Opportunities

Seven: What Is the Mystery

This time I spent several days in what we were apparently calling Dunbarrow Cove. I practiced on Tahm’s lockboxes, got acquainted with Khafiz’s pet boar, played with the boys a couple more times. Zedrick was the only one worth bothering to talk to afterward: while I learned that Jak didn’t really mean to be an ass, he wasn’t very interesting either.

But since my sexual favors actually weren’t going to be part of the regular pay for everyone, I needed to go out and get the money to hire the rest of our crew. Anyway, it was almost the seventh of the month, and time to meet Othrelos in Skingrad. I wanted to know why he’d been so short with me, and whether it was likely to happen again. I wanted things to be right between us – although I did hope he wasn’t going to change his mind again about the money, now that I’d spent it elsewhere.

I shouldn’t have worried. I arrived early and stayed a day late, but never saw him. Whatever his problem with me was, it was worse than I’d thought. Bad enough to wipe away years of – I hadn’t even done anything!

Eventually I gave up and made my way back to Bravil, but the disappointment followed me. Suddenly realizing that I could actually lose Othrelos’s friendship made me feel more keenly how all-pervasive it had been, my one support system. I had depended on him to be there, more than I ever had on anyone else. How stupid of me.

I was feeling quite sulky by the time I reached S’krivva, and then she told me to turn right around and go back to Skingrad, where the thief who’d been sent after a book for the Gray Fox’s “research” had gone missing. The thief, Theranis, was ultimately expendable, but the book, The Lost Histories of Tamriel, was not.

So back I went to the city that now hurt my feelings a little. It didn’t take long to bribe the story out of a beggar: Theranis had gotten the book out of Castle Skingrad, but then had made the mistake of bragging about it at the Two Sisters Lodge rather than leaving town right away. And the even bigger mistake of doing it while an off-duty guard was in the room. Now he was in jail, and being denied visitors.

That was going to make matters a bit more difficult. But a bit more asking around town revealed that the Count’s butler, Shum gro-Yarug, might be hiring people for temporary work. I talked to him and got myself what he considered the worst of the jobs he had to offer, but for me was the plum: “slop drudge,” in charge of taking meals down to the prisoners.

He even paid me. Not much, to be sure.

There was only one prisoner down in the cells, and it turned out not to be Theranis. “Pft, you can’t be surprised,” he said in response to my look. “Nobody lasts long down here. It’s the Pale Lady.”

I’d already heard that many prisoners in Skingrad never came out again – the Count’s harshness against crime, most people said, a deterrent. I’d never heard a word about a “pale lady.” I stepped in closer to the bars. “Tell me what you know about Theranis,” I murmured, “and I’ll let you out of here.”

Some odd mix of relief and terror washed over his features, and the story tumbled out of him quickly. The Pale Lady came at night, took people from their cells, and then deposited them again before dawn. Three times, and then the prisoners never came back again. Theranis had been taken for his third time days ago, and now another prisoner, an Argonian, had been taken for his first. The Argonian had struggled, and there were blood stains still on the floor.

An Argonian male, dragged away kicking and screaming by a small, pale woman. Something was really wrong.

True to my word, I picked the lock on the cell door and left it slightly ajar, suggesting that he wait until I had gone to make his escape. He whispered thanks to me over and over again as I began to follow the trail of blood splatters. It led me down through a series of secret passages that might have been harder to find had I not trained my eye to that sort of thing, or had there not been this red path laid out so clearly.

I passed through the false back of a wine cask, down one last hallway, and into the room where the Pale Lady was already waiting for me. “Pale” was clearly a relative term: she’d been an elderly Dunmer woman when she’d been bitten, her skin an ashy light blue-gray and her hair white. She hissed at me, her sunken face full of hatred and fear – fear, because I was healthy, free, and carrying a weapon. She hadn’t taken to feeding on half-starved prisoners because she was comfortable in a fight.

In fact I wasn’t quite sure whether she was trying to rush at me or past me, but I didn’t stake my life on the odds that she would run away. I struck her as hard as I could with my blade, and kept striking until she stopped moving or making noise.

A vampire. Normally I wasn’t supposed to kill on the job, but I was sure even S’krivva would make an exception for defending myself against a vampire.

There was a dead body lying off in the corner of the room, and I was afraid it was probably Theranis. I started to search his body on the off chance that he would still have the book on him, although I knew that was stupid.

“Thank the Nine,” a rough voice cried out behind me. “I thought I’d never – wait. Luminara?”

I turned around, noticing now the little cell at the opposite end of the room and the Argonian prisoner still inside it. “Amusei!” I felt like slapping myself in the head. Or him. “What did you get caught for this time?”

“Stealing a fish,” he said, his head bowed in shame.

