The Infernal city

And suddenly he saw the tiger Sul was riding make a peculiar leap that took it over the edge of the cliff.

Then Sha’jal was in the air, too.

The fall opened below him as if in a dream. Everything seemed to be moving quite slowly. They were nearly parallel to the cliff, and Sha’jal was lashing out at something—a tree, growing up from below them. He caught it and then all of the blood rushed from his head as they swung down and in toward the cliff face.

When his senses returned, he was fetched up hard against some sort of recess in the rock wall; he could see the trunk of the tree rising from somewhere lower, but even as he watched, it was smashed from view by the rain of cattle that began pouring down a few yards in front of them. He looked right and left, and incredibly, all of the Khajiit and Sul were there, pressed against the back of the shallow rock shelter. Flakes of shale rained on their heads, and he could only hope that the weight of the wild cattle didn’t break it.

They kept coming, bleating, eyes rolling, legs flailing.

Lesspa started laughing, and the other Khajiit quickly joined her. After a moment, Attrebus found himself chuckling, too, not even certain why.

And, finally—as the last of the light was fading—the beasts stopped falling.

“Quickly, now,” Sul said. “I think we can work our way down on this side. We don’t have much time.”

Sul proved right—their hideaway was part of a larger erosional gully, probably an earlier channel of the tributary. They were able to step and slide their way down it.

The river was choked with dead and dying cattle, and the water stank of their blood, urine, and feces.

They continued downstream, crossing the tributary a few moments later. Attrebus could barely see now, but the Khajiit and Sul seemed to be having little trouble, and the strand along the river was sandy and relatively flat. And then a new, silvery light shone as a moon rose into the sky.

Above, two horns blared, quite near.

Upstream, another answered in a voice so incredibly deep and primal that Attrebus suddenly felt like a rabbit in the open, surrounded by wolves. It chased all thought from him, and before he knew it he was dashing forward in mindless terror.

Something caught him from behind, and he swung violently, trying to break the grip before realizing it was Sul …

“Easy,” he said. “Snap out of it.”

“That’s Hircine,” Attrebus said. “It’s over.”

“Not yet,” Sul said. “Not yet.”

The horn sounded again, and now he heard wolves baying.

“Keep together,” Sul warned them. “When we get there, we’ll have to be quick.”

Dark figures watched them from both rims of the canyon, and strange bestial sounds drifted down, but apparently the other drivers were content just to keep them bottled in and let their master have the kill.

They rushed on, breathless, limping. Sul shouted something, but Attrebus couldn’t make it out because of the wolves. He glanced behind him, and in the moonlight saw an enormous silhouette shaped like a man, but with the branching horns of a stag.

“He’s here!”

“So are we!” Sul shouted. “Ahead there, you see, where the canyon narrows. It’s just through there.”

It was all running then, following Sul. The howls grew closer, so near that he could already feel the teeth in his back. The canyon narrowed until it was only about twenty feet wide.

“Another fifty yards!” Sul shouted.

“That’s too far,” Lesspa said. She stopped and shouted something in Khajiit. They all turned to face the hunt.

“We’ll catch up after we’ve killed him,” she said.

“Lesspa—”

But Sul grabbed his arm and yanked him along.

“Don’t spit on their sacrifice,” he said. “The only way to make it worthwhile is to survive.”

Behind them he heard Lesspa’s warrior shriek, and a wolf howled in pain.

He tried to concentrate on keeping his feet working beneath him and off the fire in his chest. He was terrified, but he wanted to stand with Lesspa, to stop running.

And yet he knew he couldn’t.

The walls of the canyon narrowed further, until they were only about ten feet apart. The shingle vanished, and they were running in swiftly moving water. And something was splashing behind them.

Then he took a step, and nothing was under it—the river dropped away into empty space. He didn’t see any bottom.

EIGHT

Annaïg passed a bit of what had once been a soul along a wire drawn through a glass globe full of greenish vapor. As she watched, droplets formed on the wire and then quickly condensed into beadlike crystals. She waited for them to set properly, then carefully unsealed the two hemispheres of the globe and slid the wire out, so the tiny formations tinged and settled in the hollow glass and shone little tiny opals.

“There’s that down,” she murmured. “Forty-eight more courses to go.”

Lord Irrel’s tastes tended toward the inane. No meal of less than thirty courses ever pleased him, and fifty or more was safest.

Almost everything he ate was the product of some process involving stolen souls. She’d been squeamish about that at first, but like a butcher getting used to blood, she had become less focused on what it was and more on what to do with it. At times she still wondered if she was destroying the last bit of a person, the final part of them that made them them. Toel assured her that wasn’t how it worked, that the energy that came to the kitchens came from the ingenium, which had already processed it to purity.

In the end she felt sure she would have been more bothered by dismembering human corpses, even though there was nothing there to feel or know what was happening.

A soft clearing of the throat behind her caused her to turn. A young woman with red skin and horns stood there, looking a little worried. Annaïg did not know her, but she was dressed as a pantry worker.

“Pardon me, Chef,” the woman said. “Do not think I presume, and I’m certain what your answer will be, but a skraw is here with a delivery, and he says he will only give it to you.”

“A skraw?”

“That’s what they call them that work in the sump.”

Annaïg’s spirit lifted in a sudden rush. Mere-Glim worked in the sump, or at least so Slyr had said.

“Well,” she said, trying to keep her composure, “I suppose I have a moment. Take me to this fellow.”

She followed the woman through the pantries and beyond, to the receiving dock, where she had never been. It wasn’t particularly imposing, merely a room with various tunnels leading away. There were also two large square holes in the walls that didn’t seem to go anywhere until she realized they were shafts going up and down. In fact, as she watched, a large crate came into one of them from above. Several workers sitting on the top of it got down and began unfastening the latches on the front.

She did not see Mere-Glim. Instead, there was a dirty-looking fellow in a sort of loincloth holding a large bucket.

“This is him, Chef.”

“Very good—you may go,” Annaïg told her.

She bowed and hurried off.

“Well,” Annaïg asked. “What’s this?”

“Nothing, lady,” the man croaked. He looked unhealthy, jaundiced. “Only I was told to deliver this just to you.”

She peered into the bucket, which seemed to be filled with phosphor worms, annalines, and dash clams.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, lady.”

“Very good, then. I’ll take them.”

She took the bucket and went back up, hoping no one would see her, torn between hope that the bucket contained something from Glim and worry that it was all some weird practical joke.

She stopped in the pantry and put the seafoods in their various holding tanks, and was leaning toward the practical joke end of things when her hand found something smooth and familiar.

Her locket.

She clutched it tight, realizing dizzily that this was one of the best moments of her young life. To have Glim back. And her mother’s amulet. And hope—she hadn’t realized just how resigned she had become to Umbriel. With no way to contact Treb, she’d tried not to think about him, which was to say not to think of escape. Yes, she’d found what she needed in order to leave, but hadn’t even put them together yet.

She realized she must be grinning as if mad, so she took a moment to compose herself, slipped the amulet in her pocket, and went back to work. She went by the tree-wine vats first, however, and, making certain no one was in the area, flipped open the amulet.

Inside was a little piece of some sort of hide or vellum, and although it was damp, the letters hadn’t run. It was in the private hand that she and Glim had invented as children.

