Opportunities

Nine: The One That Saves Me

The Temple of the Ancestor Moths – what a peculiar name – was far off in the middle of nowhere. It was also high up in the mountains, which meant I was so cold when I got there that I feared for my ability to pick locks. The monks welcomed me into their little side house as a visitor, and I took advantage of their hospitality to warm my hands.

There didn’t seem to be anything special about them, really. As they told it, they were monks like any other monks, except that they supported their Temple by spinning and weaving silk. They had this idea that the moths were connected somehow to the souls of their ancestors, and as such, they were housed in a nearby crypt. I thanked them kindly and told them I was going to go in and visit the Temple, and they were happy for me to do so.

I wandered around inside the Temple for a while. I’d thought the Stone might be in its undercroft, since that was where many temples and chapels seemed to keep their special things, but I had no luck there. I did find a booklet describing something obscure about how the moths and their silk related to powers of destiny, and to the Elder Scrolls and their keepers.

Hmm.

I slipped out of the Temple and went to the adjoining crypt. All the monks were still in their house, leaving me free to pick the lock and go inside. Inside there was another locked door, and that one led down into a huge, dark maze. Stores of food, mostly, it seemed, and –

And someone. I stopped very still, glad I hadn’t yet assumed it was safe to cast a light. He seemed to move comfortably through the darkness – blind priests, the booklet had said. Blinded over years of reading the Elder Scrolls, and then housed down here.

Actually a light would have been fine. I just had to be quiet.

I moved slowly, passing five of them before I reached the door down to the next floor. Beds and storage, here, and several more blind priests. I was starting to worry that it was all a fool’s errand, but then I opened the door to the third floor down, and immediately had to pass a living skeleton.

Unlike the priests, it could see the light I’d started using, so I had to fight my way past it. The way branched, and I tried going right. Having doused my light in case of more skeletons, I almost walked into the first spike trap.

I thought I must be getting somewhere. Half a dozen spike pits, and then another undead thing, and then tripwires. Yes, there was certainly something up ahead less innocuous than housing for retired priests.

Behind one more locked door was a short hall into a large open chamber. Up on a platform there were two columns holding shining stones, one dark and one lovely red. Between them stood one more priest, this one holding a sword.

But he stared right past my light, blind like the rest of them. Brilliant protection, there: they must have been trusting in the traps a little too much. With my most practiced and quiet steps, I started to move forward toward the platform. The black stone suddenly flared to life, and I could actually hear the sucking in of magicka that came right before a blast of destructive energy.

Oh.

I ran toward the red stone, dodging the first shot. The priest startled at the explosion behind me, and turned to face it. As I rushed past him and grabbed the stone, he spun and took a swing in my direction. I ducked and rolled, tumbling off the platform as the black stone gathered its force for another blast. I’d never make it back to the door – but I saw a side passage and ran for it. Again, the destruction spell exploding covered the sound of my feet, and I lost the priest.

I was far down the hall and around the corner when I stopped to catch my breath. I glanced back: he wasn’t following, and the stone had gone silent. Dark Welkynd stone, it must have been. I’d read about them, never expecting to see one. I didn’t want to see another.

I was now in what seemed to be the guardian’s bedchamber. A bedroll, a chest – a scroll. What would a blind man need with a scroll? Curious, I picked it up and read it. At some point, this priesthood had developed an interest in Nocturnal’s Cowl. The Gray Fox’s cowl. They wanted to find it, find a way to use it for themselves… except that they had to proceed with caution and only after more research, because the cowl was cursed.

Whosoever wears it shall be lost in the shadows. His true nature shall be unknown to all who meet him. His identity shall be struck from all records and histories. Memory will hide in the shadows, refusing to record the name of the owner to any who meet him. He shall be known by the cowl and only by the cowl.

He’d told me his name and challenged me to remember it, and I’d failed and blamed that on my own inattention. He’d known I would fail, because he was cursed with eternal anonymity.

The scroll remained optimistic: All curses can be broken, it said, even those laid by Nocturnal. Oh, certainly. Easy to thwart the will of a deity. I lowered the scroll and stared off in thought. The poor man. The poor – in the direction I was looking there was a ladder leading upward. A ladder! If I’d looked for another way down, I could have saved myself all that work getting by traps.

The journey back to Bruma was uneventful, and the Gray Fox was still in the same house, waiting for my return. At once he leapt to his feet on seeing me, eyes eager. “Do you have it?”

