dongzhongshu

Northbound

 

The grace of a god seems harsh to mortal minds; sheep feel a shepherd’s care as idle cruelty. To be all-knowing is above all to know when no mercy is to be had. (Teachings of the Saints, “Saint Evanleih.”)

Out of the blue star of the leyfocus, expecting fire, the body’s mute memory cringing at the expected flame; the shudder and void of here forced to become there, and then the shock of icy darkness and the choking grip of the sea around her throat. Shaking free of unseen fronds toward light shining dim through a broken roof, the shimmer of the moon above her, realizing the passage had partially failed, stripping her of all baggage, even clothing, a snow-pale nakedness breaking the surface and splashing wildly, never much of a swimmer at the best of times, water-scrambling to cling to slippery ledges and draw herself up. There was nothing there but the ragged stone of an ancient wall, barnacle-sharp above the waves, barely enough room to heave up and collapse, squeezing eyes shut, coughing and feverish; and then exhaustion overcame her and she curled up and lost consciousness, safe for the moment at the highest point of the ruin, a moonlit streak in the night against the gleaming grey stone.

Years later, she would rediscover the remains of that ancient leyfocus, originally built on an island off the coast, but abandoned for centuries as the sea rose and the land subsided until finally it was submerged. She saw then how lucky she’d been; if it had been high tide when she made her passage, she would surely have drowned. She must have been rescued before the water rose again, though of that she could remember nothing, thank the gods.

Days passed. She would never find out exactly how many. When she woke from her fever, thin and trembling, she found herself on a cot in a single-room hut. The hut was empty otherwise, except for a few pieces of furniture, light shining through a door open just a crack, the windows curtained. It was daytime, but the silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves as a breeze passed.

Irileth called out, but no one answered. Her fever was gone, but she still felt very weak. She tried to get up, but could only roll off the cot and onto the floor, landing on hands and knees. Someone had clothed her in a loose shift, but her feet were bare. It took several attempts before she could stand without the room pivoting gently around her. When she was quite sure that she could walk without falling, she carefully made her way over to the door and pushed it open.

Here would be the people who had saved her life, she thought as she stepped out, looking cautiously around her. Why are they so quiet? The hut faced onto an open, grassy area. Several paces away, a girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, lay with her arms around the neck of a shaggy brown dog. Then the stench hit Irileth, and she began to choke.

The girl was a corpse, her eye sockets alive with maggots. The dog was dead, its stomach bloated and its legs sticking out grotesquely. A cloud of flies danced around them

There were about thirty huts in the village, which was at the head of a small inlet where boats still floated at the docks. Nets were still spread out to dry, but the catch had rotted and the dock stank too badly to approach. Every one of the people was dead. Most of them had died indoors. Irileth didn’t enter any of the huts. She called at the doors of each one, but only the flies answered. In the end, because of the stink, she took what clothes and food and other necessities she lacked from the two or three huts that were empty of death.

Finally, she went back to the hut where she had woken that morning. Walking around it, she saw that wood and brush had been stacked against the backs and sides. There was a barrel; she pried the top off, and found tar. She shuddered. Had they tried to deal with the death she had brought by burning the source of infection, her? The disease had been too fast for them. Or perhaps they simply hadn’t had the heart to light her pyre in the end, to burn the one person who might still be breathing the next day.

She set the hut on fire herself. It seemed the best way to say goodbye, somehow. I’m sorry. I didn’t know this would happen. Then she left, walking up the main road, away from the sea, feeling like Death’s herald taking possession of her realm. She was light-headed, and perhaps this kept her from going mad. It felt no worse, and no more real, than a nightmare.

It was a lovely summer evening. She met no one living, and saw no more dead. But she passed houses by the side of the road that buzzed with flies, and near these, she walked quickly, her eyes turned away.

That night, she slept in yet another empty house, one that seemed to have been a store. She found a map that showed a town or city ahead, the writing on it in a language close enough to her own to understand. Surely, if there were enough people, some might have survived. There was paper in the house too, and pens. Reflexively, as soon as she had settled in and taken care of her immediate needs, she spread out a sheet of paper and drew the Sigil of the Throne, whose protective powers were without parallel, the High Priest had told her. He’d been right, she said to herself. He just hadn’t known what the price would be.

