As if something were pulling them back to that ancient Lilmoth … He stopped, realizing he was still walking without knowing exactly where he was going, but then he knew. The undertow of his thoughts had brought him here. To the tree. Or part of it. The city tree was said to be three hundred years old, and its roots and tendrils pushed and wound through most of lower Lilmoth, and here was a root the size of his thigh, twisting its way out of a stone wall. Everything else around him had become waterish, blurred, but as he laid his webbed hand on the rough surface, the colors sharpened and focused. He stood there, no longer seeing the crumbling, rotted Imperial warehouses, but instead a city of monstrous stone ziggurats and statues pushing up to the sky, a place of glory and madness. He felt it tremor around him, smelled anise and burning cinnamon, and heard chanting in antique tongues. His heart thumped oddly as he watched the two moons heave themselves through the low mist of smoke and fog that rolled through the streets, and the waters surged beneath them, around them, beyond the sky. His thoughts melted together. He wasn’t sure how long it was before his mind complicated itself again, but his hand was still on the root. He lifted it and backed away, and after a few long breaths he began walking, and in the thick night around him, the massive structures softened, thinned, and went mostly away, until he was once again in the Lilmoth where his body was born. Mostly away. But he felt it now, the call the An-Xileel felt, and he realized that a part of him had already known it. He knew something else, too. The tree had cut him off from the vision before it had run its course. That was troubling. Gulls swarmed the streets like rats near the waterfront, most of them too greedy or stupid to even move out of his way as he picked his way through fish offal, shattered crabs, jellyfish, and seaweed. Barnacles went halfway up the buildings here. This part of town had sunk so low that when a double tide came, it flooded deep. The docks themselves floated, attached to a massive long stone quay whose foundations were as ancient as time and whose upper layer of limestone had been added last year. He made his way up the central ramp to the top of it. Here was a city in itself; since the An-Xileel forbade all but licensed foreigners in the city, the markets had all crowded themselves here. Here, a fishmonger held a flounder up by the tail, selling from a single crate of silver-skinned harvest. There, a long line of sheds with the Colovian Traders banner hawked trinkets of silver and brass, cooking pots, cutlery, wine, cloth. He had worked here, for a while.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.6

A group of his matriline cousins had set up a business selling Theilul, a liquor made of distilled sugarcane. They’d originally sold the cane, but since their fields were twenty miles from town, they’d found it easier to transport a few cases of bottles than many wagonloads of cane—and far more profitable. He knew where to find Urvwen; right in the thick of it all, where the great stone cross that was the waterfront joined. The Psijic wasn’t yelling, as usual. He was just sitting there, looking through the crowd and past the colorful masts of the ships to the south, toward where the bay came to the sea. His bone-colored skin seemed paler than usual, but when the silvery eyes found Mere-Glim approaching, they were full of life. “You want to know, don’t you?” he said. For a moment Mere-Glim had trouble responding, the experience with the tree had been so powerful. But he let words shape his thoughts again. “My cousin said he saw something out at sea.” “Yes, he did. It’s nearly here.” “What is nearly here?” The old priest shrugged. “Do you know anything about my order?” “Not much.” “Few do. We don’t teach our beliefs to outsiders. We counsel, we help.” “Help with what?” “Change.” Mere-Glim blinked, trying to find his answer there. “Change is inevitable,” Urvwen went on. “Indeed, change is sacred. But it is not to be unguided. I came here to guide; the An-Xileel—and the city council—the ‘Organism’ that they so thoroughly control—do not listen.” “They have a guide—the Hist.” “Yes. And their guide brings change, but not the sort that ought to be encouraged. But they do not listen to me. Truth be told, no one here listens to me, but I try. Every day I come here and try to have some effect.” “What’s coming?” Mere-Glim persisted. “Do you know of Arteum?” the old man asked. “The island you Psijics come from,” Glim answered him. “It was removed from the world once. Did you know that?” “I did not.” “Such things happen.” He nodded, more to himself, it seemed, than to Mere-Glim. “Has something been removed from the world?” he asked. “No,” Urvwen said, lowering his voice. “Something has been removed from another world. And it has come here.” “What will it do?” “I don’t know. But I think it will be very bad.” “Why?” “It’s too complicated to explain,” he sighed. “And even if you understood my explanation, it wouldn’t help. Mundus—the world—is a very delicate thing, you know. Only certain rules keep it from returning to the Is/Is Not.” “I don’t understand.” The Psijic waved his hands. “Those boats out there—to sail and not founder—the sails and the ropes that hoist them, control them—tension must be just so, they must adjust as the winds change, if a storm comes they may even have to be taken down …” He shook his head. “No, no—I feel the ropes of the world, and they have become too tight.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.7

They pull in the wrong directions. And that is never good. That is what happened in the days before the Dragonfires first burned—” “Are you talking about Oblivion? I thought we can’t be invaded by Oblivion anymore. I thought Emperor Martin—” “Yes, yes. But nothing is so simple. There are always loopholes, you see.” “Even if there aren’t loops?” Urvwen grinned at that but didn’t reply. “So this—city,” Mere-Glim said. “It’s from Oblivion.” The priest shook his head, so violently Mere-Glim thought it might come off. “No, no, no—or yes. I can’t explain. I can’t—go away. Just go away.” Mere-Glim’s head was already hurting from the conversation. He didn’t need to be told twice, although technically he had been. He wandered off to find his cousins and procure a bottle of Theilul. Annaïg could wait a bit.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.1

The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel Hecua’s single eye crawled its regard over Annaïg’s list of ingredients. Her wrinkled dark brow knotted in a little frown. “Last try didn’t work, did it?” Annaïg puffed her lips and lifted her shoulders. “It worked,” she said, “just not exactly the way I wanted it to.” The Redguard shook her head. “You’ve the knack, there’s no doubt about that. But I’ve never heard of any formula that can make a person fly—not from anywhere. And this list—this just looks like a mess waiting to happen.” “I’ve heard Lazarum of the Synod worked out a way to fly,” Annaïg said. “Hmm. And maybe if there was a Synod conclave within four hundred miles of here, you might have a chance of learning that, after a few years paying their dues. But that’s a spell, not a synthesis. A badly put-together spell likely won’t work at all—alchemy gone wrong can be poison.” “I know all of that,” Annaïg said. “I’m not afraid—nothing I’ve ever made turned out too bad.” “It took me a week to give Mere-Glim his skin back.” “He had his skin,” Annaïg pointed out. “It was just translucent, that’s all. It didn’t hurt him.” Hecua buzzed her lips together in disdain. “Well, there’s no talking to the young, is there?” She held up the list and began picking through the bottles, boxes, and canisters on the shelves that made up the walls of the place. While she did so, Annaïg wandered around the shelves, too, studying their contents. She knew she didn’t have everything she needed. It was like cooking; there was one more taste needed to pull everything together. She just didn’t have any idea what it was. Hecua’s place was huge. It had once been the local Mages’ Guild hall, and there were still three or four doddering practitioners who were in and out of the rooms upstairs. Hecua honored their memberships, even though there was no such organization as the Mages’ Guild anymore. No one much cared; the An-Xileel didn’t care, and neither the College of Whispers nor the Synod—the two Imperially recognized institutions of magic—had representatives in Lilmoth, so they hadn’t anything to say about it either. She opened bottles and sniffed the powders, distillations, and essences, but nothing spoke to her. Nothing, that is, until she lifted a small, fat bottle wrapped tightly in black paper. Touching it sent a faint tingle traveling up her arm, across her clavicle, and up into the back of her throat. “What is it?” Hecua asked, and Annaïg realized her gasp must have been audible. She held the container up. The old woman came and peered down her nose at it. “Oh, that,” she said. “I’m really not sure, to tell you the truth. It’s been there for ages.” “I’ve never seen it before.” “I pulled it from the back, while I was dusting.” “And you don’t know what it is?” She shrugged.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.2

“A fellow came in here years ago, a few months after the Oblivion crisis. He was sick with something and needed some things, but he didn’t have money to pay. But he had that. He claimed he’d taken it from a fortress in Oblivion itself. There was a lot of that back then; we had a big influx of daedra hearts and void salts and the like.” “But he didn’t say what it was?” She shook her head. “I felt sorry for him, that’s all. I imagine it’s not much of anything.” “And you never opened it to find out?” Hecua paused. “Well, no, you can see the paper is intact.” “May I?” “I don’t see why not.” Annaïg broke the paper with her thumbnail, revealing the stopper beneath. It was tight, but a good twist brought it out. The feeling in the back of her throat intensified and became a taste, a smell, bright as sunlight but cold, like eucalyptus or mint. “That’s it,” she said, as she felt it all meld together. “What? You know what it is?” “No. But I want some.” “Annaïg—” “I’ll be careful, Aunt Hec. I’ll run some virtue tests on it.” “Those tests aren’t well proven yet. They miss things.” “I’ll be careful, I said.” “Hmf,” the old woman replied dubiously. The house, as usual, was empty, so she went to the small attic room where she had all of her alchemical gear and went to work. She did the virtue tests and found the primary virtue was restorative and the secondary was—more promisingly—one of alteration. The tertiary and quaternary virtues didn’t reveal themselves even so vaguely. But she knew, knew right to her bones, that this was right. And so she passed hours with her calcinator, and in the end she was turning a flask containing a pale amber fluid that bent light oddly, as if it were a half a mile of liquid instead of a few inches. “Well,” she said, sniffing it. Then she sighed. It felt right, smelled right—but Hecua’s warning was not to be taken lightly. This could be poison as easily as anything. Maybe if she just tasted a little … At that moment she heard a sound on the stairs. She stayed still, listening for it to repeat itself. “Annaïg?” She sighed in relief. It was only her father. She remembered he had been bringing food home, and a glance out her small window proved it was near dinnertime. “Coming, Taig,” she called, corking the potion and stuffing it in her right skirt pocket. She started up, then paused. Where was Glim? He’d been gone an awfully long time. She went to a polished cypress cabinet and withdrew two small objects wrapped in soft gecko skin. She unwrapped them carefully, revealing a locket on a chain and a life-sized likeness of a sparrow constructed of a fine metal the color of brass but as light as paper.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.3