Annaïg: I found you and I’ve found the sky. I know more than I did. Let me know what and when and where. You can send a note by any of the skraws.

She placed the locket in one of her drawers. The note she dipped in vitriol and watched it dissolve. Then she returned to her cooking station.

She was putting a film on the soup when Slyr came over from her station.

“Could you try this?” she asked. “I’ve been experimenting with condensations of those black, bumpy fruit. I forget what you call them.”

“Blackberries?”

“That’s right. Only they’re not black, are they? Their juice is almost the color of blood.”

“Sure,” Annaïg said. She took the spoon, which had little droplets like perspiration on it, and carefully licked them off. They tasted a little like blackberries, but more like lemon and turpentine.

“That’s pretty good,” she said, “at least by the lord’s standards. I should think it would go nicely on white silk noodles.”

“That was my thought,” Slyr said. “Thanks for your advice.” She tilted her head. “I was looking for you earlier. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“I went down to the pantry to check on a few things,” she said.

“Ah,” Slyr said. “That explains it.”

But her tone hinted that it didn’t.

Annaïg sighed as the woman walked off. Slyr grew more jealous by the day, even though she had learned to hide it pretty well. Slyr seemed convinced that she was trysting with Toel at every possible moment. Sometimes she felt like telling her about Toel’s offer and conditions, but worried that might actually make things worse.

She finished filming the soup, then went back to her work with the tree-wine, thinking she might find the privacy there to open her locket.

She had just reached the vats when she felt a funny scratch in the back of her throat. Her nose was numb, her head was ringing, and suddenly her heart was beating strangely.

“Slyr!” she gasped, stumbling forward. Her lungs felt like they were closing. She shut her eyes, focusing on the taste, the scent, the feel of the stuff Slyr had given her, then leaned against her cabinet, rifling for ingredients. The ringing was growing louder, and all her extremities were cold.

She built a picture of the poison in her mind, tried to think what would settle it, pacify it, break it apart, but everything was happening too fast. She fell onto the table, spilling jars and shattering vials. She let her instincts take over, just operating by smell, drinking some of this, a finger dab of that …

The ringing crescendoed, and she went away.

She came back on Toel’s balcony on a white couch draped with sheets. Toel himself sat a few feet away, looking over a scroll. She must have made a noise, because he turned, smiling.

“Well, there you are,” he said. “That was very near.”

“What happened?”

“You were poisoned, of course. She used ampher venin. Its effects are delayed, but once symptoms develop, it works very quickly. Sound familiar?”

She nodded, realizing to her dismay that under the sheets she didn’t have any clothes on.

“You should have died, but you didn’t,” he continued. “You somehow concocted a stabilizer. That kept you alive the half an hour before someone noticed you lying there. Without me, of course, you would have died anyway, but it is … remarkable.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she replied.

“On some level you did,” he replied. He put his hands on his knees. “Well,” he said. “How shall I have her executed?”

“Slyr?” She felt a stab of anger, bordering on hatred. What had she ever done to Slyr to deserve murder? It was quite the opposite, wasn’t it? She had protected her.

And yet, execution …

He must have seen it in her face, because he sighed, crossed his legs, and sat back in his chair.

“Don’t tell me,” he said.

“She’s just afraid,” Annaïg said.

“You mean jealous,” Toel replied. “Envious.”

“It’s all the same thing, really,” Annaïg said. “She—I think she is not only afraid for her position here, she also desires your, ah … affections.”

He smiled. “Well, once my ‘affections’ are bestowed, they are not easily forgotten.”

“What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you really so naive? You don’t know?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“How do you suppose you came to my attention? How do you think I so easily bypassed Qijne’s outer security? Why do you think Slyr fought so hard to save your life?”

“She betrayed Qijne?”

“She saw a chance to rise. I admire that in her—I came from a lowlier position than hers, and my desire to better myself brought me here. She has the ambition but not the talent—you have the talent but not the ambition.”

Oh, I have ambition all right, Annaïg thought. The ambition to bring all of you down.

But did she? If she could find some way to destroy Umbriel, could she do it, and doom all of these people?

But she thought of Lilmoth and knew that she could.

Why, then, couldn’t she bring herself to let Toel kill Slyr, who, after all, had just tried to murder her? Who had betrayed her comrades in Qijne’s kitchen to violent death? Surely this was someone who deserved to die.

But she couldn’t say it, and she knew it. It was too personal, too close.

“Let her live,” Annaïg said. “Please.”

“The terms remain the same,” he said. “She remains your assistant. What makes you think she won’t try again?”

Because I won’t be here, she thought.

“She won’t,” she told him.

He made a tushing noise. “You really don’t have it, do you? I thought you might be great, perhaps even greater than me one day, but you can’t do what must be done.”

He signed, and one of Toel’s guards pushed Slyr from just beyond the door. The woman’s red eyes brimmed with misery.

“What’s wrong with you?” Slyr asked. “I don’t understand you at all.”

“I thought we were friends,” Annaïg replied.

“We were,” Slyr said. “I think we were.”

“That’s beautiful,” Toel said. “Touching. Now listen to me, both of you. Annaïg may have no drive, but she is more than a curiosity. She gives this kitchen the edge over the others, and I will brook no threat to her. Slyr, if she slips in the kitchen and cracks her head, you will die in the most horrible manner I can conceive, and I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors. I don’t care if Umbriel himself walks down here and strikes her down by his own hand, you will still suffer and perish. Only her breathing body keeps you alive. Do you understand?”

Slyr bowed her head. “I do, Chef,” she murmured.

“Very well.” He lifted his chin toward a servant in the corner. “When Annaïg is steady enough, bring her her clothes and return her to her rooms.”

“And this one?” the guard said, indicating Slyr.

“She’s shown initiative,” he said, “misguided, but there it is. Clean her up and bring her to my quarters.”

Slyr’s eyes registered disbelief, but then her lips curled in triumph.

Molag Bal take them all, Annaïg thought. I’m getting off this damned rock.

NINE

Annaïg was still weak from the effects of the poison, but she insisted on sleeping in her own quarters that night, and Toel’s servants allowed her her wish. Slyr did not return—a fact for which she was extremely grateful.

That night she wrote Glim a note, in the same argot he’d written hers in. It was very simple.

Glim. I’m glad you’re alive. I’ve got what we need. I’m ready to go. How soon, and where? Love.

The next day, still pale and tending to tremble, she went early to the pantry. She found a skraw—not the same one—a woman this time.

“What do you have here?” she asked her.

“Thendow frills,” the skraw wheezed. “Sheartooth loin. Glands from duster stalks …”

After a few moments, the pantry workers stopped their curious stares and went back to their business. They probably figured if one of the chefs wanted to come down and do their jobs, who were they to argue?

When she was pretty sure no one was looking, she slipped the skraw the note. “I want the pearl-colored ones next time,” she said. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, lady,” the skraw replied.

“Good,” she said, and left the dock.

She returned to the kitchens, did her portion of the dinner—Lord Irrel only ate one meal a day—and then went back to the tree-wine vats. With no hesitation at all she made eight vials of tonic. She put four in her pocket and the rest in the cabinet, and it was all very much like moving in a dream, detached, without fear, as if the poisoning had somehow made her invulnerable.