I pulled Savilla’s Stone from my bag and held it forth for him, and he took it reverently, staring at it. “Capital,” he whispered. “This will help immensely. Well done indeed.”

“What will it help with, if I may ask?”

“No, no, not yet. It’s still too soon.” He put the stone aside and pulled out my payment. “But that was excellent work, Luminara. You’re coming along splendidly.”

“I also found something else.” I brought out the scroll and gave him that. “I wanted to ask you about this. You let me think it was my fault.”

“What was your fault?” He scanned the page, then sighed bitterly. “Ah.”

“Is it true?”

He stared at my feet for a few seconds before he responded. “Yes. The cowl is real, and the curse is real. I am the Gray Fox.” He paused to grimace. “I am no one but the Gray Fox.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said.

That only frustrated him, and he snarled at me. “Of course it doesn’t make sense! I’d have found the way out ages ago if it made sense. Nonetheless it’s true.” He glared. “Today alone I’ve told you my name three times. Do you know it yet?” He paused to give me time to realize I didn’t even remember hearing it, and stare back at him bewildered.

“No,” he said. “It didn’t register. I could say it fifty more times, and it wouldn’t matter. If I took the cowl off and had you study me for an hour, you could walk away, come back, and not know who I was.” He laughed a little. “Do you see how perfect that is? At this point, if I still wanted to be a criminal I’d be better off not wearing it. I put it on when I want to be recognized and take it off when I don’t. I live my whole life backward.”

I placed my hands on his cheeks. “That’s so awful.”

“Stop it.” He grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands away. “I don’t want your pity.”

I was sick of being pushed away by the men I reached out to. “Don’t you? Would you rather I was angry about that little trick you played on me last time, so you wouldn’t have to tell me the truth? I felt awful!”

“Do you think I could have explained it? Do you think you would have believed me?”

“Fine! Then what do you want?”

He still had me by the wrists, and now his gray eyes were locked with mine, and he was panting with annoyance. We stood that way for a moment, and it seemed that he could not find the words.

Instead, he yanked me toward him and pressed his lips over mine, forcing them open with a thrust of his tongue. I melted immediately, meeting his tongue with mine and resting my body against his more deliberately. At first he kept pulling me into him by my wrists, as if afraid I would try to escape. Eventually his hands moved up my arms and around to my back, allowing me to wrap my arms around his waist.

The kiss broke into a series of shorter, fiercer ones as he began to open my shirt from the bottom up. That was as far as he got with undressing me: then he traced down my throat and across my chest with his mouth, grazing his teeth over my skin. I hummed with pleasure as the rakes progressed into bites and moved up again toward my neck.

He kissed me once more and looked me in the face, his lips parted with obvious desire but his eyes still full of frustration. As I tried to reach for his shirt, he spun me forcefully away from him and leaned me forward against the desk where he’d set the Stone.

I growled, thwarted again. “I wasn’t going to – ”

“Shush.” He pinched both nipples at once, and I gasped and arched back toward him. With a hum of satisfaction he pinched again, and as I moaned he started to suck at the back of my neck. I rubbed my ass against him, the only gesture I really had available at this angle. He let go of my breasts to free himself from his trousers and then hitch my skirt up around my hips.

“What do I want?” he whispered. “I want to go home.”

He leaned on me heavily as he pressed into me, and my elbows ground uncomfortably into the wood of the desk. His arms came back around me and he kneaded at my breasts. He was being more forceful this time, less gentle, and I bit my lip happily and used my leverage on the desk to push back hard against his thrusts.

His fingertips dug into my skin. “I want the woman I love to look into my eyes and say my name!”

We were slamming into each other hard enough to make the desk shake. His morose speech ended with a moan and a bite to my shoulder, and for a while after that there was no sound except for our heavy breathing and the rhythmic clash of the desk and the wall. I clenched my thighs together to make the way as tight as I could, to provide the resistance he seemed to need to drain his tension. That was fabulous for me, too, a wave of intensified sensation that made me throw back my head and grin. He reared up, holding me now by the shoulders as he picked up speed. I could hear him panting as hard as I was, and his loud gasp as he came and fell down against me again.

His hands clenched into my shoulders for a second, and then he stepped away from me. “Celia needs his house back,” he announced, sounding slightly uneven. “We should go. You should go.” He tugged my skirt back down over me and then retreated to the other side of the room as I straightened my back and rebuttoned my shirt.

“This again,” I frowned. “You’re ashamed.”