Each individual feather had been fashioned exquisitely and separately, and its eyes were garnets set in ovals of some darker metal. As her fingers touched it, it stirred, ruffling its metal wings. “Hey, Coo,” she whispered. She hesitated then. Coo was the only thing of value her mother had left her that hadn’t been stolen or sold. Sending her out was a risk she didn’t often take. But Glim had had more than enough time to get to the waterfront and back, hours and hours more. It was probably nothing—maybe he was drinking with his cousins or something—but she was eager to find out what the Psijic priest had to say. “Go find Glim,” she whispered to the bird, conjuring the image of her friend in her secret eye. “Speak only to him, hear only at his touch.” She purred, lifted her wings, and drifted more than flew out of the open window. “Annaïg?” Her father’s voice again, nearer. She went out, closing the door behind her. She met him near the top of the winding flight. He was red in the face from wine or exertion or probably both. “Why didn’t you just ring the bell, Taig?” she asked. “Sometimes you don’t come down right away,” he said, stepping aside. “After you.” “What’s the rush?” she asked, descending past him. “We were going to talk,” he said. “About the trip to Leyawiin?” “That, and other things,” he replied. The stair came to a landing, and then continued down. “What other things?” “I haven’t been a very good father, Thistle. I know that. Since your mother died—” There was that annoying tone again. “It’s been fine, Taig. I’ve got no complaints.” “Well, you should. I know that. I tell myself that I’ve been doing what’s needed to keep us alive, to keep this house …” He sighed. “And in the end, all meaningless.” They passed the next landing. “What do you mean, meaningless?” she asked. “I love this house.” “You think I don’t know anything about you,” he said. “I do. You pine to leave here, this place. You dream of the Imperial City, of studying there.” “I know we don’t have the money, Taig.” He nodded. “That’s been the problem, yes. But I’ve sold some things.” “Like what?” “The house, for one.” “What?” She stopped with her foot on the floor of the antechamber, just noticing the men there, four of them—an Imperial with a knobby nose, an orc with dark green hide and low, brushy brows, and two Bosmeri who might have been twins with their fine, narrow faces. She recognized the orc and the Imperial as members of the Thtachalxan, or “Drykillers,” the only non-Argonian guard unit in Lilmoth. “What’s going on, Taig?” she whispered. He rested his hand on her shoulder. “I wish I had more time, Thistle,” he murmured. “I wish I could go with you, but this is how it is. Your aunt will see you get to the Imperial City.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.4

She has friends there.” “What’s happening, Taig? What do you know?” “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Best you not find out.” She brushed his hand from her shoulder. “I’m not going to Leyawiin,” she said. “Certainly not without a better explanation and certainly not without you—and Glim.” “Glim …” He exhaled, then his face changed into a visage utterly alien to her. “Don’t worry about Glim,” he said. “There’s nothing to be done there.” “What do you mean?” She could hear the panic building in her voice. It was as if it had pulled itself outside of her and become a thing of its own. “Tell me!” When he didn’t answer, she turned and strode for the door. The orc stepped in her way. “Don’t hurt her,” her father said. Annaïg turned and ran, ran as fast as she could toward the kitchen and other door, the one that led to the garden. She was only halfway there when hard, callused hands clamped on her arm. “I owe yer father,” the orc growled. “So you’ll be coming with me, girl.” She writhed in his grasp, but the others were all around her. Her father leaned in and kissed her forehead. He stank of black rice wine. “I love you,” he said. “Try to remember that, in the days and years to come. That in the end I did right by you.” With half a bottle of Theilul sloshing in his belly, Mere-Glim made his wobbly way back toward the old Imperial district. He knew Annaïg was going to be irritated with him for not returning sooner, but at the moment he didn’t care that much. Anyway, it wasn’t much fun watching her concoct her smelly compounds, which is what she had surely been doing all afternoon. He hadn’t spent much time with his cousins lately—or with anyone except Annaïg, really. If he had, he might have known he wasn’t alone in feeling a bit cut off from the tree, that only the An-Xileel and other, even wilder people from the deep swamps seemed to enjoy complete rapport with it. That was bothersome in a lot of ways, and perhaps most bothersome was that his mind—like many of his people—had a hard time believing in coincidence. If the tree was doing something strange at the same time a flying city appeared from nowhere, it seemed impossible that there wasn’t some connection. Maybe Annaïg’s father was right—after all, the old man did work with the An-Xileel. Maybe it was time to go, away from Lilmoth and its rogue tree. If it was rogue. If all the Hist weren’t involved. Because if they were, he would have to get out of Black Marsh entirely. A light rain began splattering the mud-covered path as he passed beneath the pocked, eroded limestone arch that had once marked the boundary of the Imperial quarter.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.5

He whirl-jumped as a fluttering motion at the edge of his vision opened ancient templates—but what he saw there wasn’t a venin-bat or blood-moth. It took him a moment to sort out that it was Annaïg’s metal bird, Coo. She must really be irritated, he thought. She rarely used Coo for anything. He blew out some of the water that had collected in his nose and flipped open the little hatch that covered the mirror. He didn’t find Annaïg gazing back at him, though. It was dark, which meant the locket was closed. But it was emitting faint sounds. He pressed the bird nearer his ear. At first he didn’t hear much—breathing, the muffled voices of two men. But then suddenly a man was shouting, and a woman shrieked. He knew that shriek like he knew his own—it was Annaïg. “Back here, girl!” a hoarse voice growled. “Just tell my father you put me on the ship!” he heard Annaïg shout. “He’ll never know the difference.” “Maybe he wouldn’t,” Hoarse Voice grunted. “But I would, yeah? So on the boat you go.” Annaïg then vented a string of profanities, some of which she almost certainly had made up on the spot, because Mere-Glim hadn’t heard them before, and he had pretty much heard all of her arsenal of swear-words and phrases—or thought he had. With a grunt he turned around and started back down toward the docks. It seemed Annaïg’s father did know something, something so bad he’d had his own daughter kidnapped to get her out of town. Well, that was great. Now he felt worse about everything. He began to run.


The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel Annaïg thought she would have a chance to escape when they reached the ship, but her father’s thugs—and his money—seemed to convince the captain, an Argonian so old that patches of his scales had become translucent. She and her things were placed in a small stateroom—about the size of a closet, actually—and that was bolted from the outside, with the promise that she would be free to wander the ship once they were a few leagues from land. That didn’t stop her from trying to find a way out, of course. The small window was no help, since she couldn’t shape-shift into a cat or ferret. She tried screaming for help, but they were facing away from the docks, so there was no one to hear her above the general din. She couldn’t find a way through the door, and as it turned out, if someone had built any sort of secret doors or panels into the bulkhead, they were far too clever for her. That left crying, which she actually started before completing her search. Her tears were thoroughly mixed—anger, grief, and terror. Her father would never think of treating her like this unless he was certain that remaining meant death. So why had he decided to stay and die? Why did he get that choice and not her? Once she got past the noisy stage of crying and settled into more dignified, ladylike sniffling, she realized someone was saying her name. She looked at the door and window, but the sound was funny, very small … And then she remembered, and felt really stupid. She took off the locket and opened it up and there was Glim’s familiar face. His mouth was slightly open and his teeth were showing, indicating his agitation. “Glim!” she whispered. “Where are you?” he asked. “I’m on a ship—” “Did you get the name?” “The Tsonashap—‘Swimming Frog.’” The tiny figure of his head turned this way and that. “I see it,” he said at last. “It’s making ready.” “I’m in a small stateroom near the bow,” she told him. “There’s a short corridor—” She stopped and bit her lip. “Glim, don’t try it,” she said at last. “I think … I think something really awful is about to happen. Trying to get me out of here—you’ll only get caught. Get out of Lilmoth, as far and as fast as you can.” Glim blinked slowly. “I’m going to close the bird and put it away now,” he said. “Glim—” But the image vanished. Annaïg sighed, shut the locket and her eyes. She felt tired, hungry, worn-out. Glim was coming, wasn’t he? The first hour, she waited anxiously, preparing herself to spring into action. But then she felt the boat moving on the water. She looked out the window and saw the lanterns on the quay receding. “Xhuth!” she swore. “Waxhuthi! Kaoc’!” But the lights, uninterested in her expletives, continued to dim and dwindle.


She opened the locket, but no image greeted her. She held it up to her ear, but she didn’t hear anything, either. Had he heeded her advice, or had he been caught, injured, murdered? In her whirling thoughts he was all of them. Glim, missing an arm; Glim, headless; Glim bound in chains and about to be thrown overboard … Something rattled at her door, and her heart actually skipped a beat. She’d always thought that was just an expression. She stood, fingers knotted in fists she didn’t really know how to use, waiting. The door opened, a snout appeared, and large reptilian eyes that sagged deep in their wrinkled sockets. “Captain,” she said, making her voice as cold as possible. “We’re in deep water,” he grated. “Don’t be foolish and try to swim for it. You’ll not make it, not with the sea-drakes hereabouts.” He glanced down at her clenched hands and flashed his own claws, shaking his head. “Never think that,” he said. “I’d see you safe to your destination, but no one attacks a captain on his ship and doesn’t pay hard. It’s law.” “Law? Kidnapping is against the law!” “This isn’t kidnapping, it’s your father’s wish—and you aren’t old enough to go against his wish, at least not in this sort of matter. So best resign.” He hadn’t said anything about Glim, and she was afraid to ask. She loosened her fingers. “Very well. I’m free to move about the ship?” “Within reason.” “Right. Here’s me moving, then.” She pushed past him into the brief hall, up the steps, and onto the deck. Above her, sails billowed and snapped in the plentiful wind that always drove off the coast early in the night, and the bow cut a furrow through a sea lacquered in silver and bronze by the two great moons above. For a moment her fear and dismay were overcome by an unexpected rush of joy at the beauty of it, the adventure it seemed to promise. Across the sea to the Empire, and everything she’d always wanted. Her father’s last, best—almost only—gift to her. She went and stood with her hands braced on the bulward and looked out across the waters. They were sailing south, out of the bay, and then they would go west, along the mangroved coast of Black Marsh, until they reached the Topal Sea, and then they would turn north. Or she could throw herself in the water and swim what she guessed to be west, brave the sea-drakes, and with more luck than she deserved reach land. But by the time she made it back to Lil-moth, it would be too late. The city—or whatever it was—was supposed to arrive in the morning. Still … “Hold your breath,” someone whispered behind her, and then she was lifted and falling, and a blink afterward stunned and wet.


