside of the bounds. Very far. Too far.” He slammed the flat of his hand on the table. “This sort of contest happens all the time. We are all of us rivals. But never before has this sort of wholesale sabotage occurred. Now they strike at us, we strike at them—it escalates.” “Wait,” Annaïg said. “We’ve been doing this as well?” “Well, of course,” he replied. “Once a war is begun, only a fool will not fight. But after our last response to Phmer’s affronts, I should have thought the matter settled. But now she—or one of the others—they come back at us.” “Why don’t the lords step in?” “Because there is no law concerning this. Outright invasion is governed by strict rules, but this picking and picking at things … Anyway, even though we’re usually able to discover who has been tampering with us, it’s not enough proof for a lord, you understand. They do not understand instinct and intuition the way we do.” “Who started it?” she asked as guilelessly as possible. “Most think it was Ashdre. He had the least chance of winning.” He chuckled a mean sort of laugh. “He has none now. Between Phmer and us, Ashdre’s kitchen is crippled.


Luuniel isn’t much better off.” “That’s good, then,” Annaïg said. “It seems we’re faring better than the others.” “It seems, it seems. But all of the others hate me, you know, because I rose up from below. They disdain me, they pine for my failure. And lesser chefs, they are watching this. Possibly they are even behind some of the vandalism, hoping to see me fall and take my place. And sooner, not later, they will think to come against me together.” “Have you no protection? Couldn’t you post guards?” “Post them where? In the sump? In the midden? Below the filters? Even if I had a hundred guards, there would be no way to cover every vulnerable place. No, the only thing we can do is set a harsher example. And that I will do. I will show them what real retribution is.” With that, he left her, and she worked in silence. She felt like humming, but suppressed the urge for fear that her good cheer might be noticed. Her plan was working better than she had ever imagined. This was the first time Toel had said anything about it, but the rumors had been thick this last week, and Toel had come to ask her to develop a recipe for breathing underwater. All of the major kitchens were at one another’s throats, and they were all so vicious and mean it didn’t occur to any of them to question closely how it had all started. Glim and the skraws didn’t have to do much to keep things going—just a little nudge here and there. In fact, for the first time since she had been in Umbriel, she heard people talking about the skraws in glowing terms—how quickly they fixed what was broken, how good and uncomplaining they were. That was very good news, because it meant that Glim might achieve his goal without ever having to risk a confrontation between the skraws and the lords—when Toel’s kitchen was triumphant, she could reasonably suggest a replacement for the vapors as their reward. She’d already been given the perfect excuse to invent a safer drug. That wouldn’t matter in the long run, of course, but it would make Glim happy. The other thing that had Annaïg suppressing her humming was how well her menu was coming along. Thanks to the skraws, she knew the tastes, fashions, and fetishes of not only Lord Rhel, but also most of those attending his tasting. She knew which ones Rhel liked and which ones he despised, and part of her planning was that the meal itself subtly insult and discomfit the latter. She knew he had a great sense of whimsy, and above all that he was partial to the new, strange, surprising—but also that he prided himself on a sort of coarseness of taste, of mortal indulgence.