“Not of you. Of myself.”

“For being with me.”

He raised a hand to his forehead. “Gods, Luminara, this is not at all helpful to either of us. I will call for you when I’ve finished my work with the Stone, when I know how we should proceed.”

I realized what the problem was. “You feel like you’re being unfaithful to her. Even though she doesn’t – ”

Even though she doesn’t know who you are, and never will. And never can.

“Yes, yes!” he cried. “Will you just go?”

He was miserable, and everything I did seemed to make it worse. I left.

I went down to Skingrad, suspecting that there was no point to it but somehow compelled to make the attempt anyway. As with the month before, Othrelos didn’t come. If he didn’t come for two months straight, I supposed that meant he wasn’t likely to come back again at all. I spent a couple of days drinking to celebrate how free and open my life was: when I reached the point of actually wondering whether I should go down to Leyawiin and visit my mother for support I decided I’d had enough.

All the same, I went there to see Mazoga. I couldn’t think of much else to do with myself. The city was still buzzing with wild rumors: a few weeks before, Lex’s predecessor as Watch captain, Adamus Phillida, had been found murdered in Leyawiin, and the Arch-Mage had been questioned and cleared. Apparently some people still thought she’d killed him, but the local Mages’ Guild was sticking up for her.

I didn’t really want to think about the local Mages’ Guild, though, so I went to the lodge instead, to see if Mazoga was of a mind to take me bandit hunting. But that didn’t seem to be what she wanted to talk about once she saw me. “Luminara!” She grabbed me quickly around the shoulders in a rough sort of hug, and then just as quickly let me go. “You heard, then?”

“About what? Phillida? I didn’t know him.”

“No.” Her eyes widened. “Then you haven’t. I didn’t think I’d be the one telling you. This is really awkward.” She rubbed at the back of her own neck in consternation. “Your mother’s dead. She was sick or something.” She fell silent and stared at me, looking for my reaction.

She probably expected some kind of emotional response. I knew that it would have been customary to have one. But the woman had spent most of my life systematically destroying any spark of warm feeling between us, and I didn’t find any springing miraculously to life just because she was dead.

“All right,” I said coolly. “How long ago was this?”

“Couple of weeks. They wanted you at the Guild and didn’t know how to get a hold of you.”

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go. Want to come? Yvette won’t be there.” I snickered, then stopped when Mazoga reacted with a look of horror.

Agata understood my frame of mind a bit better, greeting me with an embrace but no other attempt at comfort, or at eliciting sorrow from me. “Some exotic disease she picked up in her travels,” she told me. “Alves figures it was something sexually transmitted.”

I snorted. “Naturally.”

Agata gave me a wan smile back. “Naturally. I just hope she didn’t manage to spread it all over Tamriel. I don’t know if it was something that would have been curable. I don’t know if she even knew. I don’t suppose she said anything to you the last time you were here?”

“No.” If she had known, she wouldn’t have told me. What would the point have been? I was just her good-for-nothing daughter.

We parted on “you’ll always be welcome here” noises, and I went off to hunt bandits with Mazoga, who didn’t make me insist very hard. We made a bit of money on black bows, although I had Mazoga collect for all of them so as to avoid running into the Countess and her sadistic handmaiden. I wasn’t in the mood to take another beating to cover the tracks of a job I’d already finished. It didn’t sound like as much fun in this context.

This time it was Amusei who finally came to get me, which I found bewildering. The Gray Fox wanted to meet with me, this time in Chorrol. After assuring myself several times that Fathis was probably in the Imperial City and that I would be with the Guildmaster and thus untouchable in any case, I made the journey north.

“Good to see you,” he said quietly. “I’m… sorry we parted awkwardly before. I hope it’s not going to be a problem?”

I could be professional. “No, it isn’t.” I crossed my arms. “Why in the world would you send Amusei?”

He chuckled. “Methredhel is a bit sharper than I’d thought, so she’s learning how to work as a doyen. Amusei, on the other hand, seems much better used as a courier than a thief.”

“Well, yes. I’d have to agree with that.”

“I’ve been working with the Stone, and it turns out that we’re going to need something special for my plan to work. It’s called the Arrow of Extrication. You’re going to find it in Bravil, in the possession of Fathis – ” he paused to regard my startle response, and then finished with “ – Aren. The court wizard of Bravil. Fathis Aren.” He looked at me soberly. “You’re still having trouble with Fathis Ules?”

“No.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Why do you keep someone like him in the Guild?”