Lying in her borrowed bed that night, the Sigil tucked into a breast pocket in the pretty yellow blouse she had taken from someone never to be known but undoubtedly dead, her mind at peace or perhaps simply battered into submission, she thought to herself, Is this what was supposed to happen? They won’t be overloading the leynet if none of them are alive to use it. That was always one answer, wasn’t it? Go there and kill them all. We didn’t think of it because we aren’t gods.

I thank the gods that I am not a god.

Then she fell asleep, and slept until midmorning.

Tirika looked around the room and grimaced. She was the only Fallanassi there; all of her sisters were either touring the temple or sitting racking their brains, trying to estimate how bad the situation really was. If this was the outside world, she reflected, perhaps they could just keep it. The liquor being served was excellent, its manufacture one of the H’kig’s lesser known talents, but it was also too strong for much indulgence. Tirika doubted that her sisters would be much impressed if she wandered back to their lodgings drunk.

Or perhaps they would understand perfectly, she muttered to herself. Considering how their mission had gone so far. They had arrived on a routine inspection of the system of illusions that hid the continued existence of the Temple of the Infinite Spirit from hostile outsiders to discover half the projections misaligned and the other half simply missing. The devices that the H’kig had contrived to duplicate and reinforce the illusion-creating skills of her people hadn’t worked well at all, and they’d just casually noted the fact, shrugged, and gone about their business. Fatalists. Beings like that give pacifism a bad name, she thought grimly. The galaxy is a harsh enough place without hanging up a Hit Me sign.

Now someone was going to have to clean up the mess. And two or three high-level adepts would have to be stationed out here to maintain the illusions, since it looked as if they could only be kept functioning by expert attention. They were too damned complex to be continually cast from N’zoth, their homeworld, all the way to here.

She cautiously sipped her drink and looked around the room again. At least it wasn’t crowded. None of the handful of other passengers that had come with the freighter had made an appearance. Just the crew, trying to drink themselves into unconsciousness as quickly and decorously as possible, and sitting at the bar, the captain, Erkas Andrakles, no doubt wondering how long he’d be stuck in his home port because of this disaster. They hadn’t told him the details, of course. But they hadn’t concealed their expressions, and these could be read plainly enough.

She took her drink and went to sit beside Andrakles. He looked at her, nodded, and asked, “Going back home this time, or continuing on?”

“I don’t know, Erkas, I really don’t know. I was supposed to go on but they might want all hands on deck with this mess. Another opportunity lost.”

He grunted and addressed his drink again. He knew better than to ask for details. Then he glanced up again as the door swung open.

“Look who we have here. Though since we’re the only ship in port and the only bar in town, why am I surprised?”

A woman had entered, looking around her hesitantly as if she didn’t know quite what to expect. She was wearing a thick coat of local make, like Tirika’s but dark-colored, and the body inside it was as slender as Tirika’s, though she was not quite as tall. Her hair was black, and her skin was a yellowish brown, almost a human color, but not quite. Tirika immediately recognized her as the young Mirialan who had been on the freighter with them. When Tirika was with her sisters, they formed a lively but almost impenetrable group, and so she had only seen the Mirialan once, and had never had the chance to speak with her. But she smiled when she spotted Tirika and Erkas sitting together, and walked over to take a seat at the bar.

“Hello, Captain. Thanks for bringing me here safely. I’m not worried about finding a ship back to a more populated area. I’m not on a tight schedule.”

Erkas smiled back. “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll always be returning, sooner or later. Home port, as far as I have one. I’m comfortable here. The smaller the pond, the bigger the fish feels. But I never stay for very long. Have to follow business.” He nodded toward Tirika and added, “You’re lucky you didn’t have to wait longer to get here. It wasn’t a regular passage. Her people chartered my ship for the run. Otherwise there would have been nothing for quite a long time.”

The Mirialan turned her attention to Tirika. “I should really thank you, then….” She trailed off, a puzzled frown on her face, clearly at a loss to identify Tirika’s people or her home planet.

Tirika wasn’t offended. Fallanassi are accustomed to flying under the radar. In appearance, they are very similar to the other human races, and in addition, they are almost never encountered off their home world.