In this, he seemed to ape Umbriel himself, the eponymous master of this place, who was known to dine on the lowest sorts of matter at times. Rhel had been heard to say that such tastes reflected not the lack of refinement, but the fulfillment of it. She worked, and her mood only improved as the day went on. Glim rode the tree and bellowed in delight. His claws gripped about the tendril-thin branch tips, and the wind, the spin of Umbriel, and the long rippling undulation of the trees did the rest. Fhena’s musical laugh sang nearby, where she clung to her own branch. “I told you!” she shouted. “You did!” he admitted. “It’s better than flying, I can tell you that.” “You’ve flown? How?” “Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.” It was merely exciting, at first, but after a few moments he began to feel the trees, their own joy in their existence, in the process of merely being, and he felt himself gently tugged into a state of pure thought, where no words existed to constrain his feelings, where no logic tried to make sense and order of the world, and there was only color, smell, touch, feeling, motion. When Fhena finally cajoled him back to thicker branches, he went only reluctantly, and he felt more refreshed—and more himself—than he had in a long time. “Thank you,” he said. “That was—wonderful.” “Isn’t it?” she said. “Sometimes I dream of just letting go, of never coming back.” “Right,” Glim said. “But you have to come back.” “Why?” she asked. “Well, because—you would die.” “And return to Umbriel and be born again. People do it all the time.” “Die?” “Ride the branches and let go. They say sometimes the mood just hits you and you can’t help it.” “How do you know what someone who lets go was thinking?” “Well, my friend Jinel got the feeling, but Qwern caught him. But he just went out the next day and let go anyway.” Glim remembered the ghost of the feeling, of near-perfect peace. “You didn’t think to warn me about that before I did it?” he wondered. “Warn you? Why?” “Because—” He stopped, then started again. “Listen, don’t do it again, okay? I don’t want you to die.” “Well, I wouldn’t die, silly, just go back into Umbriel.” “Right—and be born as someone else, someone who doesn’t remember me, who isn’t my friend.” “I wouldn’t have to remember you,” Fhena said. “I would know you, Mere-Glim, whatever form I wore.” She brightened. “Maybe I would even be born in a form like yours. Wouldn’t that be fun?” Something like a quick hot tide seem to fill him up, and his mouth worked in embarrassment. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Please,” he said, “just promise me—no more branch riding.” “That’s an awful lot to promise,” she said. “But if you’re asking, I guess I will.” “Good.


Thank you.” But she had reminded him of something he’d been trying not to think about. “What now?” Fhena asked. “Now?” he sighed. “Well, speaking of being reborn, I have to go back to the sump and check on the recent implantations.” “Stay a little longer,” she pleaded. “I have to go,” he said. “Besides, you’ve got your own work to do. I don’t want to get you in trouble.” “Well, very well. Tomorrow?” “Tomorrow.” He left, but the thought of Fhena as an Argonian—or at least in the form of one—stayed with him. In fact, he was so distracted that he realized he’d reached the implantations and had just been staring at them for several moments before he really saw them. They looked so much like small Saxhleel. Their eyes were very large. He’d known since he first saw them, but put it off. He couldn’t face it then. No matter what happened with the kitchens and the lords, the skraws wouldn’t be free of the vapors. They would die, one by one, and be replaced by things that looked like him, that didn’t need the vapors to breathe beneath the waves. When they were all dead, the agony of the skraws would be over. But that meant Wert and Oluth and everyone he actually knew was going to die horribly. He’d hoped to save them, to give them a better life, but instead his mere existence as a template had doomed them irrevocably to misery. And they were so close. Toel’s kitchen would win, and the skraws would be rewarded with a healthier life. Then let the worms become Argonians, and the skraws live out their remaining years decently. So he did what he had to do. He carefully killed them all, took them back up the Fringe Gyre, and threw them over the edge, where their tiny figures became smoke and then nothing. It was the morning before the day of the banquet when Toel came to her, his eyes icy with fury. He wore a shirt and pair of breeches that appeared to be made of sharkskin, or something similar. He placed garments like them on her table. “Put those on. You’re going with us.” “Chef?” “I have good information that the sump feed from our midden is going to be sabotaged again,” he said. “Soon.” “But that’s okay,” she said. “That won’t affect the meal, at this point.” “It’s not that,” Toel shouted. “I’ve simply had enough of this. Someone is going to die for this presumption, and I’m going to be there to see it. And so are you.” Mere-Glim drifted nearly still amid twenty-foot-long strands of slackweed, watching the party approaching the maw where the midden was supposed to empty into the sump. They weren’t skraws, and swam even more clumsily. They were armed with long, wicked-looking spears, and there were six of them.