She gasped for air and clawed at her captor, trying to climb up on his head, but a strong hand clamped over her nose and mouth before she could so much as scream, and suddenly she was beneath, enclosed by the sea, moving though it in powerful pulses. She knew she shouldn’t breathe, but after a few moments she had to try, to suck in something, anything, to make the need stop. But she couldn’t do it, even when she wanted to. She woke with air whistling in and a voice behind her. “Keep quiet,” he said. “We’re behind them, but a keen eye will spot us.” “Glim?” “Yes.” “Are you rescuing me or trying to kill me?” “I’m not sure myself,” he said. “The captain said something about sea-drakes.” “A distinct possibility,” he said. “So here’s what we’ll do. You hang tight to my shoulders. Don’t kick or try to help—let me swim for both of us. Try to keep your head under if you can, but I’ll be shallow enough so you can lift it out for a few breaths when you need to. Right?” “Okay.” “Let’s go, then.” Glim began digging at the water then, and after finding his pace with a human clinging to his back, he settled into a powerful, almost gliding measure. On land, Glim was strong, but here he seemed really powerful—a crocodile, a dolphin. After a few panicked moments, she had her head bobbing in and out of the water in rhythm with him and was actually beginning to enjoy the ride. She had never been a good swimmer, and the sea always seemed somehow deeply unfriendly, but now she felt almost a part of it. It was just then, as the last of her fears melted away, that Glim rolled and turned so quickly that she nearly lost her grip. The cadence broken, she gulped water, only barely managing not to inhale. Then the water itself seemed to slap at them. Glim was going even faster now, weaving and rolling, not giving her any chance to breathe at all. Again, a vortex seemed to jerk at them, and as they spun she caught a glimpse of an immense dark shape against the moonlight glowing down through the water—something like a crocodile, but with paddles instead of legs. And much, much bigger. Glim dove deeper, and her lungs began to scream again, but just as suddenly, he turned back up and in an instant they broke free of the sea’s grasp, hurling into the air, where the black gas in her chest found its way out and one sweet sip of the good stuff got in before they struck once more down through the silvery surface. Agony ripped along her leg, and then Glim was doing his crazy dance again, and something scraped at her arm and she screamed bubbles into the water as her fingers began to lose their grip.


But then they stopped, and Glim was hauling her up out of the water. He sat her down on something hard, and she sagged there, gasping, tears of pain seeping from her eyes. “Are you okay?” Glim asked. She felt her leg. Her hand came away sticky. “I think it bit me,” she said. “No,” he said, squatting to examine her. “If it had, you wouldn’t have a leg. You must have scraped against the reef.” “Reef?” She brushed her eyes and looked around. They weren’t on land—at least, not the mainland. Instead they rested on a tiny island hardly more than a few inches above the water. Indeed, at high tide it would certainly be below water. “She’s too big to follow us in here,” he said. “Looks like the captain wasn’t kidding about sea-drakes.” “I guess not.” “Well, from here on out we only have sharks to worry about.” “Yes, well at least I’m bleeding,” Annaïg managed to quip. “Yah. So maybe the next half mile won’t be boring.” But if there were sharks around, they didn’t fancy the taste of Breton blood, because they made it to the shore without incident. If shore it could be called—it was actually a nearly impenetrable wall of mangroves, crouched in the water like thousands of giant spiders with their legs interlocked. Annaïg was pleased with the image until she remembered that it was from an Argonian folktale, one which claimed that’s exactly what mangroves had once been, before they earned the wrath of the Hist in some ancient altercation and were transformed. Somehow Glim found them a way through the mess, and finally to the sinking remnants of a raised road. “How far do you think we are from Lilmoth?” she asked. “Ten miles, maybe,” Glim replied. “But I’m not sure we’re well-advised to go back there.” “My father’s there, Glim. And your family, too.” “I don’t think there’s anything we can do for them.” “What’s happening? Do you know?” “I think the city tree has gone rogue, just as it did in ancient times. A lot of people say this one grew from a single fragment of the root that survived the elder’s killing, more than three hundred years ago.” “Rogue? How?” “It doesn’t talk to us anymore. Only to the An-Xileel and the Wild Ones. But I think it must be talking to this thing coming from the sea.” “That doesn’t make any sense.” “Only because we don’t know everything.” “So you think we should just abandon the town?” He did his imitation of a human shrug. “You know I can’t,” she said. “I know you want to be a hero like those people in your books. Like Attrebus Mede and Martin Septim. But look at us—we aren’t armed, even if we knew how to fight, which we don’t. We can’t handle this, Nn.” “We can warn people.” “How?


If the predictions are true, the flying island will reach Lilmoth before we do, by hours.” She hung her head and nodded. “You’re right.” “I am.” She held the image of her father for a moment. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen. We still might be able to help.” “Nn—” “Wait a minute,” she said. “Wait. It’s coming from the south, right?” “Oh, no.” “We have to find high ground. We have to be able see where it is.” “No, really, we don’t.” She gave him the look, and he sighed. “I just rescued you. How determined are you to die, anyway?” “You know better than that.” “Fine. I think I know a place.” The place was an upthrust of rock that towered more than a hundred feet above the jungle floor. It seemed unclimbable, but that proved not to be a problem when Glim led her to a cave opening in the base of the soft limestone. It led steadily upward, and in some places stairs had been carved. Faded paintings that resembled coiled snakes, blooming flowers, and more often than not nothing recognizable at all decorated the climb, and an occasional side gallery held often bizarre stone carvings of half-tree, half-Argonian figures. “You’ve been here before, I take it?” she asked. “Yes,” he replied, and made no other comment, even when she began hinting that one ought to be forthcoming. Rose was blooming in the east by the time they scaled the last of the stairs and stood on the moss and low ferns on the flat summit of the tabletop. It was quiet, dreamlike, and everything suddenly seemed turned around and impossible. What was she doing here, chasing this fantasy? Nothing was happening, nothing ever happened … “Xhuth!” Glim breathed, just as the bright line of the sun lit the bay on fire. Her first impression was of a vast jellyfish, its massive dark body trailing hundreds of impossibly slender, glowing tentacles. But then she saw the solidity of it, the mountain ripped from its base and turned over. The mass of it, the terrifying size. She had been picturing a perfect cone, but this had crevasses and crags, crude, sharp, unweathered angles, as if it had just been torn from the ground the day before. The top seemed mostly as flat as the summit they stood upon, but there were shapes there, towers and arches—and most strangely, a long, drooping fringe depending from the upper edge like an immense lace collar, but twisted about by the wind and then frozen in its disheveled state. It was still south of them and a bit west, but its movement was clear enough. She watched it, frozen, unable to find a response. Something faint broke the silence, a sort of susurrus, a buzzing. She fumbled in the pockets of her dress, found the vial marked with an ear, and took a draft. The hum sharpened into not one voice, but many.


Vague, gibbering cries, unholy shrieks of agony and fear, babbling in languages she did not know. It sent scorpions down her back. “What …?” She strained at the jungle floor below the island, where the sounds seemed to be coming from, but couldn’t make anything out through morning haze, distance, and thick vegetation. She turned her attention back to the island, to the glowing strands it trailed. They might have been spider silk spun from lightning, some flashing briefly brighter than others. She realized they weren’t trailing, but dropping down from the center of the base, vanishing into the treetops, flashing white and then withdrawn into the island’s belly. As some came up, others descended, creating her original impression of a constant train of them. Amidst the bright strands, something darker moved. Swarms of something—they might have been hornets or bees, but given the distance, that would make them huge—emerged from the stone walls and hurtled toward the jungle below. But at some invisible line a few hundred feet below the island, they suddenly dissolved into streamers of black smoke, then vanished into the treetops. Unlike the threads, they did not reappear. “Glim—” she whispered. She turned and saw him going back down the steps. Only his head was visible. “No, Glim, I’ve changed my mind,” she said, trying to keep her voice low, despite the distance. “We’ll wait for it to pass. It’s doing something—” Glim’s head vanished from view. Seized with fresh terror, she bolted after him. He was easily caught—he wasn’t moving fast—but when she did catch him, his eyes were oddly blank. “Glim, what is it?” “Going back, back to start over,” he murmured vaguely. Or at least that’s what she thought he meant, because he was speaking in Jen, a deeply ambiguous tongue. He might have been saying, “Going back to be born,” or any of ten other things that made no sense. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “What is it?” “Back,” he replied. He kept walking. For another ten steps she watched him go, trying to understand, but then she knew she didn’t have time to understand, because the howling and screaming was beneath them now, echoing up through the caverns. Whatever they were, they were coming. She caught up with him and tickled him under the jaw. When his mouth gaped reflexively—she’d had a lot of fun with that when they were kids—she poured the contents of a vial into it. He closed his mouth and coughed. She drank her own dose. It felt like a cold iron rod was being pushed down her esophagus, and she coughed, violently. The world spun dizzily … No, it wasn’t the world. It was her. She and Glim were out of the cave and ten feet above the summit, then twenty, but spinning crazily. She thrashed, trying to catch his hand before they drifted too far apart, and finally got his wrist.


That stabilized them a bit, which was good, but now they were picking up speed, and they were aimed straight at the floating island. “Turn!” she shouted, but nothing happened. As the stone loomed nearer and nearer, she desperately tried to imagine another destination—her house, her father’s house back in Lilmoth. That worked, for they turned, slightly, then a bit more. But then Glim grunted, trying to shake himself free, and they were suddenly yanked back toward the thing. Annaïg felt her grip breaking, and knew even if she managed to turn, she was going to lose Glim. He wanted to go down, but more than that, he wanted to go to that thing. So she picked the deepest crevasse she could see and focused on it, and the wind became a thunder in her ears. Glim’s will appeared to relent, and they began to pick up speed. Something seemed to draw through her, as if she had somehow passed through a sieve and not been shredded, and then that, too, was past. Walls of black stone reached around her like an immense cloak, and then she felt weight return, and the sure grip of the world renew.