“A fish. You can’t even steal a fish and not get caught. Are you on a mission to see the inside of every prison cell in Tamriel?”

“I know, I know. I should really join the Guild, shouldn’t I?”

“What you should really do is find another line of work. Barring that, yes, at least in the Guild maybe somebody could train you.”

“Look,” he said urgently. “I know I already owe you one.”

“Yes, I’m going to let you out,” I interrupted, already fishing for a pick. “And then it will be two.”

“If you’ll make it three and see me all the way out of here, I’ll tell you what Theranis told me. He had a message for the Guild.”

I worked on the lock to the cell. “You’d better be telling the truth,” I snarled, “and it had better be good. Or I’m not going to be this nice the next time.”

I led him back through the wine cellar and out of the castle. Fortunately, he was capable of staying low and quiet if he was directed properly. Once we were clear of the building, he told me that Theranis had hidden the book in a bush behind Nerastarel’s house. Having heard Amusei’s promise to join the Guild and waved him off, I determined which house that was and recovered the book easily enough. It seemed to be about a set of sacred documents called the Elder Scrolls, on which prophecies appeared and shifted: when a thing happened its text became fixed forever, leaving a completely true and unchangeable account of history.

I took the book back to S’krivva, and with my pay she gave me an encouraging talk about my efficiency. I wasn’t actually sure what to do with myself next: the pay was less than half what I’d need to hire another pirate, so there was no point going back to Anvil yet. I could go back to Chorrol and try there again, Othrelos’s disapproval be damned, but if I did that – if I did that, there was something else I should do first.

I went to Cheydinhal to find Guilbert, and again, I found him at the Newlands Lodge. He laughed at my nonsense when I asked if he’d ever been on a drinking binge in Chorrol; but when I said the name Reynald he went white, his eyes widening in shock. “Take me there,” he said at once, leaping to his feet.

Luckily for him, I had no other business in town. As we walked to Chorrol, he told me the story. When he’d been a child, his family had lived on a farm outside Chorrol. They’d been far enough out in the country to be vulnerable, and one day, while the father was off in town, they’d been attacked by something – he remembered it as being ogres, but admitted he’d been very young. The father had returned to find his wife dead, Guilbert hiding and terrified, and his twin brother Reynald missing. After a search, he had given Reynald up for dead, and he and Guilbert had moved to the other end of Tamriel to be away from the site of their grief. A few years ago he had died and left Guilbert alone in Cheydinhal.

Guilbert was so anxious about the possibility that his brother was really alive that I didn’t ask him why his father had been willing to give up his other son for dead without having found the body, or how long he’d waited before doing so. It didn’t seem like a moment when cynicism would be welcome.

Reynald, of course, was drunk again. Or still. He gaped as we approached him. “I’ll be damned,” he drawled. “He is me.”

Guilbert introduced himself and explained their relationship, his voice quavering with emotion, and had to repeat the story a few times before Reynald understood. When he finally did, they embraced and thanked me for giving them family.

What I’d actually given Guilbert was a drunk he’d be taking care of for the rest of his life, but I kept my mouth shut and smiled for them anyway. While they started catching up, I got myself a room and went to sleep.

Guilbert came back to see me the next day. “You’ve done us such a tremendous favor,” he said, looking a little awkward, “and I’d like to ask if you would do us another one.”

I shrugged noncommittally, and feeling encouraged, he continued. “I’m wondering what became of Weatherleah, our old farm. I don’t want to leave Reynald here, and I can’t take him until I know it’s safe, and – I would pay you. That isn’t awkward, is it?”

“No, it isn’t awkward. Where is the farm?”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t remember exactly. I was so young. Perhaps someone in town would know.”

I smirked. “You know I’m a stranger here, right? Maybe you and Reynald should ask around, and get back to me.”

And meanwhile, I could finally rob that house like I’d been about to when Othrelos showed up to fight with me. All their furniture was covered with dog hair, but a few of their other things were nice. They were things Othrelos wouldn’t have left behind if he’d robbed them first. What, had he broken in for the sole purpose of yelling at me?

I decided to spend a quiet evening in my room while I waited to hear back from the Jemane brothers. I assumed it must be them when the knock came at my door. But it wasn’t: it was Fathis Ules and some Argonian thug.

Fathis was as short as a Bosmer, and he wore his hair swept up into two little points, a style I’d only ever seen on older meri who had lived in Morrowind. He carried himself like an exiled prince, and he actually looked less stupid in furs than the Count of Leyawiin.

He grinned at me like I was a long-lost friend. “Luminara! I was about to travel back to the Imperial City, but I heard you were in town. What brings you here?”

“Same thing that brings me anywhere else. People with money and things I want.” I forced myself to keep a casual posture.

“You should invite me in.”