He waited until they had passed into darkness, then followed behind them into the dark fissure, trying to decide what he could do. He hoped the armed figures would make some noise his comrades would hear, but they moved pretty quietly and altogether without talking. They stopped to examine the tertiary sphincter, already closed, and then swam to the side, toward the maintenance tunnels. These were narrow, flattened tubes that worked around the big valve into the last of the seven chambers that waste from the middens passed through. It was dark with sludge, but not nearly as thick as it should have been. They produced some sort of underwater lanterns, and the beams stabbed through the murk, revealing a wide-eyed Wert holding a nutrient injector. “You there,” a man’s voice said. “What are you doing?” Wert’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. “Just checking the muscle, sir,” he said. “These have been seizing up lately.” “Yes, they have,” the man said. His companions were positioning themselves in a hemisphere around Wert. “I wonder why you have a nutrient injector. Those are used by farmers, on the Fringe Gyre. To my knowledge they have no purpose in the sump.” “Well, it fell, I guess—from up there,” Wert attempted lamely. “I was wondering what it was.” “Don’t lie to me!” the man exploded. “Unbelievable! Phmer has turned the skraws against me! No wonder!” “Phmer?” Wert said, puzzled. “Not just the skraws,” another said. “The nutrient injector—they must have help from the Fringe Gyre.” “Well,” the man said. “We’ll see about all of that. If the skraws and the farmers are involved, the lords will have to take notice.” He poked his spear toward Wert. “You’ll tell us everything, skraw.” “It’s just me,” Wert said. “No one else is involved. Just me.” “I doubt that. But we’ll be sure before it’s over. I’ll find everything in that little mind of yours.” Glim was convinced the man was telling the truth. That meant trouble not only for the skraws, but for Fhena. The first man probably never knew he was there before Glim’s claws sheared through his neck. The second had only time for a short shriek. The third—the man doing most of the talking—he was quick. He managed to get his spear up fast enough to cut a gash along Glim’s belly before Glim grabbed the shaft and slammed his thorny crest into the man’s face, the man then gurgling and drifting toward the bottom. Glim spun in time to avoid another spear, this one wielded by a red-skinned woman with horns. They were all so clumsy, so slow. He dodged the tip and disemboweled her. A merish-looking woman was thrashing about with the injector in her back, and Cilinil appeared from somewhere and wrapped her long legs and arms around another, while Wert drove one of the spears through that one’s neck.


Glim felt a humming in his veins he’d never known, a terrible, black joy that made it hard to think. The fellow he had butted was coming back. Glim swam down, caught him by the hair, and pulled him up to eye level. “Incredible,” the man said weakly. “Do you know who I am? Have you no idea what you’ve done?” “None,” Glim snarled. “I am Chef Toel. Do you understand? Now let me go.” “I don’t think I can do that,” Glim said. “No?” Toel’s eyes suddenly glowed a strange silver color and the water started to hiss with bubbles. “Xhuth!” Glim gasped as agony coursed up his arms. The muscles clenched uncontrollably and his fingers lost their grip. Toel came toward him, snarling, and his remaining companion was coming from the side, quickly. Wert and Cilinil were much too far away to help. It was almost over before Annaïg realized what was happening, that it was Glim attacking them. She struck toward him as he confronted Toel. She saw the water around Toel stir, and Glim was suddenly thrashing, choking with pain. Toel steadied himself in the water, and the familiar look of self-satisfaction on his face was suddenly more than she could bear, much more. As she approached, his lips curled up and he started to say something, but something he saw stopped him. What he saw was her. She felt the blade snick out from her arm, and she acted on instinct, slashing clumsily with the invisible knife. Toel managed to get his arm in the way, and the blade sliced cleanly through the joint of his elbow. She felt a terrific shock, and her lungs stopped working. All she could see was his face. “I was wrong about you,” Toel gasped. Then his features seemed to blur into light and dark arabesques that made no sort of sense. She came to herself again in Glim’s arms. They were still underwater. The two skraws were looking on in shock at Toel’s body, which besides missing a forearm, was now mostly decapitated. “Glim,” she murmured. “I didn’t know who you were,” he said. “I might have killed you. What the kaoc’ are you doing down here?” “He made me come,” she said. “He was furious—wanted to set an example, or something.” She looked back at the destroyed body. “Oh Stendarr, Glim, what did I do? I’ve never—” “Neither have I,” he said. She felt flimsy, like wet paper. She could see the dead bodies, the dark blood swirling in the water, more black than red, like chocolate. But none of it seemed real. She had just been talking to Toel. She had kissed him! “What do we do?” Wert sputtered. “You killed a chef! That’s almost as bad as killing a lord!” No, no, Annaïg thought. No one is dead. It’s a mistake. You weren’t supposed to be here … “The first thing,” Glim said, “is we clean up.” That sank in a little.