“It’s the Thieves’ Guild. If I got rid of everyone unsavory, who would be left?” He frowned. “All the same, if there’s something you need me to handle…?”

“No, there isn’t.” Not at the moment, anyway. But it was good to have the confirmation that he’d stand behind me if it turned out that I needed that.

“Good. I don’t want any distractions.” He cleared his throat. “Kill Aren if you have to,” he said quietly, “but – but try not to do it in the castle itself. Out of respect to S’krivva.”

The usual tour of local beggars in Bravil gave me plenty of information to work with. Fathis Aren was a conjurer with both a room in the castle and a tower outside the city walls. The latter was impassably locked, but rumor had it that there was an underground passage linking it to the former. So, to the castle it was.

The biggest problem was getting past the guards flanking the door to the north wing of the castle. I was finally saved by a scullery maid who came by to flirt with them. I found Aren’s quarters and searched them, finding several nice sellable items but no arrow. I scoured the room for the odd architectural flourishes that tended to flag secret doors, and found what I needed without much effort.

What I found was not so much a “passage” as a tangled mess of tunnels that doubled back on themselves, and a gate that refused to open. In one of the tunnels there was a deep chasm filled with water, and I supposed that was my last hope to find a way through. It took several dives before I spotted the tunnel, and by the time I emerged into new territory my lungs were burning, and I had to rest for a few minutes before I went on.

Then there were the daedra, and the other conjurers – because apparently Fathis Aren had friends or apprentices who made use of the area as well. Daedra were not so easy to sneak past as people, and I had to draw my sword against most of them.

Aren himself, on the other hand, was charmingly oblivious, and I slipped past him with no trouble. Among his things I found a key to let me out of the tower the easy way, but still no arrow. Only an arrowhead, an odd-looking one shaped a little bit like a key. I couldn’t imagine it flying true, but there was a slight charge on it that I supposed was meant to correct for its peculiar shape.

So with that, I made my way back to Chorrol and the house where the Gray Fox was, again, waiting.

“I didn’t kill anything but daedra,” I told him, “but I’m not sure you’re going to be happy with what I’ve got.” I pulled out the arrowhead and laid it in his outstretched hand. “That’s all that was left of the arrow.”

“Oh dear.” He held it up and studied it. “That’s not going to do.” He turned it over in his hand a couple of times, then sighed. “I’ll have to see if a fletcher can reproduce the arrow correctly. At least we have the point.”

“What is it for, exactly?”

“Just what it looks like. It’s a key.”

“A key that has to be on the end of an arrow?”

He pocketed the arrowhead. “I’ll explain it all when we get to that part. Right now I have to worry about fixing it. That and paying you, of course.” He pulled out my money.

I took it from his hand quickly, and even so, I felt him draw back, avoiding extended contact. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” I muttered. “I’m not going to throw myself at you.”

He snorted. “Thank you. I was more concerned about myself.” Then he turned slightly away, and added after a moment’s hesitation, “That… that mustn’t happen again. It isn’t right.”

“Because of the Countess.”

He exhaled slowly. “Yes.”

“Why her?”

I thought at first he would refuse to answer, but after a moment I realized he was looking wistful rather than defensive. “I saw her walking out on the shore once,” he said quietly. “Many years ago. Laughing. Back before all her troubles with the Count, she used to laugh at everything. The sun was in her hair.” He sighed. “I loved her instantly.”

“But she married the Count?”

He frowned. “But she married the Count. Even though he was just slightly more reputable than the Count of Bravil. And then he vanished, and now she doesn’t laugh.” He looked at me, bitter. “And what can I do now?”

“So you’ve never – ” I stopped short. A stupid question to which I already knew the answer.

He pursued the thought anyway. “I’ve never what? Courted her as a man with no name and a face she will never remember? Accosted her as a notorious criminal?” He waved away the look I gave him. “Never mind that. I told you, I don’t want your pity. At any rate, it all comes down to whether I can fix this arrow.”

My confusion over what the two subjects had to do with each other, he also ignored. “And now,” he went on with a smirk, “I believe you owe me a story in exchange. Why Othrelos?”

I looked down at my feet. I didn’t want to talk about Othrelos. Then again, I supposed he hadn’t wanted to talk about Millona.

“I’ve known him forever,” I said. “Ever since I moved to the Imperial City. He taught me, he looked out for me. He was the reason I joined the Guild – I remember telling you.” He nodded. I smiled a little in spite of myself. “He was so warm. He was better to me than anyone has ever been.”