It had certainly made her less visible. Toel didn’t speak to her at all, and Slyr kept her distance, although she did occasionally catch the other woman looking at her with what was probably disdain.

But it didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter.

She slept alone again that night, and the next morning she had a reply from Glim.

Midnight tonight. Meet me at the dock.

Something struck his feet, and Treb’s knees buckled, taking him straight down on his face in a bed of yellow wildflowers that smelled like skunk. He and Sul were on a hillside covered in various colorful blossoms and odd, twisting trees with caps like mushrooms.

They were on a jagged island in a furious sea beneath a sky half-filled with a jade moon.

They were on an island of ash and shattered stone, still surrounded by water, but this water appeared to be boiling. The steaming air stank of hard minerals, and the sky was bleak and gray.

Sul just stood there, studying the ground, kicking at what looked like a shallow excavation, but he didn’t appear surprised.

“Are we trapped again?” Attrebus asked.

“No,” Sul grated. “We’ve arrived. Welcome to Vivec City.” He spat into the ash.

“I thought we were still in Oblivion.”

“This doesn’t look homey to you?”

“I—” He took in the scene again.

The island stood in the center of a bay that was close to perfectly circular, with a rim standing somewhat higher than the island except in one place where it opened into a sea or larger lake. It reminded him of the volcanic crater he’d once seen on a trip to Hammerfell.

To the left, beyond the rim, the land rose up in rugged mountains.

“Don’t you see the how beautiful she is, this city?” Sul snapped. “Can’t you see the canals, the gondoliers?” He stabbed his finger out across the bay. “Don’t you see the great cantons, each building a city in itself? And here, right here—the High Fane, the palace, the Ministry of Truth—all for you to gaze upon that you might wonder.”

Attrebus bowed his head a bit. “I’m sorry, Sul. I meant no disrespect. I’m sorry for what happened here.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for as regards to this place,” Sul said. “But there are those who must account.”

His voice sounded harsher than usual.

“You might have warned me about the fall, back in Hircine’s realm,” Attrebus said, hoping to lighten the mood.

To his surprise, it seemed to work. A hint of a grin pulled at Sul’s lips.

“I told you it was harder to get to,” the Dunmer reminded him.

“Just a tiny bit harder, I guess.”

“It’s done now.”

“I wish Lesspa—” He stopped, realizing he didn’t want to talk about that. Not long ago he’d had his arms around her waist, felt the breath in her, heard the savage joy of her cry. To think of her, torn and cold, her eyes staring at nothing …

“We’d be dead now if it weren’t for her,” Sul said. “The Khajiit didn’t hold them for long, but it was long enough. We could have died with her, but then what about Umbriel, Annaïg, your father’s empire? You’re a prince, Attrebus. People die for princes. Get used to it.”

“It wasn’t even her fight.”

“She thought it was. You made her believe it was.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better.”

Sul’s softer mood broke as quickly as it had formed. “Why in the world would any of this be about making you feel better? A leader doesn’t do things to make himself ‘feel better.’ You do what you should, what you must.”

Attrebus felt the rebuke almost like a physical blow. It left him speechless for a moment. Then he nodded.

“How do we find this sword?” he asked. He waved his hands about. “I mean, in all of this ruin …”

Sul studied him angrily for a moment, then looked away.

“I was a servant of Prince Azura,” he said. “Insomuch as I serve anyone, I suppose I still serve her. I wandered for years through Oblivion until she gave me haven in her realm, and there I slowly went mad. For a daedra prince, she is kind, especially to those she takes a liking to. She knew I wanted vengeance, and she gave me visions to help me achieve it. I did her services in the other realms. I settled problems for her, and in the end she promised to let me go, to act on what knowledge she had given me. She didn’t. She decided to keep me, one of her favorite playthings.”

“And so you escaped her, as you escaped Vile’s realm.”

“Yes. And yet, even though I am no longer in her realm or direct service, she still sends me the visions. Sometimes to aid, sometimes to taunt, never enough to be fully helpful. But she has no love for our enemy, and because of that I trust her more often than not.”

“And she showed you where the sword is?”

“Yes.”

Attrebus frowned. “You were here before, when you escaped Oblivion. Why didn’t you find the sword then?”

“This is all controlled by Argonians now,” he said, “although they obviously don’t live here. But they do have some ritual associated with this crater, what is now called the Scathing Bay. I arrived here during the ritual, so after running through half the realms of Oblivion, I had to keep running until they gave up, somewhere in the Valus Mountains. After that I … delayed coming back here. It’s not easy to see this.”

“I can understand that,” Treb said.

“You can’t, really,” Sul replied. “Wait here. I need to do something. Alone.”

“Even if you find the sword, how do we get across this boiling water?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Sul said. “I’ve been here before, remember?

Occupy yourself. Keep an eye out for Umbriel. I’ll find the sword.”

He watched Sul pick his way across the island until he vanished behind an upjut. He looked off across the waters south, toward where Umbriel ought to be, but saw nothing but low-hanging clouds, so he sat down and went through his haversack, looking for food.

He was chewing on a bit of bread when Coo cried softly. He pulled the mechanical bird out, and to his delight found himself staring at the image of Annaïg’s face. Her eyebrows were steepled and she looked pale, and then her eyes widened and she started to cry.

“You’re there!” she mumbled.

“Yes,” Attrebus said. “I’m here. Are you all right?”

“I didn’t cry until now,” she said. “I haven’t cried since before any of this began. I’ve kept it locked … I—” She broke off, sobbing uncontrollably.

He reached forward, as if to comfort her, but realized, of course, that he couldn’t. It was heart-wrenching to watch such pain and not be able to do anything.

“It’s going to be fine,” he ventured. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

She nodded, but kept crying for another long moment before finally regaining control of her voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still sniffling.

“Don’t be,” he said. “I can only imagine what you’ve been through.”

“I’ve tried to be brave,” she said. “To learn the things you’ll need to know. But I have to leave this place now. I thought I was fine until I saw you. I thought I wasn’t afraid anymore. But I am.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Treb soothed. “Can you? Can you leave?”

“I’ve re-created the solution that allowed me to fly, and I’ve found a way to Glim—and he’s found a place where we can get out. I … I don’t think I can wait until you reach us. We’re leaving tonight.”

“But that’s perfect,” Attrebus said. “I’m in Morrowind. I think you’re coming straight to us.”

“You’re in our path?”

“My companion thinks so.”

“Well you can’t stay there,” she said. “I told you what it does.”

“Don’t worry about us,” he said. “When you escape, I’ll find you. I’ll let you know which way to fly. Yes?”

She nodded.

“I thought you might be dead,” he said. “I kept trying to contact you—”

“I lost my locket,” she said. “But I got it back.”

“So you’re leaving tonight?” he asked.

“That’s the plan,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“And are you alone right now?”

“For the moment,” she said. “Someone might come, and then I’ll have to hide the locket.”

“Fine, I’ll understand when you have to go. But until then, tell me what’s been happening. Tell me how you are.”

And he listened as she told him her tale in her sweet lilting voice, and he realized how very much he had missed it. Missed her.