I would rather not have, but it would probably lead to trouble if I didn’t, so I stepped aside and let them enter and close the door.

“I’ve never seen you since you joined the Guild,” he said in a pained voice. “And we used to be so close.”

“You were close to my father, not me.”

“I would have hired you myself if I’d known you were ready.”

I took a deep breath. “I would not have worked for you.”

His smile was not really very pleasant. “I’m sure I would have found some way to persuade you.”

I had no intention of letting him cow me. “Don’t be. I am not my father.”

“But you are your father’s child.” He stepped closer to me, lowered his voice. “Do you have any idea how much he owed me?”

“Two thousand septims. And it’s been paid.” Othrelos had paid it, hadn’t he?

“Not even close. You alone were worth more than that.” He took another step, now uncomfortably close.

He meant the time my father had used me as a bet. “That was a separate debt. I paid that one myself.”

“Oh, no. You paid me three hundred septims. Did you really think that was your value?” He touched my cheek, and I jerked away. “But Armand showed up, you see.”

Armand – that was right, he had. I remembered how Othrelos had insisted on Armand as my doyen.

“He would have gone straight to the Gray Fox if I’d collected,” Fathis went on, “and our Guildmaster – well. He has that silly Imperial notion that mer, men, and beasts are all equal.”

To cover my growing alarm I put on a toothy grin. “I’ll be sure to share your views with S’krivva. She finds the old Dunmer attitude so amusing.”

“Yes, S’krivva,” he said with clear distaste, and withdrew a step. Good, the effect I wanted. “Still, I think you and I will come to an understanding in the end. I am known for being persuasive.” He glared at me. “And stubborn.” He waved over his shoulder at the Argonian, who opened the door for him.

I hurried across the room to close it again behind them. My value. He still expected more payment from me, apart from my father’s debt. Did Othrelos know? It would explain why he’d been so paranoid about me crossing paths with Fathis, certainly. But then why hadn’t he just warned me?

He hadn’t even bothered to tell me the amount. Well, I had S’krivva to discourage him, of course. He wasn’t going to cross S’krivva to get me, no matter how much he thought I was worth. He’d never dare anything in the Imperial City, and I could just not come to Chorrol again – those were the two places he spent the most time himself.

Nonetheless, I was feeling more wary when the next knock came half an hour later, the one that really was Guilbert with proper directions to his farm.

I went there the next morning, and found it overrun – by ogres, funnily enough, these many years later. I really wished I’d learned how to shoot better, or cast fireballs, or something else that maintained a comfortable distance. I was getting better with a sword, but even so, I was more about finesse than raw power, and the latter was really the thing wanted against such a huge opponent.

And yet I felt somehow compelled to handle it myself so the twins wouldn’t have the trauma of fighting the kind of monsters that killed their mother, right where it had happened. They seemed like the sort to see that as a trauma rather than an opportunity for retribution. So I sneaked in, cut, ran away, sneaked in, cut, ran away, over and over again. It took forever.

The Jemanes were thrilled to see their old house again, even though it was a complete wreck, and Guilbert immediately started making noises about restoring it. And he did in fact pay me.

That put an end to my business in Chorrol, so I quickly put it behind me and ran up to Bruma, where I sold my other earnings to Ongar. From there I made my way back down toward Anvil. Instead of hitting more houses in the towns, I went back to my first skill, picking pockets. On the road I took to rolling bandits in honor of Mazoga.

So by the time I got home – that was how I was coming to think of Dunbarrow Cove – I could pay for two more pirates to join the crew. My first pick was an archer, a Bosmer woman named Melliwin, because I was tired of not being able to deal with an enemy at a distance. The second was Kovan Kren, a Dunmer spymaster who brought a well-abused target dummy with him. It turned out to be a sign of his love for swordplay.

The last two just followed me home like stray dogs: Scurvy John Hoff and Yinz’r. Word had gotten out that I was hiring, they said, and that Zedrick was going to be leading the expeditions. I hadn’t realized it, but he actually did have a reputation among others of his profession. Now that there really seemed to be a plan coming together, they were willing to sign up on the assumption that there’d be pay later.

So now he had enough of a crew to actually man his ship. He was overjoyed. He did have the sense not to show his enthusiasm by groping me publically – that would have been a bad example to the men, after all – and anyway, the new gleam in his eye clearly had more to do with getting back to his calling than with sex.

“Well?” I cried when we had everyone gathered, and I waved an arm around grandly. “What do I pay you all for? Get out to that ship and earn me back my investment!”

They responded with a bloodthirsty roar of approval, and fairly stampeded away. Within minutes there was no trace of them, and I was alone. All alone in an abandoned wreck within an enormous cave.

…Well. What did I care about that? More ale for me. I drank myself sick.