The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel Annaïg stirred and pushed up with aching limbs. Her arms seemed spindly and weak, her legs boneless. Her palms were pressed against thick-grained basalt, and she saw she rested at the base of the vertical crevasse she had aimed for; a sliver of light was visible, relatively narrow but rising hundreds of feet. It felt somehow as if she were in a temple, and the sky itself some holy image. Glim was a few yards away, thrashing feebly. “Glim,” she hissed. Echoes took up even that faint cry. “Nn?” His head twisted in her direction. He seemed to be back in his eyes. “You break anything?” she asked him. He rolled into a sitting position and shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Where are we?” “We’re on the thing. The flying island.” “How?” “You don’t remember anything, do you?” “No, I—I remember climbing the spur. And then …” His pupils rapidly dilated and shrank, as if he was trying to focus on something that wasn’t there. “The Hist,” he said. “The tree. It was talking to me, filling me up. I couldn’t hear anything else.” “You were pretty out of it,” she confirmed. “I’ve never felt like that,” he said. “There were a lot of us, all walking in the same direction, all with the same mind.” “Walking where?” “Toward something.” “This place, maybe?” “I don’t know.” “Well, we’re here now. What is the tree telling you now?” “Nothing,” he murmured. “Nothing at all. I’ve never felt that, either. It’s always there, in the background, like the weather. Now …” He looked out at the light. “They say if you go far enough from Black Marsh, you can barely hear the Hist. But this—it’s like I’ve been cut away from the tree. There’s not even a whisper.” “Maybe it’s something about this place,” she said. “This place,” he repeated, as if he couldn’t imagine anything else to say. “We flew up here,” she said. “Your gunk worked.” “It did.” “Congratulations.” “That I’m not so sure about,” she murmured. “But this is what you wanted, yes, to be up here?” “I changed my mind,” she said. “In the end it was you who wanted to come here—only you wanted to go beneath, down to the ground. I wanted to go back to town. This was the compromise.” A sudden snap and flurry sounded behind them, and they turned just in time to see a handful of dark figures come hurtling out of some dark apertures in the stone wall. At first her only impression was of wings rushing by, but one of the things circled tight, came back, and beat around their heads before settling on long, insectile legs. It resembled a moth, albeit a moth nearly her size. Its wings were voluptuous, velvety, dark green and black. Its head was merely a black polished globe with a long, wickedly sharp needle projecting out like a nose.


Its six legs, ticking nervously beneath it, ended in similar points. It leaned toward her and seemed to sniff, making a low fluting noise. Then it smelled Glim. The moment stretched, and Annaïg tried to keep her panic in a little box, way in the back of her head. Nothing to see here, she thought at it. We’re not intruders, nothing of the kind. I was born right here, on this very spot … Its wings beat and it flew off with preternatural speed. Annaïg realized she had been holding her breath, and let it out. “What the Iyorth was that?” Glim snarled. “I’ve no idea,” she replied. She stood and limped toward the light, where the things had flown. Glim followed. A few steps brought them to the aperture, which turned out to be only about twelve feet wide. Below was a cliff that was more than sheer, it actually curved to vanish beneath them. “I reckon we’re somewhere on the bottom third of the cone,” she said. Farther below was jungle, and not much to see, but the space between the island and the treetops was pretty busy. Near the island, the air was full of the moth-things flying in baroque patterns, like some crazy aerial dance. As she watched, some peeled away and dove straight down, and as they passed a certain altitude they suddenly became vague and smokelike, and she now recognized them as the things she had seen from the spur. She saw, too, the bright threads, following the flying creatures down into the trees and then suddenly licking back up, vanishing somewhere beneath them. “What am I seeing?” she wondered aloud. “I think it’s what we’re not seeing,” he replied. “What’s down there beneath the trees.” “I fear you’re right.” The day waxed on. Now and then more fliers went past them, and occasionally they had a glimpse down through the canopy, where something was moving, but the opening was never enough to discern what. And then, inevitably, they reached the rice plantations south of Lilmoth, and finally they had a fuller picture. The distance fooled her, at first, and she thought she was seeing some sort of ant, or insect, as if maybe the fliers were transforming into a land-bound form. Then she adjusted scale and understood that they were mostly Argonians and humans, although there were a large number of crawling horrors that must have come out of the sea. She recognized some of them as Dreughs, from her books. Others resembled huge slugs and crabs with hundreds of tentacle-limbs, but for these she had no names. Many of them were marching all in the same direction, but others ran off in swarms. It was all very abstract and puzzling, until they reached a village Annaïg guessed to be Hereguard Plantation, one of the few farms still run mostly by Bretons. She could see a group of them, drawn up behind a barricade.


It wasn’t long before they were fighting, and Annaïg’s horror mounted. She wanted desperately to look away, but it was as if she no longer controlled her muscles. She saw a wave of Argonians and sea monsters wash over the barricade, and like arrows of mist, the moth-things plunged into the fray. Wherever they fell, a silvery thread followed, striking the body and reeling back up, brighter. The moths simply vanished. The wave passed, leaving the bodies of the dead Bretons behind, pushing on into the village. But then the dead stirred. They came to their feet and joined the march. Annaïg was sick then, and although there was little in her belly to lose, she bent double, retching. It spent her, and she lay trembling, unable to watch more. “So,” she heard Glim say after a moment. “So this is what the tree wanted.” She heard the pain in her friend’s voice, and despite how she felt, dragged herself back to the edge and opened her eyes. Again her first impression failed her. She imagined she was seeing an Argonian army, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, ready to slay this foul enemy as they had the forces of Dagon in times past. But then she got it. “They’re just standing there. They aren’t fighting.” Glim nodded. “Yes.” The air was thick with fliers and threads. “I don’t understand,” Annaïg wailed. “Why does the tree want your people to die?” “Not all of us,” Glim whispered. “Just the Lukiul. The assimilated. The tainted. The An-Xileel, the Wild Ones—they’ve gone away. They’ll come back, after this is over, and every Imperial taint will be scoured.” “It’s mad,” she said. “We have to do something.” “What? In three hours every living thing in Lilmoth will be dead. Worse than dead.” “Look, we’re here. We’re the only ones who have any chance of doing anything. We have to try!” Glim watched the slaughter below for another few breaths, and in that moment she feared he was going to fling himself down to join his people. But then he let out the long, undulating hiss that signified resignation. “Okay,” he repeated in Tamrielic. “Let’s see what we can do.” They left the edge and walked back into the crack. The holes that the fliers had come through were high, and the climb looked difficult, but the split in the island continued back, gradually sloping down. Daylight was soon behind them, and while the ghost of it followed them for a while, eventually they were in near complete darkness. She wished she’d foreseen this—one of her earliest concoctions had been to help her see at night. But without any proper materials or equipment, there wasn’t any way to make one now. The going was easy enough, though—the walls remained about twice her shoulder-width apart, so it was easy enough to keep a hand on each rough surface. The floor was a little uneven, but after a few stumbles her feet grew cautious enough.


She could hear Glim breathing, but after they left the ledge, he hadn’t said anything, which was just as well, because not only would it be foolish to make any more noise than necessary, she didn’t feel like talking, either. She reckoned they had gone a few hundred yards when she saw light once again, at first just a veneer on the stone, but soon enough to see where they were stepping again. A good thing, too, because the path led them to another cliff. This one opened in the belly of the mountain, a vast, dome-shaped cavity open at the bottom so they could once more see the destruction of Lilmoth. They were already over the old Imperial quarter, where her house was. “Taig,” she whispered. “I’m sure he left,” Glim hissed. “The tree couldn’t affect him.” She just shook her head and turned her sight away, and through tear-gleamed eyes she saw masses of the threads shooting down—so many it looked almost like rain. She followed their course and saw them, thousands of them, in every nook and cranny of the stone. She couldn’t make out much; they, too, seemed vaguely insectile, but she saw the thin, stone-colored tubes the threads issued from, because the rest of whatever-they-were were concealed in circular masses of what appeared to be the same material. They looked a lot like spider egg sacs, but larger, much larger. “Here,” Glim murmured. She had almost forgotten him. She turned to follow his pointing knuckles and saw steps hewn into the stone, leading up. There wasn’t any other way to go except back, and so Annaïg started up, filled with a sudden, panicked determination. She had to do something, didn’t she? If she could get up there, cut those things loose, maybe the horror would end. The steps wound up a few feet and vanished back into another tunnel. This one was illuminated with a palpable phosphorescence. It twisted to curve steeply skyward, and Annaïg realized they were making their way up above the domed space. Almost immediately it began branching, but she kept to her left, and after several breathless moments they came to a silvery-white cable, emerging from the stone below them and vanishing into the ceiling. “It looks like the threads,” she whispered. “Only bigger.” “Not bigger,” Glim said. “More.” A little closer, she saw what he meant. The cable was composed of hundreds of threads wound together. She reached out to touch it. “Well, that’s not smart,” Glim said. “I know,” she replied, trying to sound brave. Closing her eyes, she touched the back of her hand to it. Something whirred about in her head and she felt a sudden giddy surge. She saw now that the hole was larger than the cable that came up through it and, lying flat she was able to make out the jungle floor again. Below her, the ropelike structure unwound itself, sending threads off in every direction.


She could see some of them vanishing into the web sacs. “If we cut this, we’ll get a lot of them,” she said. “What do you mean, ‘get’ them? What do you think will happen?” “They’re all connected here.” “Okay.” “Then if we cut it …” She flailed off, gesturing. “You think it will, what, shut this whole thing down? Destroy this island?” “It might. Glim, we have to do something.” “You keep saying that.” He sighed. “What will you cut it with?” “Try your claws.” He blinked, then stepped forward and experimentally raked his claws across the thing. He shivered and stepped back, then hit it again, with such force that the cord vibrated. It wasn’t scratched. “Any other ideas?” “Maybe if we can find a sharp rock—” She broke off. “Do you hear that?” Glim nodded. “Xhuth!” Because somewhere in the passages, she could hear voices shouting, several of them. “Come on,” she said, and started up another branch of the tunnel. They kept going, taking random branches, but the voices were gradually growing louder, and there was little doubt in her mind now that they were being pursued. Whenever they came to a turn that seemed to go down, she took it, reasoning that so far they hadn’t been bothered by anything from that direction, but inevitably the passages seemed to move them upward. She couldn’t have known, could she? How big this was all going to be, how utterly beyond her? It was ridiculous. As if the gods had decided to punctuate that thought, the tunnel suddenly debouched onto a steep ledge that vanished into the interior space of the island. She drew up short, panting, but Glim grabbed her arm and they were suddenly skittering down the tilted surface. Her surprise was so complete that all thought was pushed from her brain by white light, so when the Argonian caught a knob at the edge and swung them sharply down and under, she had nothing to be relieved about. She found herself on a rounded, springy surface. It was one of the web sacs. Glim pulled her up to where the thing was anchored to the stone, the sloping shelf now a ceiling above them, and they crouched there, trying to calm their breathing for many long moments. A voice suddenly spoke above them, in a tongue that sounded teasingly familiar. The voice might have been that of a man or mer. Another, stranger voice replied. This time she caught a few words; it was Merish dialect of some sort. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds. “—could be dead already,” she made out. “We can’t take that chance. He’ll have our heads if another vehrumas gets them.” “Who else is looking for them?” “Word gets around fast. Come on, let’s try this way.” The two continued talking, but the sounds grew gradually more distant until they faded away. As the voices diminished, she heard Mere-Glim resume breathing.