Sul trudged to the other side of the island, trying not to let his rage blot out his ability to think. It wasn’t enough that the ministry fell; the impact caused the volcano that was the heart and namesake of Vvardenfell to explode. Ash, lava, and tidal waves had done their work, and when that was calmed, the Argonians had come, eager to repay what survived of his people for millennia of abuse and enslavement.

Of course, those that had settled in southern Morrowind were likely regretting it now, as Umbriel moved over their villages.

That didn’t help, though, did it?

He looked again at the size of the crater. How fast had the ministry been traveling? Did she feel anything? Had Ilzheven known who killed her?

Find the sword. Kill Vuhon. Then it would be over.

He remembered the ingenium exploding; it had expanded and distorted first, and then all he had known was a sort of flash. Then he and Vuhon were elsewhere, in Oblivion.

In his vision, Azura had shown him that again, shown him Umbra hurling the blade through the vanishing portal—and then the scene changed, and he’d seen the sword, lying on shattered stone. He saw it covered by a few feet of ash.

But he and Attrebus had come through the weak spot left by the portal, just as he had a few years earlier, just as the sword must have. It was a tricky spot, because the ingenium had been exploding at the same instant the ministry finished its ages-long fall, so rather than a spot or sphere, the rift was more like a shaft, most of it underground. If he hadn’t seen the sword on the surface, he would have imagined it entombed beneath his feet.

But it hadn’t been where he’d seen it; there wasn’t enough ash, and then there was what looked like an excavation. He hadn’t had time to notice that when he appeared in the midst of the Argonians, but this time it took only a few seconds to realize that someone had already taken Umbra.

He could almost hear Azura laughing, because she knew what he had to do next.

His lover formed like a column of dust, like the whirlwinds in the ashlands, tightening in circumference as her presence intensified, until at last each delicate curve of her face drifted before him. Only her eyes held color, and those were like the last fading of a sunset.

“Ilzheven,” he whispered, and the eyes flickered a bit brighter.

“I am here,” she said. It was a mere wisp of sound, but it was her voice, the only music he remembered from that long-ago life. “I am always here. A part of this.” Her face softened.

“I know you, Ezhmaar,” she said. “What has happened to you, my love?”

“Time still passes for me,” he replied, angry at his voice for the way it quavered. “Much has happened to me in its grip.”

“It is not time that has hurt you so,” she said. “What have you done to yourself, Ezhmaar?” She reached to touch his face, and he felt it as a faint, cool breeze.

“Is it still there?” she went on. “The house where we learned each other? In the bamboo grove, where the waters trickled cold from the mountains and the larkins sang?”

His throat closed and for a moment he couldn’t answer.

“I haven’t seen it since we last were there together,” he finally managed. But he knew it couldn’t be. Not as close as the valley had been to the volcano.

“It is still here,” she said, lightly touching her chest. “That place, my love—our love.”

He touched his own breast, but couldn’t say anything for fear of undoing himself, just when he most needed all of his strength.

“I don’t have long, Ilzheven,” he said. “I need to ask you something.”

“I will answer you if I can,” she said.

“There was a sword here, in the ash. It fell after the impact. Can you tell me what became of it?”

Her gaze went off past him and stayed there for so long he feared he couldn’t hold her present any longer. But then she spoke again.

“Rain exposed the hilt, and men found it. Dunmer, searching this place. They took it with them.”

“Where?”

“North, toward the Sea of Ghosts. The bearer wore a signet ring with a draugr on it.”

He felt his grip loosening. Ilzheven reached for him again, but her fingers became dust and blew off on the breeze.

“Let it go,” she whispered. “Do no more harm to yourself.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“I am part of this place,” she said. “I know all that happened, and I beg you for the love we shared, let it go.”

“I cannot,” he said, as her face was erased by the wind. He stood there for a long time, fighting his shame, hardening his heart. It would not do for Attrebus to see him like this.

But it had been so good to hear her voice. He missed that most of all.

“I have to go,” Annaïg said suddenly. “I hear someone coming. Keep well.”

“Take care,” he said, “don’t …” But she was already gone. He held the bird for a few more moments, thinking that perhaps she’d been mistaken and they could resume their conversation.

After a few minutes he gave up and replaced Coo in his sack. Then he looked off what he guessed to be south, where the crater opened into what must be the Inner Sea, if he remembered his geography lessons correctly.

Something about the scene struck him as peculiar—other than the boiling of the water and all—but at first he couldn’t place it. Then he realized what he was seeing was the top of a mountain, peeking through the clouds.

Peeking through the bottom of the clouds.

“Oh, no,” he whispered.

From Annaïg’s description, he’d thought he would see it coming, even with the clouds—where were the flashing threads, the larvae diving down? But that would only happen if something alive was below it, and there wasn’t anything living here, was there?

He smelled boiled meat and tracked his gaze back to the water.

Things were coming out of Scathing Bay.

North, beyond the Sea of Ghosts, Sul reflected. That probably meant Soulstheim. That would have to be overland or by sea, then. He didn’t have a handy path through Oblivion to reach the islands. He wondered if all of the inner sea was boiling.

He heard Attrebus shouting.

Swearing, he drew his sword and ran toward where he’d left the prince. He nearly ran into him on the rise.

“It’s here!” Attrebus shouted. “The damned thing is already here!”

Sul gazed toward the water, at the lumbering monsters that had once been living flesh. It would be hard to tell what most of them had been if it weren’t for their tails.

“That way off of the island you were talking about?” Attrebus asked.

“The way we came,” Sul replied. “We have to fight our way back to the spot where we arrived.”

“That’s … not good. Do you have any arts that will allow us to swim in scalding water?”

“No.”

Sul saw that he was scared, and that he was trying not to be.

“The longer we wait, the harder it will be,” Sul said. He reached into his sack and produced his ointment, redabbing their brows. “We cut a path to our arrival point,” he said. “That’s all we have to do. Just stay alive that long.”

“Let’s go, then,” Attrebus said.

TEN

When Colin heard the tap of hard-soled shoes, he whispered the name of Nocturnal and felt the shadows around him; felt the moonlight press them down through the marble of the palace to kiss the camp, gritty cobblestones, felt them enter his eyes and mouth and nostrils until he was a shadow himself. Felt them drape across the woman who emerged into the courtyard from the office of the minister.

He padded after her. She was cloaked and cowled, but he knew her walk; he’d been watching her for days. Not for long at a time, because he had cases to attend to. Marall had been right about that—he’d been pulled from the business concerning Prince Attrebus immediately.

But he wasn’t quite willing to let it go, was he? He couldn’t even say why.

So he’d found the woman Gulan had spoken to that last time, an assistant to the minister. Her name was Letine Arese, a petite blond woman of thirty years. He’d learned her habits, how she moved, when she left the ministry evenings, where she went after.

Tonight, as he’d expected, she was breaking all of her patterns. Leaving at eight instead of six. Going northeast toward the Market District instead of heading for the Foaming Flask for a drink with her sister and assorted friends.

She wound her way through the crowds of the market district, and Colin became less a shadow and more a nobody—there, avoided if necessary, but not really remarked. After a time she left the arteries for the veins, and then capillaries, where once again it was him and her and shadow.

She came to a door and rapped on it. A slit opened; soft words were spoken. Then the door swung out a crack and she entered.