Lord of souls _ an Elder scrolls novel -- Keyes, Greg -- Elder Scrolls, Book 2, 2011 -- Del Rey_Ballantine Books -- 9780345508027 -- 2999018512a7b9b6f4491b212cb1a696 -- Anna’s Archive.9

Yes, they had to do that, didn’t they? What a mess. “But he’s going to be missed,” Wert went on. “They’ll send more divers to look for him.” “Right,” Glim said. “That’s why we’re going to fix it so they don’t find him. Or any of them.” “How can we do that? Even if we cut them up and put them in a midden, a sniffer could find them.” “Don’t worry,” Glim said confidently. “I know what to do. They won’t be found.” “Then they’ll start interrogating us.” “The four of us are the only ones who know what happened,” Glim said. “What do you mean by that?” Cilinil asked, swimming away a bit. “No one’s going to hurt you,” Glim said. “That’s not what I’m getting at.” Something suddenly fit together inside Annaïg’s head. “Listen to me,” she said. “Just listen. No one knows the skraws are involved, right? Each kitchen will think the other killed Toel. We don’t need to get rid of the bodies—they need to be found. But they need to be found hidden in Phmer’s midden. Everything here—and I mean everything—must be cleaned up. I can make a scrub that will scour this place as if we were never here. Then you can make it look like Toel was killed trying to invade Phmer’s kitchen, you understand?” Glim’s membranes filmed his eyes and then drew open again. “Did you—” he began, then stopped. But he didn’t have to finish. She knew what he was thinking. “No, Glim,” she said. “I didn’t plan this. It never occurred to me to—you know. But if we play this right, it can work. For all of us.” “They’ll suspect you,” Glim said. “The only survivor.” “Everyone who knows I came down here is right here,” she replied. “When Toel can’t be found, I’ll be as surprised as anyone as to where he went in the first place.” Glim seemed to sort that for a moment before nodding. “If you think it will work.” “It’s a gamble,” she admitted. “We could be found out. We could die horribly. But that was probably going to happen anyway, right?” “I suppose so,” Glim agreed. “Well, then,” Annaïg said. “Let’s go do what’s needed, and try to live until tomorrow.” And so they began doing that.


Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel ONE It happened around midday, beginning as a murmur ghosting up from the pantry and swelling. Toel’s underchefs—Intovar and Yeum—got into a shrill argument in the hall. When Lord Irrel came down, everything hushed. Annaïg had never seen a lord before. She had supposed they looked like everyone else, possibly in finer clothes. She was right about the clothes. Irrel’s robe seemed to be made of black smoke within which winked thousands of tiny sparks. The form-fitting garment beneath might have been made of liquid iron. Irrel himself was somewhat translucent. When he turned his head, flashes of skull showed through his fine, long features. His large eyes glowed with a soft purple light that shone through his lids when he closed them. He stood a head taller than anyone else in the room. “Toel is dead,” he said. His voice was soft, but it carried easily to every corner of the kitchen. “Who is his second?” Intovar and Yeum glanced at each other, and then Intovar stepped forward. “I am, Lord Irrel.” Irrel nodded. “The contest tomorrow. Can you win it? Tell me now, and do not dissemble.” Intovar cleared his voice softly. He looked terrified, and Annaïg could see his fingers shaking. “Lord, without Chef Toel, our chances are much diminished.” “Much diminished?” Irrel said, raising an eyebrow. He gestured—as if flicking something from his finger—and Intovar shrieked and dropped to his knees before falling on his face. He didn’t move. “I’ll ask the question again,” Irrel said. “Can we win it?” “N-No,” Yeum stuttered. “We cannot, lord. Not without Chef Toel.” Irrel nodded, and Yeum flinched. “There,” he said. “A simple answer to a simple question. Thank you.” He sighed. “It is an unpleasant inconvenience to withdraw, but better that than to look foolish.” He turned and took a step toward the door. Annaïg closed her eyes and pushed back her fear. “We can win, Lord Irrel,” she said. A little gasp went up around her, but she kept her gaze focused on the lord. “And you are?” he asked. “Annaïg, lord,” she replied. “Ah. Toel’s whimsical inventor.” “Yes, lord.” “I have been pleased with many of your creations,” he said. “But that does not make you a chef.” “We can win, lord. The menu is planned, the preparations are made. We will not make you look foolish—we will make you proud.” Irrel glanced at Intovar’s body, then back at Annaïg. “It would irritate me greatly to learn this is false bravado,” he said. “It is not, lord,” she replied forcefully. “Very well, then,” he said. “We’ll just see.” No one uttered a word until he was out of sight and presumably out of earshot. Then it began. “Are you insane?” Yeum shouted. “You’ve just killed us all!” A chorus of agreement went up from the staff. “What did you think was going to happen anyway?” Annaïg asked. “Irrel must have a kitchen, and he must have a good one.


Did you think you were going to be made chef, Yeum, for telling him we aren’t—you aren’t—competent? He would have brought in a new chef, with a new staff, and most of you would end up in the sump.” That struck home—she could see it, so she pressed. “We can do this. We don’t need Toel. If you agree to follow me, cook what I say the way I say to, we can win. I know it.” “I don’t understand,” Aelo—one of the dicers—said. “You’re probably right about what would have happened to us—all of us except you. Any chef would be pleased to have you. Now, if you fail—” “I’m tired of being passed around,” she said. “If we win, Irrel will make me chef, I’ll keep all of you, and everything will be fine.” “But I’m the senior cook,” Yeum protested. “No, she’s right,” one of the others said. “You can’t be chef now, Yeum. It has to be her.” “No, she’s crazy,” Yeum retorted. “Irrel wouldn’t …” Her eyes wandered over to Intovar’s body, then she shook her head. “Sumpslurry,” she sighed. Yeum looked back at Annaïg. “Fine,” she said. “What are we cooking?” “But this is absurd,” Loehsh asserted as Annaïg looked over his shoulder at his preparations. “Rhel is a lord—he will not eat the raw flesh of an animal, no matter how prettied up with froths and suspirations.” “He will,” she replied, “and he’ll like it. Just—stop. Give me the knife.” “Why?” he asked. “Because you’re cutting it wrong,” she snapped, repositioning the fat-veined slab of meat on the table and cutting paper-thin slices from it. “It won’t matter how thin it is,” Loehsh muttered. “Loehsh,” Yeum’s voice piped up from behind. “You see how she wants it done?” “Yes,” he said sullenly. “Then do it that way,” Yeum replied. “Would you have questioned Toel this way?” “Of course not. But he—” “Is dead. Unless you wish to join him before even the rest of us do, I suggest you stop asking questions and do things as Annaïg says to.” “Very well,” Loehsh said sourly. He returned to his task, this time cutting the meat properly. “Come on,” Yeum said to Annaïg. “We need to talk.” They went into the little room where Toel used to work on his menus. “You need me,” Yeum said. “How is that?” “You know how to cook—I look at the menu and I’m amazed, I admit. Maybe we do have a small chance of coming through this. The problem is, you don’t know how to be a chef.” “What do you mean?” “You try to do everything yourself. It’s impossible. You have to delegate, and you have to do it with authority. You haven’t the most basic idea how to go about it.” “What are you suggesting, then?” Annaïg asked. “That we work together,” Yeum replied. “I know how to give orders and spread the work around. I know how to get things done.