“And this is all in past tense because?”

“Because I haven’t seen him in two months.” There, we’d come back to the reason I hadn’t wanted to talk about him. Now I felt sour. “Because the last time I did see him he yelled at me, practically ordered me away from him, and he hasn’t come to the meetings we arranged since then.”

He nodded. “So you’re willing to give up for the sake of your pride.”

“What?” I scowled. “I didn’t give anything up. He sent me away.”

“Are you sure you know why?” I stared at him for a moment without answering, and he sighed. “You don’t know, then. You’re guessing. You’re assuming the worst from him because it’s what you think you get from everyone. Sometimes there’s more going on than what you see, Luminara.” He looked distant, almost sad. “If he never tried to hurt you before, maybe he still hasn’t tried to hurt you.”

And that was when I finally put the pieces together. Othrelos had told me he’d paid my father’s debt; Fathis had told me that debt was much more than I’d realized; Othrelos had developed this paranoia about Fathis.

Othrelos was in debt to Fathis, to protect me. Away from home doing who knew what, trying to pay back the gods only knew how much, all for me, and I’d not only blithely accepted that kind of sacrifice, but took offense when he didn’t act happy enough about it.

“Oh, gods,” I whispered. “I’m my mother.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

I folded my hands behind my neck. “You have no idea what a bad thing that is.”

He snickered at me. “Then it’s probably not beyond fixing yet, or you wouldn’t be so upset by it.”

“I hope so.” How in the world would I fix it? At this point, how could I even let Othrelos know that I was willing to try?

The Gray Fox stepped closer to me, his arms folded against any temptation to proceed further than that. “If you want him,” he murmured, “do everything in your power to keep him. Don’t waste your chances.” He glanced toward the door. “Go. I’ll send Amusei for you when I’ve settled the problem of the arrow.”

I fled to the Oak and Crosier – I could afford the inn with real beds now. I barely had time to start pondering the questions my conversation with the Gray Fox had raised in my head when a knock came at the door.

I should have left town immediately after delivering the arrowhead. It was Fathis Ules and his Argonian. Again, I covered my distress with bravado. “Are we going to be running into each other often?” I asked the Argonian as they entered. “Should I learn your name?”

“Hides-His-Heart,” he rasped.

“You’ve concluded your business with the Gray Fox for the moment, I assume,” Fathis said casually. “I was hoping that would leave you some time to discuss our business.”

“We don’t have any,” I said. “There have got to be lots of other less troublesome people you could abduct into slavery. There’s no reason to obsess over the one who got away.”

He laughed, pulling his hands behind his back. “Of course not! At this point you’re much too highly skilled to squander you as someone’s pet, even mine. No, my thought was that I might persuade you to take some jobs for me when you’re not busy with S’krivva or our Guildmaster.”

I tried not to clench my fists, to keep my stance casual. “I don’t see why I would. In fact, I don’t see why I shouldn’t go straight to them and tell them all about your highly irregular request.”

The smile on his lips was far milder than the one in his eyes. “Because I know where Othrelos is.”

I froze, and he paused to revel in my reaction. “Yes,” he cooed, “I thought that would capture your attention. I know he’s been missing your appointments in Skingrad.”

So wrong. I’d been so stupid and wrong.

“Where is he?” I whispered. “Is he all right?”

“I did not get where I am today by giving away valuable information for free.”

I took a step toward him, which caused Hides-His-Heart to take a step toward me. I stopped. “What do you want?” I hissed.

“For now?” He raised his brows and looked off to one side thoughtfully. “I believe you’re acquainted with the brothers Jemane. Their father worked for me. Shortly before the, ah, untimely demise of his wife, he was sent to acquire something for me and failed to deliver it. I now believe that he tried to keep it for himself. He may have hidden it in a cave south of here, or it may be buried somewhere near Weatherleah. I want you to get it back for me.”

I was starting to feel sick. “And what is it, exactly?”

“The Honorblade of Chorrol. Lest you feel tempted to take it to the castle, keep in mind that I will pay you much better for it. Something more valuable than money.” He said the last with a toothy grin I didn’t like at all.

I gave a very small, tight nod, and he responded with a larger one. “Very good. I shall have my eye out for your return to Chorrol, then, and I will expect the blade. Good evening to you!”

With that, he and his henchman left me, and I stood in the middle of the room for a long time trying to get my breath to come in something other than panicked sobs.