He quickly examined the building. There were no ground-floor windows, of course—not in this neighborhood, but the house had three stories, and on the third he made one out. He couldn’t see ladders or drainpipes to climb, but the building next door was so close he was able to brace his arms and legs and go up it as he might a chimney.

Annaïg just managed to hide the amulet before Slyr came out of the corridor. The other woman looked around, puzzled.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked.

“To myself,” Annaïg replied. “It helps me think.”

“I see.” She stood there for a moment, looking uncomfortable.

“Do you want something?” Annaïg inquired.

“Don’t kill me,” Slyr blurted.

“What the Xhuth! are you talking about?” Annaïg demanded. “You were there—you heard Toel. If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead.”

“I know,” she cried, wringing her hands. “It didn’t make any sense. The only thing I can think of is that you want to do it yourself, when I’m not expecting it. You could probably think of something really inventive and nasty. Look, I know you’re probably mad at me—”

“‘Probably’ mad at you?” Annaïg exploded. “You tried to kill me!”

“Yes, I see now how that might upset you,” Slyr said. “To be fair, I wasn’t expecting to have to deal with any sort of … Well, this.”

“Yes,” Annaïg said, measuring her words. “Yes, I understand that because you imagined I would be dead. Now I’m not, and because you haven’t a decent bone in your body, you assume no one else does.”

In that instant, her anger constricted violently into the most vicious rage she’d ever known. She felt a sudden jerk on her wrist and then something slid around her pointer finger and stiffened.

Qijne’s filleting knife. Of course—all she needed was to really want to kill someone. And she could. Two steps …

“Please, don’t joke with me,” Slyr pleaded. “I can’t even sleep, I’m so miserable.”

Annaïg willed her heart to slow. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “You’ve been sleeping with Toel.”

Slyr blinked. “I’ve been procreating with Toel,” she admitted, “but you don’t imagine he lets me stay in his bed all night! I’ve been sleeping in the halls, terrified of what you’re going to do next.”

“Next? I haven’t done anything to you.”

“You didn’t poison the Thendow frills this morning?”

“They were poisoned?”

“Well,” she hedged, “not that I could tell. But I heard you were down there, handling them, and that doesn’t make much sense unless you were up to something. And you knew I was supposed to make the decoction of Thendow—”

“You aren’t dead, are you?”

“Of course not! I made Chave do the Thendow.”

“Unbelievable,” Annaïg said. “And did Chave die?”

“You’re clever enough to make something that would only affect me—I know you are. My hairs are all over our room.”

Annaïg rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you, Slyr. At least not today.”

But then she remembered her appointment with Glim, and she shot the other woman a nasty smile.

“But there’s always tomorrow.”

“I’ll do anything,” Slyr said. “Anything you ask.”

“Perfect. Then go away and don’t talk to me again unless it’s pertaining to our work.”

It was probably twenty minutes after the woman left that the knife slowly withdrew back to Annaïg’s wrist.

The kitchen wasn’t still at night; the hobs were there, cleaning, jabbering in a language she didn’t know. She had wondered about that, from time to time. Everyone she had spoken to claimed that everyone came out of the sump, went back to the sump, and so forth. But what about the hobs and scamps? Were they “people” in the sense that chefs and skraws were? Or were they like the foodstuff that came from the sump and the Fringe Gyre—things that grew and reproduced in a normal sort of way?

Maybe Glim knew. After all, he’d been working in the sump.

The hobs gave her curious looks as she passed through the kitchen. She wasn’t worried—she doubted they would say anything to their masters, but if they did, it would be too late.

Before entering the pantries, she stopped and looked back, and for a moment she almost seemed to see herself, or a sort of ghost of herself, the person she might have become if she’d followed Toel’s advice instead of her heart. The ghost looked confident, effective, filled with secrets.

Annaïg turned and left her there, to fade.

The dock, unlike the kitchen, was very quiet, and dark, and she had no light. She stood there, waiting, starting to feel it all unravel. What if it was all a trap of some sort, a trick, a game?

But then she heard something wet move.

“Glim?”

“Nn!”

And he was there, his faintly chlorine scent, the familiar rasp of his breath, his big damp scaly arms crushing her to his chest.

“You’re getting me wet, you big lizard,” she said.

“Well, if you want me to leave …”

She hit him on the arm and pushed back. “Daedra and Divines it’s good to see you, Glim. Or almost see you. I thought I had lost you.”

“I found Qijne’s body,” he said, “and the others from her kitchen—” He choked off into a weird, distressed gasping sound that she hadn’t heard since they were both children.

“Let’s not talk through our chance,” she said, patting his arm. “Plenty of time to talk later.”

Glim snorted. “No one is going to try and stop us,” he said. “No one here can conceive of leaving the place.”

“Toel would stop me, if he knew,” she said. “So let’s not dally.”

And so Glim guided her onto one of the big dumbwaiter things, and shortly they began ascending,

“I’ve never been up this,” Glim said. “But I suspect it’s a lot easier than the route I’ve been using. And you won’t have to breathe underwater.”

“Which is nice,” she replied. “Although I’ve got that covered, if it comes to it.” She patted her pockets.

“Do you?” he asked. His voice sounded a bit odd.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing that matters now.”

They arrived at a dock not unlike the one they’d left, but Glim found a stairway that took them up and out to the Fringe Gyre. Both moons were out, making a glowing ocean of the low clouds that came up almost to Umbriel’s rim. The gyre fanned below them, as fantastic a forest as she could ever imagine. And behind—the dazzling spires of Umbriel as she had never seen them—at night from the highest level. Even Toel was far below her. One tower rose higher than all of them by far, a fey thing that might have been spun from glass and gossamer. Who lived there? What were they like?

She took a deep breath and turned firmly away. It didn’t matter.

Then she handed Glim his dose.

“Drink,” she said. “Your desires guide you, do you understand? We want to be as far west of here as we can get.”

“I’ll just follow you,” Glim said.

She took his hand. “We’ll go together.”

And they drank, and they dropped away from Umbriel, and flew over the lambent clouds.

Sul furrowed his brow and mumbled something under his breath. The air before them shivered and coruscated, and suddenly a monstrous daedra with the head of a crocodile stood between them and the walking dead. It turned to face Sul, its reptilian eyes full of hatred, but he barked something at it, and with a snarl it turned and rushed into their attackers.

Sul waded in behind the thing, and Attrebus followed. He hacked at the rotting, boiled corpse of an Argonian; he hit its upper arm, and Flashing sheared through the decomposing flesh as if it were cheese, hit the bone, and slid down to cut through the elbow joint. The thing came on, heedless of its loss, and he had to fight the urge to vomit. It reached for him again and he cut off its head, which of course didn’t stop it either, so he next chopped at its knees.

The next one to come at him had a short sword, which it jabbed at him in a thoroughly unsophisticated way. He cut the arm off and then slashed at its legs, so it fell, too.

What surprised him was how fast they were. Somehow he’d imagined them slower. He and Sul weren’t fighting forward anymore, but had their backs to the Dunmer’s summoning and were trying to keep from being surrounded. They were still moving toward their arrival point, but not very quickly, and the dead were now thick on all sides. Attrebus and Sul wielded their weapons more like machetes than swords, chopping as if to clear a jungle path of vines—except the vines kept coming back.