You know how to make them right.” “Work together,” she considered. “I worked together with Slyr and she tried to kill me. Why should I trust you?” “Because I’m not stupid like Slyr. It’s impossible for me to steal credit for this—Irrel was right here. He knows whose dishes these are. I’m only asking that if we succeed, I get to stay here as your underchef.” Right, Annaïg thought. So you can find another time to slip a knife into my back. “That’s reasonable,” was what she said, however. “Okay,” Yeum replied. “In that case I have some recommendations concerning the preparations.” “I should like to hear them,” Annaïg said. Yeum paused, and a sly little look passed across her face. “What?” Annaïg asked. “Did you kill him?” Yeum whispered. “What?” Annaïg felt a little chill in her vertebrae. “The chef. Did you kill him? It was made to look as if Phmer did it, but I can’t imagine her being that sloppy. If, on the other hand, you set it up to look like that—” “I’m not going to dignify that with a denial,” Annaïg said. “Don’t misunderstand me,” Yeum went on. “If that were the case, you would have nothing but my admiration. Do you know how many people Toel murdered to get here? It’s how things are done.” “Well, it’s not how I do things,” Annaïg snapped back. She was outraged. Yes, she had killed him, sort of, but it had been an accident. She wasn’t what Yeum thought she was. Yeum shrugged. “Anyway,” she said. “Do you have those recommendations or not?” “I do.” She slept a scant three hours that night; even with Yeum’s organizations of the kitchen, there were hundreds of details that only she could handle. Rhel, fortunately, was not like Irrel, who preferred up to a hundred distinct dishes at a meal. From what she had learned, Rhel considered himself more essential than that, and thus she only prepared three, each to be served in a separate course. She scrutinized each plate as it went to the servers. First came the quintessences of sulfur and sugar, congealed into a glutinous web that held suspended drops of human blood and denatured snapadder venom, which glittered pleasingly—like tiny rubies and emeralds. The web stretched over the cavity of a halved and hollowed durian fruit, whose sweet, garlicky scent she had enhanced with metagastronomics and infused with the lust of a monkeylike creature from the Fringe Gyre, killed just as it was about to mate. Next came the thin, translucent slices of raw bear loin, collected like the durian from the world below. She had turned the fat of the bear into a room-temperature vapor that clung to the tiny bits of meat, which were pillowed on a nest of glassy yellow noodles that, when bitten, would erase the taste of everything else within a few seconds, but leave deep longing to remember what had been lost.