“I don’t suppose you understood any of that?” he asked. “Remember how you used to make fun of me for studying old Ehlnofex?” she asked. “A dead language? Yes.” His throat expanded and he huffed. “They were speaking Ehlnofex?” “No, but it was enough like it for me to understand it.” “And?” “Someone saw us fly up here. They’re searching for us.” “Who?” “Whoever lives here. There was a word I didn’t understand—vehrumas—but it sounds like there are more than one bunch trying to find us.” “Wonderful. So what do we do?” To her surprise, she suddenly knew. She fumbled in her jacket and pulled out Coo. “Go to the Imperial City,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Find Crown Prince Attrebus. Speak only to him, hear only in his presence. He will help us.” She saw him in her mind’s eye, her own imagining based on the portraits she had seen. Coo clicked and tinged, and then flew off, dodging gracefully through the filaments, diminishing, a speck, gone. “How does that help us?” Glim asked. “Why should Attrebus care what happens to us?” “This thing isn’t stopping at Lilmoth,” she told him. “It’ll go on, through all of Tamriel. And you’re right, we can’t stop it, you and I. Most likely we’ll die or be captured. But if we can survive a little while, until Coo reaches Attrebus—” “Listen to yourself.” “—if Coo reaches him, and at least one of us survives, we can tell him what’s happening. Attrebus has armies, battlemages, the resources of an empire. What he doesn’t have is any information about this place.” “Neither do we. And it will be days, at least, before Coo reaches the Imperial City—if he does.” “Then we have to survive,” she said. “Survive and learn.” “Survive what? We don’t even know what we’re up against.” “Well, then let’s find out.” “I have a better idea,” Glim said, pointing to the oily black snout emerging from the cocoon. “Let’s grab onto one of those strands and ride it to the ground.” Annaïg frowned. “They’re moving too fast. Anyway, then we’d just be down there where everything is dying.” He paused, looked at her as if she was crazy, and then rolled his eyes. “You were kidding,” she said. “I was kidding,” he confirmed. The filaments that anchored the web sacs to the stone gave them purchase to climb down to the next ledge, where they found another tunnel. They went in quietly, mindful of what had happened before. As before, the way tended either upward and outward or back into the vault. After perhaps an hour they came across one of the now familiar cables. Less familiar was the person licking it. He hadn’t seen them yet. It was a man, naked from the waist up and clad in loose, dirty trousers rolled tight at his waist.


His shape and features were those of a human or mer, except that his eyes were a bit larger than normal and recessed more deeply into his face. His hair was unkempt, greasy, and dingy yellow. She motioned Glim back, but the fellow’s gaze snapped over to them, and he stopped licking the cable. “Lady!” he exclaimed, in the same dialect she’d heard before, bending his head and battering his forehead with his knuckles. “Lady, this isn’t at all what it looks like!” Annaïg just stared for a moment. “Lady?” the man repeated. She saw fear in his eyes, but puzzlement as well. Clearly he thought he knew who—or more likely, what—she was. The man’s eyes widened further and he stepped back as Glim emerged. “What is it, then?” Annaïg asked, trying to sound haughty. “What is it if it’s not what it looks like?” “Mistress,” the man replied. “I hope you understand what you saw just now was just appearances. I wouldn’t actually—” “Lick the cable? That’s exactly what it looked like you were doing.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a funny accent, lady. Some of the words are strange. I’ve never heard them. And your companion …” “Who are you?” Annaïg asked, feeling her feeble attempt at a bluff crumbling. “Wemreddle,” the man replied. “Wemreddle of the Bolster Midden, in fact, if you must know.” He lifted a finger and shook it. “You’re not supposed to be here either.” He waved violently at Glim. “And there’s no such thing as you, you know. No. No such thing as you. You’re the ones they’re talking about. The ones from outside. From down there.” “Look,” Annaïg said, “we don’t mean anyone any harm—” “No, listen,” Wemreddle said. “I’m of the Bolster Midden, didn’t I tell you? What business do I have with them upstairs? Sump take them and keep them. But come on now. I’ll get you safe and cozy. Come on with me.” “He’s not armed,” Glim lisped, in their private cant. “I can kill him.” “You’ve never killed anyone.” “I can do it.” There was a new hardness in his voice. Wemreddle stepped back. “I mean to help.” “Why?” “Because I hate all this,” he said. “I hate them at the top of the chutes. And you—you might be able to help with them.” “Why do you say that?” “This new place. You know things about it? The plants, the minerals, the ways of things. They say you flew here without wings.” “I know a little,” she said. “Yes. That’s powerful knowledge. Enough to change things. Will you come?” Annaïg looked sidewise at Glim, but his expression offered no opinion. “This might be what we’re looking for,” she told him. “I can’t follow him. What’s he saying?” “I think he’s with some disenchanted group, a resistance maybe. They want our help against another faction.


The infernal city _ an Elder scrolls novel -- J_ Gregory Keyes -- 2011 -- Random House Digital, Inc_ -- 9780345508010 -- c16aefd9bc22fd38e6dc128b17b72e4d -- Anna’s Archive.8

We can exploit this, as Irenbis did the various factions of Cheydinhal.” “Irenbis?” “Irenbis Songblade.” “That’s from a book, isn’t it?” “It’s a chance, Glim. You agreed we have to do something.” “Something it is, then,” he replied.


The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel “What is that?” Annaïg asked, trying not to gag at the stench. Her belly was already empty and her throat and chest ached. “That’s the Midden,” Wemreddle said. “Of the four lower Middens, Bolster has the richest scent.” “Rich?” Annaïg drew another breath, this one worse than the last. “I wouldn’t describe it as rich. How far away is it?” “We’ve still some way to go,” Wemreddle said. Then, defensively, “If you wouldn’t say rich, then what? Savor the layers of complexity, the contrast of ripe, rotten, and almost raw, the depth and diversity of it.” “I—” “No, no, wait. When we’re there you’ll understand better. Appreciation will come.” Annaïg somehow doubted that. It seemed more likely that her lungs would close themselves and suffocate her rather than take in any more of the waxing stench. As they progressed, the floor and walls of the tunnels became first slick and then coated in a dank, putrid sheen, and she began to picture herself climbing up through the bowels of some enormous beast. “What is this place?” she asked. “Where is it from?” “This place?” “The whole—island. Floating mountain, whatever you want to call it. “Oh. You mean Umbriel.” “Umbriel?” “Yes, Umbriel, it’s called.” “And why is it here?” Again he looked puzzled. “Here is here,” he said. “No, I mean why have you come to my world? Why are you attacking it?” “Well, I’m not, am I? I’m just in the Bolster Midden.” “Yes, but why has Umbriel come here?” she persisted. “I’ve no idea. Does it matter?” “People are dying down there. There must be a reason.” He stopped and scratched his head. “Well, yes, Umbriel needs souls. Lots and lots of souls—there’s no secret there. But he could get those plenty of places. If you’re asking why here in particular, I’m afraid I’ve no way of knowing that.” “You mean it’s just feeding?” Annaïg asked, incredulous. “Well, we’ve lots of mouths to feed, don’t we,” he replied with an air of diffidence. “Why do they become—if their souls are taken up here—why do their bodies keep going?” “Do I really have to explain this?” “If I’m going to help you, I think I deserve whatever explanation you can give me.” “Oh, very well. Look, something beneath us dies. The soul-spinners nick the soul with their lines, and then the larvae fly down and get all snug in the bodies—which then harvest more souls. You see?” “The larvae have wings and round heads?” “Yes. See, you do know this.” “I saw one of them,” she replied. “It seemed like it should have been perfectly capable of murder on its own.” “In Umbriel, sure. But they have to leave Umbriel to find souls, which means they lose their substance.” “So that’s what I saw,” Annaïg said. “But why?” “Why what?” “Why do they become ethereal?” “That’s a big word,” Wemreddle said. “Yes, but—” “I don’t know,” Wemreddle said. “I’ve never thought about it.


You fall in water, you get wet. Stray from Umbriel, you lose substance. It’s just how things are.” Annaïg digested that for a moment. “Very well. But how does it start? I mean, if larvae can’t kill anything unless they have a soulless body to steal, how do the first ones get bodies?” “I don’t know that either.” “And what becomes of the souls?” “Most go to the ingenium, which keeps Umbriel aloft and moving. Some go to the vehrumasas.” “I don’t know that word,” she said. “What does it mean?” “The place where they prepare food. Where the furnaces are.” “Kitchens? You people eat souls?” “Not all of us. I don’t—I’m not that elevated. But them at the top, and Umbriel himself, or course—well, they like their delicacies. We don’t see that in the Middens, do we?” “And yet you were licking the cable,” she said. He blushed. “It’s not against nature to want a taste, is it? Just a little taste?” Annaïg had a sudden, unpleasant thought. “Are the lords—are you—daedra?” “What’s a daedra?” Wemreddle asked. “You’ve never heard of daedra?” she asked. “But didn’t this city come from Oblivion?” Wemreddle just looked blankly at her. “There are sixteen daedric princes,” Annaïg explained. “Some are just—well, evil. Mehrunes Dagon, for instance—he tried to destroy our world, back before I was born. Others—like Azura—aren’t supposed to be so bad. Some people worship them, especially the Dunmer. But besides the princes, there are all sorts of minor daedra. Some people can conjure them and make them do their bidding.” “We do the bidding of the lords,” Wemreddle said. “If I were a daedra, would I know it?” “Maybe not,” Annaïg realized. “What is the name of your highest lord?” “Umbriel, of course.” “There’s no prince that goes by that name,” she mused, “although I suppose a daedric prince could be known by any number of names.” Wemreddle seemed entirely disinterested in the conversation, so she let it drop. She had so many new questions now, she didn’t know what to ask next, so instead of questioning him further, she filled Glim in on what Wemreddle had been telling her. “It’s horrible,” she said. “What if it’s really aimless? If our world is being destroyed just so this thing can keep in the air? What if there is no other agenda?” “There must be more to it than that,” Glim responded. “There has to be. Otherwise why would Umbriel ally with the city tree? Why would it spare anyone?” “Maybe it didn’t. If the tree is insane, as you think, it might have just imagined an alliance.” “It’s possible.” He snicked his teeth together. “You were right, in a way,” he said. “It sounds as if we were to stop the flow of souls to this ingenium of theirs, then this would turn into just another rock.” “Maybe. Could it be that simple?” “I doubt it will be simple,” the Argonian replied.