Treb knew it was over when one of them fell and caught him around the leg, holding on with horrible strength. He chopped down at it, and one of those in front of him leapt forward and grappled his sword arm.

Then he went down in a wave of slimy, slippery, disgusting bodies. He had time for one short howl of despair.

I’m sorry Annaïg, he thought. I tried.

He waited for the knife or teeth or claws that would end him, but it didn’t happen. In fact, once they had him and Sul immobilized, they stood them both back up. Attrebus renewed his struggles, but quickly found there wasn’t much point.

“What are they doing?” he asked Sul.

But his answer didn’t come from the Dunmer; everything seemed to spin around, and the bleak landscape of Morrowind vanished.

The window was barred and latched, but he had a small magic for that, and soon he was standing in someone’s bedroom, which fortunately was empty. He found the stairs and made his way down until he barely heard voices. He sat in the darkened stairs, beat down his worries, focused, and listened.

“… would have known?” Arese was saying.

“Anyone,” a male voice rumbled. “Anyone who knows you failed to pass on Gulan’s warning concerning the prince’s activities.”

“That is a limited number of people,” she said. “What about the woman, Radhasa?”

“I’ve not heard from her. She was supposed to lie low after the massacre—else how could she explain her survival? This note isn’t signed.”

“Why on Tamriel would a blackmailer sign their name to a note?”

“I see your point.”

“But if not her, that leaves me with you,” she said. “Or someone else in your organization.”

“Impossible.”

“I argued against using you people in the first place,” she snorted.

“The job was done.”

“The job was not done. Attrebus lives, and someone has implicated me in the bargain.”

“You’ve no proof Attrebus lives,” the man asserted. “That’s only a rumor.”

“Wrong. A courier arrived from Water’s Edge this morning with news that he is alive. It went straight to the Emperor. He’s keeping it quiet, but troops have already been sent.”

That’s news, Colin thought. He’d written the “blackmail” letter himself, to draw her out, but he hadn’t heard anything about a courier.

“Well, then,” the man said. “I don’t leave a job unfinished. I deal with it, at no extra charge.”

“That won’t do. Not now.”

The man laughed. “Now, let’s not get silly,” he said. “If you don’t want me to finish the job, fine, but you’re not getting your money back. Don’t forget who I am.”

“You’re a glorified thug,” Arese replied. “That’s who you are.”

“I love your type,” the man snarled. “You pay me to do murder so you can pretend your hands are clean, so you can continue to think yourself better than me. I have news for you—you’re worse, because you don’t have the guts to put down your own dogs.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she replied, a colder note in her voice.

“You’re not threatening me.”

Colin heard several doors open, and he could all but see the man’s guards coming in. But then he heard something else, a sort of ripping sound accompanied by a rush of air and glass shattering. Every hair on his body pricked up.

The next thing he heard was something human ears were not meant to receive, the human brain not meant to interpret, the primal feral sound of which the lion’s roar or the wolf’s growl were faint shadows. Harsh yellow light shone up the stairs, and then darkness.

Then the screaming began, very human and beyond all terror. Colin began to shiver, then to shake. He was still shaking when the last of the screams abruptly choked off and he felt something ponderous moving through the house. Searching.

When light returned, Attrebus first thought he was plunging through a shimmering sky, but it took only a moment to understand that although he was in the air, he wasn’t falling, but supported. The shimmer was glass—or what appeared to be glass—and it was all around him; was in fact what held him up in so strange a fashion that it took a moment to sort out how.

Some forty feet below him was a web that might have been two hundred feet in diameter. It looked very much like a spider’s web, anchored to three metallic spires, an upthrust of stone, and a thicker tower of what appeared to be porcelain. Below the web was a long drop into a cone-shaped basin half full of emerald water and covered with strange buildings everywhere else. The web was made of glasslike tubes about the thickness of his arm. Every few feet along any given tube another sprouted and rose vinelike toward the sky. These in turn branched into smaller tendrils so that the whole resembled a gigantic bed of strange, transparent sea creatures—and indeed, most of them undulated, as if in a current.

Attrebus was about ten feet from the top of the bushy structure, where the strands were no thicker than a writing quill, and these were what held him up. They clustered thickly on the soles of his boots, pressed his back and torso and every part of him except his face with firm, gentle pressure.

He tried to take a step, and they moved with him, reconfiguring so he didn’t fall. They cut the sunlight into colors like so many prisms, but it was nevertheless not difficult to see in any direction. He noticed Sul a few feet away, similarly borne.

“You did it!” he shouted. The crystalline strands shivered at his voice and rang like a million faint chimes. “We got away.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Sul replied, shaking his head. “I never got close enough to the door to escape into Oblivion.”

“Then where are we?” Treb asked.

“In my home,” a voice answered.

Attrebus looked higher up and saw someone walking down toward them, the transparent tubules shifting to meet his feet.

He appeared to be a Dunmer of average size, his gray hair pulled back in a long queue. He wore a sort of loose umber robe with wide sleeves and black slippers.

“Amazing,” the man said. “Sul. And you, I take it, are Prince Attrebus. Welcome to Umbriel.”

“Vuhon,” Sul snarled.

The only strange thing about the man’s appearance, Attrebus noticed, were his eyes—they weren’t red, like a Dunmer’s; the orbs where milky white and the surrounds black.

“Once,” the man said. “Once I was called that. You may still use that name, if you find it convenient.”

Sul howled, and Attrebus saw his hand flash as when he’d fought and burned Sharwa, but the balefire coruscated briefly in the filaments and then faded. Attrebus ran forward, lifting Flashing, but after a few steps the web suddenly went rigid like the glass it resembled, and he couldn’t move anything below his neck.

“Please try to behave yourselves,” Vuhon said. “As I said, this is my home.” He let himself slump into a sitting position a few feet above them, and the strands formed something like a chair.

“You’ve come here to kill me, I take it?” he asked Sul.

“What do you think?” Sul said, his voice flat with fury.

“I just said what I think—I merely phrased it as a question.”

“You murdered Ilzheven, destroyed our city and our country, left our people to be driven to the ends of the earth. You have to pay for that.”

Vuhon cocked his head.

“But I didn’t do any of that, Sul,” he said softly. “You did. Don’t you remember?”

Sul snarled and tried to move forward again, without success.

Vuhon made a languid sort of sign with his hand, and the glassy vines rustled. A moment later they handed up to each of them a small red bowl full of yellow spheres that did not appear to be fruit. Vuhon took one and popped it in his mouth. A faint green vapor vented from his nostrils.

“You should try them,” he said.

“I don’t believe I will,” Attrebus said.

Vuhon shrugged and turned his attention back to Sul.

“Ilzheven died when the ministry hit Vivec City, old friend,” he said. “And the ministry hit Vivec City because you destroyed the ingenium preventing it falling.”

“You were draining the life out of her,” Sul accused.

“Very slowly. She would have lived for months.”

“What are you talking about?” Attrebus demanded. “Sul, what’s he saying?”

Sul didn’t answer, but Vuhon turned toward Attrebus.

“He told you about the ministry? How we devised a method to keep it airborne?”

“Yes. By stealing souls.”