“I’m with the Fallanassi group here, the people who hired the ship, as Erkas said. My name is Tirika. We have an ancient debt of gratitude for services that the H’kig monks once performed for my people, and so we make occasional visits to return the favor. They aren’t very technology-oriented, so we do repairs on the electronic equipment they can’t do without. You’re a Mirialan, aren’t you? What brings one of your people here? The H’kig are friendly enough to those who respect them, but it’s a long way out of the way to anywhere.”

The woman looked at the table for a moment, tracing a design with her finger in a small pool of spilled liquor. Tirika noticed that the backs of both her hands were covered with tattoos of squares and triangles. After a moment, she looked up and answered softly,

“Yes. My name is Rey, and I am a Mirialan. I’m here to visit the temple. I couldn’t find out much about it in my sources other than the name and brief descriptions, but I felt it was surely an important place, and so I came to see it in person.”

“Felt?” Tirika asked. She was paying very careful attention now.

Rey nodded.

“Felt. You understand, I think. Your people are Force sensitives, of a certain kind; mine are sensitives too, but of a different variety. And I’m a little different from my fellow Mirialans as well.”

“You sensed the location and power of the Temple of the Infinite Spirit by means of the Force?”

Rey shook her head.

“Yes and no. Not so simple. Mirialans can’t sense things at enormous distances, the way you Fallanassi can. But I do have one power that’s unique among my people. I can recognize True Words. Sometimes. I’m not perfect. Often I feel nothing at all.”

She took a deep breath, and accepted with a murmured thanks the glass that the bartender handed to her.

“True Words?” Tirika prompted. Rey nodded, and sipped her drink before continuing.

“If I’m lucky, I can read an account or a description of a people or a practice or a place and instantly know how faithful the record is to the reality it claims to describe. How accurate the writer was. How much knowledge the writer actually had. I can sense the link between the naming and the named. I don’t know if it’s a Force power or not. It’s hard to describe.

“When I read accounts of the Temple of the Infinite Spirit, they were always short and lacking in detail, but I felt at once that there was something greater there. My ability told me clearly that these accounts were True Words, not the empty boasting that some other, more famous shrines indulge in. I knew that the writers had conveyed the facts with sincerity as they understood them, and that they represented a reality that I could not ignore. And so I came.”

“Why couldn’t you ignore it?” Tirika said, and regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Such a blunt question could easily be going too far. Rey didn’t seem to mind, though, and answered readily.

“Because it is a genuine manifestation of what all of us seek, in our different ways. Some approach the spring from the east, some from the west; some in light and some in darkness; some by instinct and some by careful planning. But the water that sustains us all remains the same.”

It was night again. Rielle was in the chapel, standing before the image of the Lady. She was not trying to make sense of all that had happened in the last two or three days. That would come later. She was waiting for something to happen -- for the end, she realized.

The chapel door opened. It was Lady Azura again, the Queen of Dusk and Dawn, a slender white-clad figure still, carrying a very small child. She gestured impatiently to Rielle, and Rielle walked down the length of the chapel to stand before her, bowing her head briefly, keeping it lowered, waiting for the Lady to speak.

"You can look at me, you know. I'm not that frightening, am I?" The Lady paused. "Why don't you ask why I am here?"

Her eyes still lowered, Rielle answered in a soft voice, "As always, I await your pleasure, Lady. I felt that bombarding you with questions as soon as you entered might be disrespectful."

She paused for a moment, and continued. "Where is my mother? Has she gone back to the shrine in the catacombs?"

"No." Azura's tone was sharp, commanding. "She will serve by my side in Moonshadow now. I have decided she can do me more good there than here."

Rielle lifted her gaze then, and looked Lady Azura in the eyes. A flicker of displeasure crossed Azura's face, and Rielle shivered as she caught a glimpse of the barren desert that was all she or any of the other Princes had in place of a soul, the emptiness that all of them tried their best to conceal with their trademark traits of power or pride or extravagance. Or compassion. This was what drove the Lady's hopeless quest, to return time and time again to Mundus to take mortal form and bear new life, only to be mocked by her child's effortless possession of what she could never have.

She said nothing. Azura frowned.

"Why didn't you ask why I summoned your mother? You will never see her again. Is that so little to you?"

"I did not ask, Lady, because I do not think you would have told me. It is your prerogative, and that is enough. Questioning it might have been seen as a demand for justification that would call your authority into question."

Azura shook her head.

"Too much insight in a mortal is a challenge to my authority as well. You might simply be trying to outplay me, to be unpredictable. But I won't complain. I can't ask my new abbess to behave like a fool."