They walked in silence for a bit, while Annaïg turned it all over in her head. When they finally reached the Bolster Midden, she was sure of her earlier impression, for she could think of nothing to compare it to other than the gorged, bloated stomach of a giant. And the smell—well, it was bad. Glim’s nictating membranes kept shutting, and Glim could wade through the most noisome fen without really noticing. But this wasn’t a noisome fen, and she was, in fact, beginning to understand Wemreddle’s bizarre assertion. Animal was here, sweetly, sulfurously rotten, but there was also blood still so fresh she could taste the iron in the middle of her tongue. She made out rancid oil, buttery cream, old wine-braising liquid, fermenting again with strange yeasts and making pungent vinegars. Fresh herbs mingled with the cloying molder of tubers and onions gone to liquid. Best of all were the thousand things she didn’t recognize, some deeply revolting and some like a welcome home to a place she’d never been. Some smells were more than that, not only engaging the taste buds and nostrils, but sending weird tingles across her skin and shimmering colors when she closed her eyes. “You see?” She nodded dumbly and looked around more carefully. If this was the belly of a giant, he had many esophagi; more stuff fell periodically from five different openings in the vaulted stone ceiling. In places, the trash moved. “What’s that?” she asked. “The worms,” Wemreddle replied. “They keep the Midden turning, make it all pure to siphon into the Marrow Sump.” “Marrow Sump?” “It’s where everything goes, and where everything comes from.” That seemed like it would take a longer explanation, so she let it go for more immediate concerns. “What’s up there?” she asked, indicating the apertures above. “The kitchens, of course. What else?” He pointed at each of the holes in turn. “Aghey, Qijne, Lodenpie, and Fexxel.” “And what do you do down here?” “Hide. Try not to be noticed. They sent us down here a long time ago to tend the worms, but the worms pretty much tend themselves.” “So where is everyone else?” “In the rock. I’ll fetch them. But first let me find you a safe place, yes?” “That sounds good,” Annaïg said. A narrow ledge went around the Midden like a collar, albeit one whose dog had outgrown it a bit; here and there they found themselves trudging through offal and pools of putrescence. Light came dimly from no obvious source, but she didn’t try to make out what they were stepping through. At last they came to a small cave, rudely furnished with a sleeping mat and not much else. “You wait here,” he said. “Try not to make much sound.” And with that Wemreddle was gone. “I can’t breathe this forever,” Glim muttered. Their guide had been gone for a long time, although without the sun, moon, or stars, it was hard to tell exactly how long.


Annaïg figured it was hours, though. “At least we’re breathing,” she pointed out. “Well, as long as we’re settling for the least,” he replied. “Glim …” She put a hand on his shoulder. He snapped his teeth. “I need to eat something,” he said. “Me, too,” she said. The wait had given the shock and adrenaline time to wear off, and now she was ravenous. “I can go out there, see what I can sort out.” He shook his head. “That’s disgusting.” “Some of it is still food.” “Stay here. You’ve no idea what those worms might do, or what else might be out there.” “What, then?” “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Not your strong suit.” “Yes. But I’ve been doing it, nonetheless. Four kitchens above us, and four other Middens. Do you know how much refuse that suggests, if this is even close to typical?” “A lot.” “Yes. Which suggests that somewhere up there, a lot of people or—something—are doing a lot of eating.” “I did see what looked like a city along the rim.” “I think we’re still far below the rim,” he said. “Still, I’m thinking there must be thousands on this island, at least.” “Okay.” “And Wemreddle, the trash keeper, wants you to help with some sort of revolution. Against who knows what and who knows how many? There’s a daedra prince up there, for all we know. I’m not sure we want to be a part of this.” “So you think we should leave before he gets back.” “I think we should go looking for food. In the kitchens. See what we’re up against. We can always come back here if the trash-tender still seems like a good bet.” “How will we know that until we meet the rest of them?” “Of whom?” “Whoever he went to get. The underground. The resistance.” “You and your books,” Glim muttered. “Resistance.” “Look around you, Glim. When people are forced to live in places like this, there’s usually a resistance.” “Lots of people lived like this in Lilmoth,” Glim replied. “They didn’t resist anything.” “Well, maybe they should have,” she retorted. “Maybe then the An-Xileel couldn’t have—” “It was the tree, Nn, not the An-Xileel. The Hist decide.” “The city tree is psychotic.” “Maybe.” “You said it’s happened before, one Hist breaking with the others.” “You’re changing the subject.” “Fine. We might as well have some options. Do you know how to get to these kitchens?” “Of course not. But we know where they are.” He pointed up. “Fair enough,” she conceded. Her hand still on his shoulder, she pushed up to standing. Then she noticed some figures approaching along the path that had brought them there. “Oops. Too late. Wemreddle’s back.” “That’s not much of a resistance,” Glim noted. “Six besides him.” “At least they’re armed.” Like Wemreddle, they all appeared to be human or mer. They wore uniforms—yellow shirts, aprons, black pants—and they carried an assortment of large knives and cleavers.


The only one who was dressed differently was a fellow with thick, curly red hair and beard. His shirt was a black-and-yellow tartan pattern. Wemreddle was trailing the lot. The red-beard spoke. “It’s true, you’re really from the world beyond?” “Yes,” Annaïg said. “And you have knowledge of its plants, animals, herbs, minerals, essences, and so on?” “Some,” she replied. “I have studied the art of alchemy—” “Come with us, then.” “To where?” “To my kitchen. Fexxel’s kitchen.” “Wemreddle,” Annaïg exploded. “You piece of—” “They’ll let me come up,” the man simpered. “They’ll let me work up there. This is for the best. You’ll be protected. You need that.” “Protection from whom?” “Me, for one,” another voice shouted. A second group was approaching, twice as large as Fexxel’s, and just as heavily armed. Fexxel spun. “You worm,” he roared at Wemreddle. “I bargained in good faith with you!” “I didn’t tell her! I swear it!” Annaïg could make out the newcomer now. She wore a checked indigo-and-lapis shirt, apron, and indigo pants. Her face was angular, drawn, hard, and her teeth gleamed like opals in the dim light. “He didn’t, actually,” the woman said. “One of your own betrayed you. More’s the pity for the poor worm, because I don’t owe him anything.” Wemreddle began a sort of soft wailing. “I’ll have them, Fexxel.” “I have right, Qijne. I have claim.” “The Midden is neutral territory.” “I found them first.” “Well, you can take it up with someone next time you come out of the sump,” she replied. “Or you can walk back to your kitchen in the meat you’re wearing.” Annaïg could see Fexxel was trembling, whether with fear or fury, it was hard to say. “It might be worth it,” he said. “You outnumber us, but I’ll kill you before I go down.” “Ah, determination,” Qijne said, stepping forward, away from her companions. “Passion. Do you really have such passions, Fexxel? Or is this all superficial, like your cooking?” Her arm whipped out and a bright, bloody line appeared on Fexxel’s cheek. His eyes widened and his mouth worked, but for the moment no sound came out. Annaïg was still trying to understand what had happened. Qijne’s hand had been about a foot from Fexxel’s face, and she hadn’t seen a weapon in it. Nor did she now. Fexxel found his voice. “You crazy bitch!” he screeched, blood pouring through the fingers he had pressed to his face. “See?” Qijne said. “Just blood under there, nothing else. Go home, Fexxel, or I’ll make a pie of you.” Fexxel heaved several great breaths, but he didn’t say anything else. Instead he left, as instructed, and his followers went with him, glancing back often. Qijne turned her gaze on Annaïg. Her eyes were as black as holes in the night. “And you, my dear, are the cook?” “I—I can cook.” “And what is this?” she asked, stabbing a finger toward Glim. “Mere-Glim. He’s an Argonian.


He doesn’t speak Mer.” Qijne cocked her head. “Mer,” she said experimentally, then seemed to dismiss the word—and Glim—with a shake of her head. “Well,” she said. “Come, then. We’ll go to my kitchen.” Annaïg lifted her chin. “Why should I?” she asked. Qijne blinked again, then leaned in close and spoke in a casual, confidential manner. “I don’t need all of you, you know. Your legs, for instance—not very useful to me. More of a problem, really, if I imagined you were prone to running off.” Each word was like an icicle driven in her back. There was no doubt that the woman was serious. Qijne patted her on the shoulder. “Come along,” she said. And she came, telling herself that this was what she needed to be doing, trying to learn something about the enemy, trying to find out how to stop this unholy thing. But it was hard to keep that in her head, because she had never in her life been more afraid of anyone than she was of Qijne.


The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel “This isn’t a kitchen,” Annaïg whispered to Glim. “This is …” But she had no word for it. Her first impression was of a forge, or furnace, because enormous rectangular pits of almost white-hot stone lined up down the center of a vast chamber carved and polished from the living rock. Above the pits innumerable metal grates, boxes, cages, and baskets depended from chains, and vast sooty hoods sucked most of the heat and fumes up higher still into Umbriel. Left and right, red maws gaped from the walls—ovens, obviously, but really more like furnaces. Between them, beings strange and familiar crowded and hurried about long counters and cabinets, wielding knives, cleavers, pots, pans, saws, awls, and hundreds of unidentifiable implements. Though the smells here were generally cleaner than those of the Midden, they were just as varied, and decidedly more alien. So was the staff; many of them resembled the peoples she knew—there were in particular many who looked like mer; there were others for which—like the place itself—she had no name. She saw thick figures with brick-red skin, fierce faces, and small horns on their heads, working next to ghostly pale blue-haired beings, spherical mouselike creatures with stripes, and a veritable horde of monkeylike creatures with goblinesque faces. These last scrambled along the shelves and cabinets, tossing bottles and tins from shelves in the stone that rose sixty feet along the walls, although in most of the room the ceiling crushed down almost to the level of the tallest head. But Qijne led her through all of this, past searing chunks of meat, huge snakelike creatures battering against the bars of their cages as the heat killed them, cauldrons that smelled of leek and licorice, boiling blood, molasses. After a hundred paces the cooking pits were replaced by tables crowded with more delicate equipment of glass and bright metal. Some were clearly made for distillation, this made obvious by the coils that rose above; others resembled retorts, parsers, and fermentation vats. Along the walls were what amounted to vaster versions of these things, distilling, parsing, and fermenting tons of material. It was breathtaking, and for a moment Annaïg forgot her situation in wonder of it. But then something caught her eye that brought it all back: a cable, the thickest she had seen yet, pulsing with the pearly light of soul stuff and, more specifically, the life force of the people of Lil-moth. It passed through various glass collars filled with liquid and colored gases, and insectile filaments and extremely fine tubing coiled and wound into what might be condensation chambers. She felt tears forming, and trembled with the effort to keep them back. For the first time since entering the kitchens, Qijne spoke. “You like my kitchen,” she said. “I see it.” Her throat caught, but then breath came, and something seemed to rise up through her, inflating her. She focused her gaze on Qijne’s eyes. “It’s amazing,” she admitted.