“We couldn’t find any other way to do it,” Vuhon allowed. “Given time, perhaps we could have. At first we had to slaughter slaves and prisoners outright, as many as ten a day. But then I found a way to use the souls of the living, although only certain people had souls—well, for simplicity’s sake, let us say ‘large’ enough. We only needed twelve at a time, then. A vast improvement. Ilzheven was chosen because she had the right sort of soul.”

“You chose her because she wouldn’t love you,” Sul contradicted. “Because she loved me instead.”

“We were always competitive, you and I, weren’t we?” Vuhon said, almost absently, as if just remembering. “Even as boys. But we were friends right up until the minute you burst into the ingenium chamber and starting trying to cut Ilzheven free.”

“I meant only to free her,” Sul said. “If you hadn’t fought me, the ingenium would never have been damaged.”

“You put yourself and your desires ahead of our people, Sul. And all you see is the result.”

“You’re twisting it all up,” Sul said. “You know what happened.”

Vuhon shrugged again. “It’s not important to me anymore. Did you find the sword?”

“What sword?”

Vuhon’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose you didn’t find it. My taskers certainly haven’t.” His voice rose and his calm broke. Attrebus suddenly seemed to hear boundless anger and violence in the Dunmer’s tone. “Where is it?” he shouted.

“What do you want with it?” Attrebus asked.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“I think everything about you is my concern,” Attrebus snapped back. “Whatever happened in the past, you’re many thousands of times a murderer now. All those people in Black Marsh …”

Vuhon sat back, seemed to relax. His voice became once again maddeningly tranquil.

“I can’t really deny that,” he admitted.

For a moment Attrebus was stunned by the casual confession.

“But why?” he asked finally.

“Look around you,” Vuhon said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Almost against his will, Attrebus once again took in the sight of Umbriel.

“Yes,” he was forced to confess.

“This is my city,” Vuhon said. “My world. I do what I must to protect it.”

“Protect it from what? How does destroying my world save yours? Are there no souls to feed on in Oblivion?”

Vuhon seemed to consider that for a moment.

“I’m not sure why I should waste my time telling you,” he replied. “I’ll most likely have to kill you anyway.”

“If that’s so, why haven’t you done so?”

“There are things you know that might be helpful to me,” Vuhon replied. “Or, if you could be convinced, do for me.”

“Convince me, then,” Attrebus said. “Explain all of this.”

Vuhon ran his thumb under his lips and shrugged.

“Sul told you how we were cast into Oblivion? How we met Umbra, and the deal I made with him?”

“Yes,” Attrebus replied. “And how you tortured him.”

Vuhon’s grin turned a little nasty. “Yes, but I grew bored with that. I could never torture him as much as he tortured himself.”

“A problem I won’t have with you,” Sul said.

“Ah, Sul. You really haven’t changed.”

The red bowls were gone, replaced by skewers of slowly writhing orange caterpillars.

“Vile had made it impossible for Umbra to leave his realm, and after your escape, Sul, he tightened his walls further so that I couldn’t leave either, even if I’d had the means. The only way to escape was to circumvent his restriction, to remain in his realm, at least in a way. I built my ingenium, I powered it with Umbra and the energies he had stolen from Vile. I turned our city, wrapped those circumscribed walls around it. Twisted it like a sausage maker twists a casing to form a link, the way a child might an inflated pig’s bladder to form a double ball. Twisted it until it broke loose, like a bubble.”

He bit one of the caterpillars, and it exploded into a butterfly, which he caught by the wing and devoured.

“That was a long time ago,” he went on. “We’ve drifted through many realms and places beyond even Oblivion. We cannot leave the city—Vile’s circumscription still surrounds it. Nor would I want to leave it—I’ve come to love this place I built. To survive in those long spaces between the worlds, we had to become a little universe of our own, a self-sustaining cycle of life and death and rebirth, a continuum of matter and spirit—all powered, manipulated, mediated by my ingenium. We’ve moved beyond the inefficiency some call ‘natural,’ and in doing so approach perfection. Everything here is in a real sense a part of everything else, because all flows from the ingenium.”

Sul—off to the right and in the corner of Treb’s vision—made a sudden gesture with his hands. Without turning his head, Attrebus shifted his gaze the tiniest bit. The Dunmer’s lips moved in an exaggerated fashion.

Keep him talking, Attrebus thought he was saying.

Attrebus put his full focus on Vuhon, who didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Not so self-sustaining,” he countered. “Your world feeds on souls from the outside world.”

Vuhon nodded. “I said we ‘approach’ perfection. Beyond Mundus, our need for sustenance is minimal. In some places, not necessary at all. Here, on this heavy plane of clay and lead, much more is required.”

“Then why have you come here?”

“Because this is one place that Clavicus Vile cannot pursue us, at least not in the fullness of his power.”

“Then you’ve won,” Attrebus said. “You’re free. Why are you still running? Surely there must be some way to land this thing—in a valley, a lake—someplace?”

“It’s not that simple,” Vuhon answered. “Vile can still work against us. He can send mortal followers to assassinate me, for instance.” He nodded pointedly at Sul.

“Sul’s not an agent of Clavicus Vile,” Attrebus protested.

“Do you know that? He was in Oblivion for a long time. And he hates me enough to make whatever bargains he thinks will get him his revenge. But that aside—Umbriel isn’t fully in your world yet.”

“Yet?”

Vuhon shook his head. “No, we remain a sort of bubble of Oblivion in Mundus, and as such we’re vulnerable. But I’ve found a way to change that, and to be free of Clavicus Vile forever.”

“And you need this sword of Umbra to do that?”

Again, that sudden uncharacteristic rage seemed to rise up in Vuhon.

“No,” he all but snarled.

“But you do want it,” Sul said, breaking his long silence. “It can still undo you, can’t it? Where is Umbra, Vuhon? You said he powers your ingenium. If Umbra is re-imprisoned in the sword, what becomes of your beautiful city?”

Vuhon seemed to be actually shaking with rage. He closed his eyes and drew long deep breaths. When he finally did speak again, it was in even tones.

“We didn’t come just for the sword,” he said. “I came to repair the rift into Vile’s realm, and now that’s done. Umbra wanted to find the weapon, and we shall still look for it, but we have other agents that can do that. If you know where it is, I will find out, I promise you. But it’s time to turn my attentions elsewhere.”

“Why didn’t you use these other ‘agents’ of yours in the first place?” Attrebus asked.

“They couldn’t have sealed the rift. Besides, this little meander gave me time to build my army. It’s already marching, you know. The walkers need not remain near Umbriel—they can go where I choose.” He scratched his chin. “And here is where you might prove yourself useful to me, Prince Attrebus,” he said.

“Why should I want to do that?” Attrebus asked.

“To preserve your own life, and the lives of many of your people. And to finally be the man you want to be.”

A little spark traveled up his spine. “What do you mean, ‘the man I want to be’?”

“I mean I suspect that your adventures have probably caused you to learn that much of your fame is based on fraud.”

“How do you know that?” Attrebus asked, backing away. “If you’ve just come from Oblivion …”

“Don’t you see?” Sul shouted. “He has someone inside the palace. That’s who tried to have you killed.”

“Is this true?” Attrebus challenged.

“Your fame was the problem, apparently. My ally feared you might create popular demand to attack Umbriel before we were ready, and to make the siege more bitter.”

“Siege?”

“Regrettably, I must attack the Imperial City. I suspect they will resist.”