An hour passed after the second course went up, and Annaïg began to feel nervous. The third course—a complex preparation based on the smoke of clove, cardamom, cumin, mustard, pepper, hornet, black widow, and rage—would begin to mellow and lose its edge if it wasn’t served soon. The servers finally came a half hour later, a few minutes too late for the smoke to be at its best, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. When the final dish went up, Annaïg wiped her brow. “I’m going to lie down,” she told Yeum. “We did well,” Yeum said. “I wonder about your choice to include so much carnal matter, but what you did with it—Toel could not have done better.” She hesitated. “Do you still believe we will win?” “I don’t know,” Annaïg replied. “But I’m too tired to worry about it anymore. If I’m going to die, I want a little rest first.” She wasn’t sure how long she dozed, but when she woke, at first she thought it was Lord Irrel standing there, for he had the same translucence. But then she noticed the slow, constant shifting of color beneath his skin, the squarer face and voluptuous lips. “Lord?” Annaïg said, coming shakily to her feet. “Rhel,” he murmured in a detached manner, as if he wasn’t so much speaking to her as recalling the conversation out loud. “How did you know?” he asked. “Know what, lord?” “The first dish made Lord Ix vomit, which I much enjoyed, and it made Ghol laugh, which is extremely pleasant. Each dish was for me perfect, but affected my companions in ways that I very much appreciated. How could you have known all of these things? Are you able to pick into my mind? I sense no such talent in you.” “Does this mean we won?” Annaïg asked. “Yes,” Rhel conceded. “And yet in doing so you have raised questions, you see.” “I can’t explain it, lord,” she lied. “It is my art, that is all. When it comes to food, I know what people want. I believe one of the gods must have blessed me.” His gaze settled for a moment, and then he blinked. “You are from below—from the world we travel through.” “Yes, lord.” He smiled. “I think I shall enjoy your world, when we are done.” “Done with what, my lord?” He waved his hand. “Oh, never mind that. You are my creature now, and I value such as you. I look forward to the day that you have full access to the goods of your world, rather than just the smatterings the taskers bring up. In any event, Irrel will have to find another chef.” “And my staff?” “Keep those you wish—dismiss the rest. Three days from now you will cook another meal, this one for Umbriel himself. I will be interested to see if you can please him as much—and as specifically—as you did me.” “Thank you, lord,” she said.


“I endeavor to do my best.” “Of course,” he replied, and then left. She passed a terrified-looking Yeum as she left the kitchens for her quarters. “We won,” she said. “You’ll stay. We begin preparing tomorrow.” Then she found her bed, and slept more soundly then she had in a long, long time.


Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel TWO Mere-Glim was finishing off a sheartooth steak when Wert burst into the chamber they shared with four other skraws, a damp stony room grown up in phosphorescent moss. He had an agitated look on his face, even for Wert. Oluth came in right behind him. “They’re coming for you,” Oluth gasped. “You have to go.” “What? Who is coming for me?” “Guards from one of the lords—Ix, I think. They’ve been questioning people. They broke poor Jith. I know he didn’t mean to—” “You have to hide someplace until they’re gone,” Wert said. “That will only put you in more danger,” Glim replied. “If they’re after me, they probably know you’re my second. I’m not going to leave you here to face them.” “I’ll run, too, just in a different direction,” Wert said. “Glim, we need you. The skraws need you, especially if they’ve caught on to us. You know how to think about these things—we don’t.” “It’s just I don’t see how they found out,” Glim said. “It was supposed to look like the kitchens were doing it to each other. It was working, I’m sure of it.” He saw Oluth start at that, but before he could say anything, Wert began trying to push him into the water. “Go,” he said. “Go someplace deep.” He saw them as soon as he was in the water. They were smart; they probably had sent someone to run him down in the caves, but figured he would come out here—and he had, right into their hands—if not their net, which he saw descending from above. He only had one way out, and the four figures ahead were blocking it, so he went straight at them with all the speed he had, which was clearly more than they were expecting. He avoided their spears and bowled right through them, diving for the Drop. He thought he was free when something hit him in the side, hard. He spun down to his right, but after a few yards something yanked him back and sent waves of agony through his ribs. He looked back into a cloud of blood. His blood, pouring from where a harpoon was stuck in him. One of the men was lashing the other end of the line around a spike of coral. With a harsh cry, Glim hurled himself back at them, but they were more ready for him this time, three of them setting their spears and the harpooner reloading his weapon, which looked a lot like a crossbow. He jagged at the last moment, but one of the spearmen managed to shift his point so it hit him in the forehead. He screamed as the tip found his skull and deflected, slicing all the way to his ear. The pain was terrific, but it only seemed to make him stronger as he jerked his way down the shaft and buried his claws in the man’s throat.