“I don’t understand most of it.” “You really know nothing of Umbriel, do you?” “Only that it is murdering people.” “Murdering? That’s a strange word.” “It’s the right word. Why? Why is Umbriel doing this?” “What a meaningless question,” Qijne said. “And how unknowable.” She took Annaïg’s chin between thumb and forefinger. “I’ll let you know what questions are worth asking, little thing. Give me all the attention and love you possess, and you will thrive here. Otherwise, it’s the sump. Yes?” “Yes.” “Very well. My kitchen.” She opened her arms as if to take it all in. “There are many appetites in Umbriel. Some are coarse—meat and tubers, offal and grain. Other habitants have more spiritual appetites, subsisting on distilled essences, pure elements, tenebrous vapors. The loftiest of our lords require the most refined cuisine, that which has as its basis the very stuff of souls. And above all, they crave novelty. And that, my dear, is where you come in.” “So that’s why you want me? To help you invent new dishes?” “There are many sorts of dishes, dear. Umbriel needs more than raw energy to run. The sump needs tending; the Fringe Gyre needs feeding. Raw materials must be found or created. Poisons, balms, salves, entertainments, are all in great demand. Drugs to numb, to please, to bring fantastic visions. All of these things and more are done in the kitchens. And we must stay ahead of others, you see? Stay in favor. And that means new, better, more powerful, deadlier, more interesting.” Annaïg nodded. “And you believe I can help you.” “We’ve just passed through a void; we were nearing the end of our resources. Now this whole pantry is open to us, and you know more about it than I do. I can admit that, you see? In the end you have more to learn from me than I from you, but at this moment you are my teacher. And you will help me make my kitchen the strongest.” “What’s to stop the other kitchens from kidnapping their own help?” She shook her head. “Most of us cannot go far from Umbriel without losing our corpus. There are certain, specialized servants we use to collect things from below.” “The walking dead, you mean?” “Yes, the larvae. Once incorporated, they can be brought here with certain incantations, bearing raw materials, beasts, what have you. But intelligent beings with desirable souls—” “Are all already dead by the time your gatherers begin their work.” “Did you interrupt me? I’m sure you didn’t.” “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry, Chef.” “I’m sorry, Chef.” Qijne nodded. “Yes, that’s how it is. And those of us in the kitchens don’t have the power to send them farther, or the incantations to bring them back here. Once the gatherers move very far from Umbriel, contact is lost.” This is good, Annaïg thought. I’m learning weaknesses already. Things that will help Attrebus. “So here we are,” she said.


Annaïg looked at the table Qijne was indicating. It was littered with leaves, bark, half-eviscerated animals, roots, stones, and what have you. There was also a ledger, ink, and a pen. “I want to know about these things. I want you to list and describe every substance you know of that might be of use to me, and describe as well how to find them. You will do this for half of your work period. For the remainder of your shift you will cook—first you will learn how things are down here, then you will create original things. And they had better be original, do you understand?” “I don’t—it’s overwhelming, Chef.” “I will assign you a scamp and a hob and put a chef over you. That is far more than most that come here are given. Count your fortunes.” She waved at one of her gang, a woman with the gray skin and red eyes of a Dunmer. “Slyr. Take charge of this one.” Slyr lifted her knife. “Yes, Chef.” Qijne nodded, turned and strode off. “She’s right, you know,” Slyr said. “You don’t know how lucky you are.” Annaïg nodded, trying to read the other woman’s tone and expression, but neither told her anything. A moment later a yellowish, sharp-toothed biped with long pointy ears walked up. “This is your scamp,” she said. “We use the scamps for hot work. Fire doesn’t bother them very much.” “Hello,” Annaïg said. “They take orders,” Slyr said. “They don’t talk. You don’t really need it now, so you ought to send it back to the fires. Your hob—” She snapped her fingers impatiently. Something dropped through Annaïg’s peripheral vision and she started and found herself staring into a pair of large green eyes. It was one of the monkeylike creatures she’d seen on entering the kitchen. Closer up, she saw that, unlike a monkey, it was hairless. It did have long arms and legs, though, and its fingers were extraordinarily long, thin, and delicate. “Me!” it squeaked. “Name him,” Slyr said. “What?” “Give him a name to answer to.” The hob opened his mouth, which was both huge and toothless, so that for an instant it resembled an infant—and more specifically looked like her cousin Luc when he was a child. It capered on the table. “Luc,” she said. “You’ll be Luc.” “Luc, me,” it said. “I’ll be back to get you when it’s time to cook,” Slyr said. “This you’ll do on your own.” She glanced askance at Glim. “What about him?” “He knows as much about these things as I do,” Annaïg lied. “I need him.” “Very well.” And Slyr, too, walked off to some other task. Annaïg realized that she and Glim were alone with Luc the hob. “Now what?” Glim asked. “They want—” “I didn’t understand the words, but it’s pretty clear what they want you to do. But are you going to do it?” “I don’t see I have much choice,” she replied. “Sure.


No one is watching us at the moment. We could escape back to the Midden through the garbage chute and then …” “Right,” she said. “And then what?” “Okay,” he grumbled. “Use some of this stuff to make another bottle of flying stuff. Then down the chute, back away, gone.” “I thought we were agreed on this.” “But you’ll be helping them, don’t you see? Helping them destroy our world.” “Glim, I’m learning a lot, and quickly. Think about it—this is the perfect place for me. If I could have asked for a better chance to sabotage Umbriel, I couldn’t have thought of anything better. Given a little time, who knows what I can make here?” “Yes,” he said. “I see that. But what about me?” “Do as I do. Talk to me now and then as if you’re telling me something. Write down the things I tell you to.” “What about that?” he asked of the hob. She considered the thing. “Luc,” she said, “fetch me those whitish-green fronds at the far end of the table.” “Yes, Luc me,” the hob said, bounding away and back, bearing the leaves. “This,” Annaïg dictated, “is fennel fern. It soothes the stomach. It’s used in poultices for thick-eye …” She had almost forgotten where she was when Slyr returned, hours later. “Time to cook,” Slyr said. Annaïg rubbed her eyes and nodded. She gestured vaguely at some of the nearby equipment. “I’m really interested in distilling essences,” she began. “How does this—” Slyr coughed up an ugly little laugh. “Oh, no, love. You don’t start there. You start in the fire.” “But there isn’t any fire,” she complained minutes later as she turned the hot metal wheel. The grill before her rose incrementally. “More,” Slyr snapped. “This is boar, yes?” “It smells like it,” Annaïg replied. “And this goes to the grounds workers in Prixon Palace, and they don’t like it burnt, like they do in the Oroy Mansion, see. So higher, and then send your scamp on the walk up there to swing a cover over it.” Annaïg kept hauling on the wheel. Sweat was pouring from her now, and she was starting to feel herself moving past fatigue into some whole new state of being. “What did you mean, about there being no fire?” Slyr asked. “There’s not. It’s just rocks. Fire is when you burn something. Wood, paper, something.” Slyr frowned. “Yes, I guess fire can mean that, too—like when grease falls. Right. But why would we cook by burning wood? If we did, all of the trees in the Fringe Gyre would be gone in six days.” “Then what makes the rocks hot?” “They’re hot,” Slyr said. “They are, that’s all. Okay, send your scamp.” She pointed at the metal hemisphere suspended on a boom from the ceiling, and the scamp scrambled up into the metal beams and wires above the heat. He pushed the dome—which ought to have been searing—and positioned it over the smoking hog carcass.


Annaïg kept cranking until the grill came in contact with the dome. “There,” Slyr said. “We’re well above the flames. So what else can we put up there? What do we need to cook slowly?” “We could braise those red roots.” “The Helsh? Yes, we could.” She seemed surprised, for a moment, but covered it quickly. “These little birds—they would cook nicely up there.” “They would, but those are going to Oroy Mansion—” “—and they like everything burnt there.” “Yes.” Annaïg was sure Slyr almost smiled, but then she was directly back to business. “So get on with it,” she said. And so she burned, braised, roasted, and seared things for what felt like days, until at last Slyr led her to a dark dormitory with about twenty sleeping mats. A table supported a cauldron, bowls, and spoons. She stood in line, legs shaking with fatigue, helped herself, and then slid down against the wall near the pallet Slyr indicated was hers. The stew was hot and pungent, unfamiliar meat and odd, nutty grains, and at the moment it seemed like the best thing she had ever eaten. “When you finish that, I advise you to sleep,” Slyr told her. “In six hours you’re back to work.” Annaïg nodded, looking around for Glim. “They’ve taken your friend,” Slyr said. “What? To where?” “I don’t know. It was obvious he didn’t know much about cooking, and there’s curiosity about what he is exactly.” “Well, when will they bring him back?” Slyr’s face took on a faintly sympathetic cast. “Never, I should think,” she replied. She left, and Annaïg curled into a ball and wept quietly. She pulled out her pendant and opened it. “Find Attrebus,” she whispered. “Find him.” Mere-Glim wondered what would happen if he died. It was generally believed that Argonians had been given their souls by the Hist, and when one died, one’s soul returned to them, to be incarnated once more. That seemed reasonable enough, under ordinary circumstances. In the deepest parts of his dreams or profound thinking were images, scents, tastes that the part of him that was sentient could not remember experiencing. The concept the Imperials called “time” did not even have a word in his native language. In fact, the hardest part of learning the language of the Imperials was that they made their verbs different to indicate when something happened, as if the most important thing in the world was to establish a linear sequence of events, as if doing so somehow explained things better than holistic apprehension. But to his people—at least the most traditional ones—birth and death were the same moment. All of life—all of history—was one moment, and only by ignoring most of its content could one create the illusion of linear progression. The agreement to see things in this limited way was what other peoples called “time.” And yet how did this place, this Umbriel, fit into all of that? Because he was cut off from the Hist.