“Why must you attack the city?”

“I need the city,” Vuhon said. “Specifically, I need to reach the White-Gold Tower. Then all of this can end. The dying can stop, and I can bring Umbriel to rest somewhere. If you want to save lives, all you need do is convince your father not to fight—better yet, to evacuate.”

“My father spent his life putting the Empire back together. There’s no way he would surrender the White-Gold Tower. I certainly couldn’t convince him.”

“You could try. It’s the offer I’m making you. I have gifts for you, the kind that only a god can bestow. You can return to Cyrodiil and lead your people to safety. You can be a real hero.”

Attrebus looked at Sul, then back out at the city.

“What about Sul?”

Vuhon ate another butterfly.

“Sul is mine. I’ll learn what he knows and then he will die.”

“If you murder Sul, I’ll never help you.”

“Think carefully, Prince. I could have lied to you and told you he would live. I didn’t. If you don’t help me, you’ll die, too. And then I will still take what I want at whatever cost of life is required.”

Annaïg felt sheer exhilaration as she rushed through the air. The first time she’d been too terrified to even begin to enjoy it. This time she felt it was the most wonderful thing she’d ever done.

She glanced back at the receding bulk of Umbriel. Nothing was following them. No one seemed to have noticed, and no one would until Toel came looking for her. By then she and Glim would be a hundred miles away.

She gripped Glim’s hand harder, just a friendly squeeze, but something about it felt strange. She glanced at over at him.

At first she thought he was surrounded by a stray wisp of cloud, but then she saw it was him, starting to bleed like a water-color that had been spilled on.

And, looking at her hand, so was she.

Attrebus fell silent for a long moment. Sul could practically see the thoughts turning in his head. The boy he’d rescued from kidnappers wouldn’t have thought about it at all—he had believed himself the hero the ballads spoke of, and that man would never turn on a companion.

But he knew that Attrebus was a little more pragmatic now. He might even be capable of making the right decision, to sacrifice him, buy himself time.

It didn’t matter. He couldn’t die, not before he killed Vuhon. And Vuhon had made a mistake just now.

And Attrebus had given him almost all the time he needed.

Sul closed his eyes.

“How long do I have to make my decision?” he heard Attrebus ask.

“Not long,” Vuhon said. “Sul, what are you—”

Pain jagged through Sul, crippling, nightmarish hurt that once would have paralyzed him. But he’d felt it before, and worse, and all he had to do was reach through it, past their confinement, through the walls between worlds to find it there, waiting. Angry.

“Come!” he commanded.

“You shouldn’t have told me we were in Oblivion!” Sul shouted.

And all around them glass whinged and shattered.

Colin had to run. Out the window, down the street, away. Everything in him screamed for him to run.

That’s how mice die, the small sane part of him thought. They see the shadow of the hawk, they run …

He remembered the man he’d stabbed again, the confusion in his eyes as the blade struck him, the desire to live, to breathe just a little longer. Had he been the hawk then? He hadn’t felt like one.

A boy was once born with a knife instead of a right hand …

He felt tired. He wanted to give up, get it over with. But there was a rot in the core of the Empire, in the palace itself. And only he seemed to care.

So he drew himself in, held the darkness to him closer than a lover, and tried to clear his mind as he heard the thing come around the corner.

He felt its gaze touch him, but he kept his own on the floor, knowing that if he saw it, he would lose all control. The stairs creaked beneath its weight, and he felt it brush by him. It paused for a long moment, then continued up.

A few moments later it came down, turned back around the corner. After what seemed an eternity, he felt the air wrench again, followed by the quiet opening and closing of the door. The house was still.

He sat there, unable to move, until the smell of smoke brought him out of it. Heart thudding, he ran downstairs.

The fire was already everywhere on the ground floor, but he could still see that the bodies looked almost as if they had exploded. It would take hours to figure out how many of them there were.

He went back up and out through the window. He wished he’d been able to search the house, to find some clue as to Arese’s reason for wanting the prince dead.

And for that matter, why she hadn’t killed the prince herself.

A few questions in the right places would tell him which crime lord had just died, but that was moot at this point. No, he’d found out what he really wanted to know—Arese arranged the massacre.

The next question—the most dangerous one—was whether she was working alone, or just the point of a larger knife.

Attrebus had the barest glimpse of something horrible before he found himself suddenly free of both detention and support; he was falling. He reached out desperately and caught one of the broken tubes, which was whipping about like a dying snake.

He turned his gaze up and saw the thing again, a phantasmal mass of chitinoid limbs and wings that felt like scorpion and hornet and spider all together. A lot of the strands—including those holding him—had been shattered by its arrival, but plenty were groping at it now from farther away, trying to wrap it up as it surged toward Vuhon. It tore through them, but they slowed it down.

Vuhon—still supported—stood, and a long whip of white-hot flame lashed out at the thing. One of its claws fell off, but the same attack sheared through the protecting tubes.

Attrebus was now below and behind Vuhon, and the tendrils seemed to have forgotten him. He sheathed Flashing so as to free both hands. The tube he held was now swaying rhythmically; when it came nearest Vuhon, he grabbed another and began climbing toward him. The nearer he got, the easier it was, for the web was still thickest beneath the enemy.

Another flaming chunk of beast fell past him, and he tried to climb faster. If Vuhon was distracted by the thing, he might have a chance, but if he wasn’t, that whip of flame would turn on him.

He was still twenty feet away when what passed for the daedra’s head came off, and Vuhon’s quick gaze found him. Suddenly the tendrils became rigid again, and Attrebus howled in frustration.

That was when Sul came hurtling down from above and smashed into the glassy foliage that held him. Attrebus had a glimpse of him, of the blood on his lips and the drooling from his nose, and then Sul’s wiry hand pushed through to grasp his shoulder. The Dunmer’s eyes were tortured and his voice cracked.

“Not now,” he said.

The falling-everywhere-at-once sensation hit him again, and Umbriel vanished.

EPILOGUE

Annaïg sat with Glim for an hour weeping, turning her gaze out to a world that wouldn’t have her anymore.

“I don’t understand,” Glim murmured. “We weren’t born here.”

Annaïg looked at her friend’s forlorn face, sighed, and wiped away her tears.

Enough of that, she thought.

“I don’t understand either,” she said. “But I’m going to.”

“What do you mean?” Glim asked.

“We can’t leave. We have to go back, and I have to figure out how to—cure this, fix it, whatever’s causing this.”

“Everything doesn’t have a cure or a fix,” Glim replied. “Sometimes there really isn’t any going back.”

No,” she said softly, thinking of Lilmoth, of her father, of a life now more like the memory of a dream than anything that had ever been real. She had been dreaming, hadn’t she? Playacting. This was the first real thing that had ever happened to her.

“No,” she repeated. “Glim, we go forward. But I promise you, forward will one day take us away from here. Just … not now.”

And so they sat together for a while longer before going back down to the dock, and there they said their goodbyes.

Coming out of the pantry, she stopped at the threshold. Even the hobs were gone now, and the kitchen—for another few hours—would be truly silent.

And she imagined she saw herself again, that ghost of her with that faint smile on her face, looking confident, effective, filled with secrets.

“Okay,” she said, softly. “Okay.”

And she entered the kitchen.