Rielle bowed formally.

"I thank you for the position, Lady of Roses. I will fulfill all of its duties."

"You'd better. Come with me."

Following the Queen of Dusk and Dawn at a respectful distance, Rielle walked with her up into the hills. They took a winding path cut into the hillside near the cave where Abbot Durak had been imprisoned so long ago, until they reached the crest of the hill. There Lady Azura halted, looking out over the Abbey grounds toward the lights of Wayrest shining through the night.

At the crest, Azura halted, rocking her daughter and singing her a little song as Rielle waited. The Lady turned and spoke to Rielle, "Come closer." She pointed out over the hills and forest, toward Wayrest.

"This is all your responsibility now. So many souls. Do you think you're up to it?"

Rielle nodded. "It will be a challenge. But not an impossible one."

The Queen of Dusk and Dawn grunted. "I’d prefer a bit more assurance, but that will have to do, I suppose.  Anyway, your father will retire, and your brother will be the Abbot. He'll probably marry that cute little thing who annoys you so much with her lightheadedness, and they'll have children. But he won't pass the Abbey to them. It will go to your daughter, when she reaches adulthood. I expect great things from her."

"My daughter....?"

Rielle was genuinely puzzled. She had never shown any interest in starting a family, and her father and mother had long since written her off as a nun by nature. What daughter? She shook her head, turning to face the Lady.

"Queen of Dusk and Dawn, I have no daughter, and am not likely to have one. It's just not...."

Her voice trailed off. It was hard to explain.

Azura took the baby in her arms, and gave her to the stunned Rielle, who stood there momentarily incapable of a response.

"My daughter. Now your daughter. It would be foolish to take her from the mortal world. All my children before her have grown up here, lived, and died, never knowing their true parentage. She will be an orphan left on the altar at the Abbey, and you will be her mother. She will inherit the Abbey when you pass to Aetherius, and then... we shall see."

The Lady nodded to herself, some plan for the future in mind, but Rielle was already rocking the baby, who was smiling back at her and blowing bubbles from its mouth. The Queen of Dusk and Dawn gave her daughter one last look, turned, and began to walk off.

Rielle called out, "But how will I feed her? She's not more than a few weeks old."

Azura wagged a finger in return, chuckling.

"So little faith? Just do it. Special arrangements."

Then she faded away, mingling with the light of the rising sun, as Rielle performed her first clumsy experiments in breastfeeding and found that indeed, the Lady had made special arrangements.

"Ancestors..." Manke Dagon grunted. "Least I don't have to worry about them." He stretched and shook his head. "Well, here goes nothing. Wish me luck."

"What are you going to do, exactly?" Borrig asked.

"One, get back to Coldharbor. I'm pretty sure there are others of the Kyn trying to restore some sort of order there. Then to Moonshadow, once I can set up a portal. Might take a while. I have to get hold of the soul gems that hold the animus of the Lady here, before they get lost or damaged. Then... assuming I'm successful... bring them back here, and reverse the conjuration that made her mortal. I'm pretty sure that between all of us, we can do it. It was a voluntary conjuration; it shouldn't resist being reversed. And at that point we have the power of a Daedric Prince to work with again. One prince at least...."

"And then," Azura said in a flat, emotionless voice, "I find and defeat a force that's confounded the Lord of Domination and Cruelty, the Lady of Nightmares, and perhaps all the other of Oblivion's Powers as well. Without knowing in advance what has happened, or why, or who or what is responsible...."

She turned and examined her image for a moment, the Lady Martial as Rielle had nicknamed it, not longer the court lady with a flirtatious air but the stern taskmaster that few of her human worshipers would recognize, though the Dunmer had reason to know it better. Why had they chosen to craft the image in that form? An unconscious prophecy? It didn't matter now. She began to speak again.

"Another irony, the greatest of all, perhaps, that the fate of Mundus lies in the hands of those who felt it should never have been created at all." She looked at her daughter for a moment. "But it was. We could have had nothing to do with it, but we chose to accept it, work with it and in it. And so it became part of us, something we are called to defend, come what may. No matter what the cost.

"I'd think that was a trick of the Aedra to bind us to their beloved Nirn, but I don't think the Aedra are that clever. It's just a consequence of the way things are. What you touch, touches you."