If he died here, where would his soul go? Would it be consumed by the ingenium Wemreddle had spoken of? And what of his people so consumed? Where they gone forever, wrenched from the eternal cycle of birth and death? Or was the cycle, the eternal moment, only the Argonian way of avoiding an even more comprehensive truth? He decided to stop thinking about it. This sort of thing made his head hurt. Concentrate on the practical and what he really knew; he knew that he’d been overpowered by creatures with massive, crablike arms, snatched away from Annaïg, and brought here. He didn’t know why. Fortunately, someone entered the room, rescuing him from any more attempts at reflection. The newcomer was a small wiry male and might well have been a Nord, with his fine white hair and ivory, vein-traced skin. And yet there was something about the sqaurish shape of his head and slump of his shoulders that made him seem somehow quite alien. He wore a sort of plain olive frock-coat over a black vest and trousers. He spoke a few words of gibberish. When Glim didn’t answer, he reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a small glass vial. He pantomimed drinking it and then handed it to Glim. Glim took it, wondering how it would feel to kill the man. He surely wouldn’t get far … But if they wanted to talk to him, they must want him alive. He drank the stuff, which tasted like burning orange peel. The fellow waited for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Can you understand me now?” “Yes,” Mere-Glim said. “I’ll get directly to the point,” the man said. “It has been noticed that you are of an unknown physical type, or at least one that hasn’t been seen in my memory, which is quite long.” “I’m an Argonian,” he said. “A word,” the man said. “Not a word that signifies to me.” “That is my race.” “Another word I do not know.” The little man cocked his head. “So it is true, then? You are from outside? From someplace other than Umbriel?” “I’m from here, from Tamriel.” “Exciting. Another meaningless word. This is Umbriel, and no place else.” “Your Umbriel is in my world, in my country, Black Marsh.” “Is it? I daresay it isn’t. But as interesting as this subject may be to you, it holds little appeal for me. What I’m interested in is what you are. What part of Umbriel you will become.” “I don’t understand.” “You aren’t the first newcomer here, but you may be the first with that sort of body. But Umbriel will remember your body, and others with similar corpora will come along in time—many or a few, depending on what use you are.” “What if I’m of no use at all?” “Then we can’t permit Umbriel to learn your form.


We must cut your body away from what inhabits it and send it back out into the void.” “Why not simply let me go? Return me to Tamriel? Why kill me?” “Ah, a soul is too precious for that. We could not think of letting one waste. Now, tell me about this form of yours.” “I am as you see me,” he replied. “Are you some sort of daedra?” Glim gaped his mouth. “You know what daedra are?” He asked. “The man we talked to below didn’t.” “Why should he?” the man said. “We have incorporated daedra in the past, but none exist here now. Are you daedra?” “No.” “Very well, good, that makes things less complicated. Those spines on your head. What is their function?” “They make me handsome, I suppose, to others of my race. More to some than to others. I try to take care of them.” “And that membrane between your fingers?” “For swimming.” “Swimming?” “Propelling oneself through water. My toes are webbed as well.” “You move through water?” The fellow blinked. “Often.” “Beneath the surface?” “Yes.” “How long can you remain beneath before having to surface for air?” “Indefinitely. I can breathe water.” The fellow smiled. “Well, you see, how interesting. What Umbriel lacks, it will seek out.” Glim shifted on his feet, but since he didn’t understand what the man was talking about, he didn’t answer. “The sump. Yes, I think you might do well in the sump. But let’s finish the interview, shall we? Now, your skin—those are scales, are they not?”


The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel He saw the blow coming from the shift of the Redguard’s shoulder, but it was fast, so fast his dodge to the right almost didn’t succeed, and although the edge didn’t bite, the flat skimmed his bicep. He swung his sword at her ribs, but that same quickness danced her just beyond the reach of his blade. “Right idea, Attrebus,” he heard Gulan shout. She backed off a bit, her gaze fixed on his. “Yes,” she said. “Try that again.” “Got your breath yet?” “I’ll have yours in a minute,” she replied. She appeared to relax, but then suddenly blurred into motion. He backpedaled, but once again her speed surprised him. He caught her attack on the flat of his weapon and felt the weight of her steel smack against the guard. Then she was past, and he knew she would take a cut at his head from back there, so he dropped, rolled, and came back up. He saw it again, that slight slumping before she renewed her attack. Again he parried and broke the distance, but not quite so much. She circled, he waited. Her shoulders sagged, and he suddenly threw himself forward behind his blade, so that while she was starting to step and lift her weapon, his point hit her solar plexus and she went down, hard. He followed her and—as his people cheered—put the dull, rounded point in her face. “Yield?” She coughed and winced. “Yield,” she agreed. He offered her his hand and she took it. “Nice attack,” she said. “I’m glad we were at blunts.” “You’re very fast,” he said. “But you have a little tell.” “I do?” “Well, I’m not sure I want you to know,” he said. “Next time it might not be blunts.” She seemed to be favoring one foot, so he offered her his shoulder. He helped her limp over to the edge of the practice ground, where his comrades watched from their ale-benches. “Bring us each a beer, will you?” he called to Dario the pitcher-boy. “Aye, Prince,” he replied. He sat her down a bit apart from the others and watched as she unlaced her practice armor. “What was your name again?” he asked her. “Radhasa, Prince,” she replied. “And your father was Tralan the Two-Blade, from Cespar?” “Yes, Prince,” she replied. “He was a good man, one of my father’s most valued men.” “Thank you, highness. It’s nice to hear that.” He focused his regard on her more frankly as the armor came off. “He was not the handsomest of men. In that, you don’t resemble him much.” Her already dark face darkened a bit more, but her eyes stayed fixed boldly on his. “So, you … think I’m a handsome man?” “If you were a man you would be, but I don’t see much mannish about you either.” “I’ve heard the prince is a flatterer.” “Here’s our drink,” he said as Dario arrived with the beer.


Beer always tasted perfect after a fight, and this time was no different. “So why do you seek my service instead of my father’s?” he asked her. “I’m sure he would receive you well.” She shrugged. “Prince Attrebus, your father sits the throne as Emperor. In his service, I think I would see little in the way of action. With you, I expect rather the opposite.” “Yes,” he said, “that is true. The Empire is still reclaiming territory, both literally and figuratively. There are many battles yet to fight before our full glory is reclaimed. If you ride with me, death will always be near. It’s not always fun, you know, and it’s not a game.” “I don’t think that it is,” she said. “Very good,” he said. “I like your attitude.” “I hope to please you, Prince.” “You can start pleasing me by calling me simply Attrebus. I do not stand on ceremony with my personal guard.” Her eyes widened. “Does that mean …?” “Indeed. Finish this beer and then go see Gulan. He will see you equipped, horsed, and boarded. And then, perhaps, you and I shall speak again.” Annaïg saw the murder from the corner of her eye. She was preparing a sauce of clams, butter, and white wine to go on thin sheets of rice noodle. Of course, none of those things were exactly that; the clams were really something called “lampen,” but they tasted much like clams. The butter was actually the fat rendered from something which—given Slyr’s description—was some sort of pupa. The wine was wine, and it was white, but it wasn’t made from any grape she had ever tasted. The noodles were made from a grain a bit like barley and a bit like rice. She was just happy to be doing something more sophisticated than searing meat, and actually enjoying the alien tastes and textures. The possibilities were exciting. Qijne was at the corner of her vision, and she made a sort of gesture, a quick wave of her arm. But then something peculiar happened. Oorol, the under-chef whose territory was Ghol Manor, suddenly lost his head. Literally—it fell off, and blood jetted in spurts from the still-standing body. Qijne stepped away from the corpse as a hush fell over the kitchen. She watched what was left of Oorol fold down to the floor. “Not good,” Slyr murmured. Qijne’s voice rose up, a shriek that somehow still carried words in it. “Lord Ghol was bored by his prandium! For the fourth time in a row!” She stood there, staring around, her chest heaving and her eyes flickering murderously about the room. “And now we have a mess to clean up and an underchef to replace.” Her jittering gaze suddenly focused on Annaïg. “Oh, sumpslurry,” Slyr faintly breathed. “No.” “Slyr,” Qijne shouted. “Take this station. Bring her with you.” “Yes, Chef!” Slyr shouted back. She turned and began gathering her knives and gear. “Now we’re in it,” Slyr said.


“Deep in it.” “She k-killed him,” Annaïg stuttered. “Yes, of course.” “What do you mean, ‘of course’?” “Look, we cook for three lords, right? Prixon, Oroy, and Ghol. Most of what we make is for their staff and slaves. That’s all you and I have been cooking—that’s all I’ve ever cooked. That’s not too dangerous. But feeding the lords themselves is—it’s not easy. It’s not only that they are feckless in their tastes, but they compete with one another constantly. Fashions in ingredients, flavor, presentation, color—all these can change very quickly. And now we’re cooking for Ghol, who doesn’t know what he likes. Oorol was pretty good—he managed to entertain Ghol for the better part of a year.” Annaïg tried to do the calculations in her head; from various conversations, she reckoned the Umbrielian year at just over half a year on Tamriel. “That’s not very long,” she said. “It’s not. Hurry, now, we’ve got to subdue his staff, find out what they know, and have an acceptable dinner for him.” “How did she—what did she kill him with?” “We call it her filet knife, but no one really knows. You can’t see it, can you? And at times it seems longer than others. We’re not quite sure how long it can get. Now come along, unless you have more useless questions to slow us down and speed us toward the sump.” “I do have a question. I don’t think it’s useless.” “What?” the chef snapped impatiently. “When you say we have to subdue his staff—” “We’ll see. It might mean a fight. Have a knife in your hand, but hold it discreetly.” Slyr’s previous staff had consisted of six cooks. Their new staff had eight—Annaïg and Slyr made ten. In this case, “subduing” them simply meant calming them down and getting them to work, which Slyr managed with a minimum of slapping around, so they were soon discussing the lord’s tastes, or at least what little seemed consistent about them. To make things even more fun, it turned out he was having another of the lords—one who used another kitchen entirely—over for dinner, and about him, they knew nothing. “What was the last thing he liked?” Slyr asked Minn, who had been Oorol’s second. “A broth suspire made from some sort of beast the taskers brought,” Minn said. “There was an herb, too.” “Ah. From outside.” “Can you describe them?” Annaïg asked. “The beast and the herb?” “I can show them to you,” Minn replied. They walked over to the cutting counter. “That’s a hedgehog,” Annaïg said. “The plant”—she crushed the pale green leaves between her fingers and smelled them—“eucalyptus.” “But we used both again today, and you saw the result.” “You reason from that that he’s tired of these things?” Slyr asked. “Were they prepared in the same way?” “Not at all. We toasted the bones to reveal the marrow and infused all with a vapor of the—ah—youcliptus?” “That doesn’t sound good at all,” Annaïg said.