The irony of hunting down a thief (when I happen to actually be one) wasn’t lost on me. But then I suppose the phrase is “takes one to know one”. I managed to catch up with Karliah and Enthir in Winterhold, making my way into the bottom of the inn in their company and handing the book and rubbing to Enthir.
“I won’t ask where or how you got this,” Enthir said rather dryly. I grinned but held my peace. He continued to scan the book as Karliah watched rather anxiously, pacing back and forth behind me. I understood her drive a bit more now – after all, her man had been killed by Mercer – but I didn’t know the half of it.
“There’s more to this than you’re telling me,” I murmured to Karliah as Enthir pored over the journal. ”And you told me to wait…but I think I’m in deep enough you can start now, if you don’t mind.”
Karliah looked up at me, frowning slightly, then she sighed, her voice quiet as Enthir worked. ”What do you know about the Nightingales?”
It was my turn to frown now. ”That old tale? Sort of like the Grey Fox, I expect, a myth and story passed down through the circle.”
“No myth at all,” Karliah responded, amethyst eyes glittering. ”I’m a Nightingale myself, as was Mercer and Gallus. A secret order sworn to protect the Shrine of Nocturnal.”
I stared. ”You’ve got to be – no, you wouldn’t joke about something like that, would you?” I sighed, leaning up against the wall and trying to process it all. ”Well, while you wouldn’t have to explain to me why you want revenge on who killed your man, it sounds to me like Mercer has done something a lot more hefty than breaking our code of no-kill.”
“Much more,” Karliah agreed. “He broke a code of the Thieves’ Guild, but more to the point, he broke a code to Nocturnal Herself. And that is something the whole guild has to pay for.”
“Wait,” I said, remembering Delvin’s insistence that the guild had fallen afoul of some grim magic. ”So the guild is actually cursed? It’s not just a rumour?”
“As a member of the Circle, I don’t have to tell you that Nocturnal is luck herself,” Karliah replied. ”She is the one who makes our lockpick snap at a crucial moment or leads us to the best score of the month. For her own reasons, and her own design, mostly. But for this much bad luck…we’ve lost her favour.”
“Mercer lost her favour, you mean,” I interjected. Karliah seemed about to say something else, but it was Enthir who broke in.
“I have it!” Enthir closed the book with a snap, and then sighed, shaking his head. ”It seems Gallus discovered that Mercer was lining his pockets with proceeds from the Guild vault – ‘personal pleasures’, as he put it, I doubt I need to go on. Gallus intended on exposing Mercer to the whole guild and then outsting him.”
“But he kill Gallus before he had the chance,” Karliah murmured grimly. I sighed as well – I felt for her, truly I did. If anyone had dared to hurt Vilkas I would have chased them all over Skyrim and beyond. I couldn’t blame her…but I knew it wasn’t everything that was going on here, and she still wasn’t telling me all of it.
“Well, I guess there’s only one thing to do,” I said grimly as I reached for the journal. ”We’ll need to get this to the guild and have a word with Brynjolf.”
“I’m…rather concerned about doing that,” Karliah said, chewing her lip slightly. “After all, I know what Mercer has probably been saying about me.”
“And Mercer has told them I’m dead, remember?” I replied grimly. ”But you’ve got a few things you’re not telling me. I can tell you I’ve the same, and I will make them listen to me, even if I have to…well, yell.” I grinned slightly at my own joke, but I meant it; a few Shouts to knock them all sideways until I finished what I had to say could be done if necessary. Besides, I wanted Mercer almost as badly as Karliah did at this point.
For a few moments, Karliah didn’t say anything, and then wordlessly she unbuckled her blade at her side, handing it to me. The blade was a beautiful thing, actually – the blade entirely ebony, almost absorbing the light rather than reflecting it, with a stylised bird forming the crossguard.
“This is a Nightingale Blade,” she said quietly. ”I know Delvin knows a fair bit of the history of the Nightingales, and even if they don’t believe your words right away, they will certainly believe you when they see this. I’ll meet you in Riften in time, as I have a few things I need to do before you meet with the guild. But I urge you to use caution, Dreema. Please be careful.”
“As careful and quick as I can,” I replied, buckling the swordbelt round my hips.
I took the journal back from Enthir – he seemed all to happy to get shut of it, actually, things were hotting up and I didn’t blame him for not wanting any part of it! Vilkas was waiting for me same as ever, but when he saw the look on my face, his brows raised and he gave me a somewhat bemused smile.
“I shouldn’t ask, eh?” he murmured.
“No, you don’t want to know,” I replied, kissing him gently and sighing. ”Now, Riften, and I’ll need you for the second task, but not the first. All right?”
“As you wish, Harbinger,” Vilkas said curtly, and he wasn’t being facetious – he knew we had business to handle and I needed him to be the strong Companion at the moment.
I was happy to leave Winterhold, and we rode south. No dragons to deal with this time but that didn’t comfort me at all – I had too much work to do. First, to have a word with the Guild and then I had to lead an old man out of the warrens somehow. I was probably going to have to take the secret way down to the Circle. I didn’t want to run the risk of bringing an outside into the Ragged Flagon, it would hardly help my case, so I left Vilkas keeping an eye out in the Bee and Barb.
I went round to where the abandoned shrine of Talos still stood, and slipped through into the old masoleum, operating the catch and then heading into the guild proper. I should have been anxious, but I wasn’t. I was just too angry to feel much other than seething hatred of Mercer. I may have been a Harbinger, but I had been born and bred a thief, and one thing you did NOT do as one of the Circle was come down on your own. We offer tithes to the guild as a whole, and these are distributed to the Guild in hard times. It was part of the code of the Guild. If Mercer had been breaking that, then ousting was too good for the man; I’d rip his heart out with my own hands if I could. I half hoped he would be in the Guildhall, but my hopes were in vain.
In this rather dark mood I hardly got the chance to enjoy the startled looks I got when I stamped my way into the aqueduct. I gave Etienne – the fellow I had rescued in the Thalmor run – a cursory nod, and he stared back at me in shock, then grinned. Granted, he probably hadn’t known who I was then, but Niruin did, and he dropped his bow and cried out. Delvin happened to be in and he choked on his mead and coughed, with Vex staring at me in horror as she thumped mechanically on his back. All eyes were upon me, and Brynjolf – over at Mercer’s desk – did a doubletake and then staggered backwards, staring at me in stunned shock.
“Lass…you…wh-”
“Yes, yes, I live, I breathe, and I’m pissed,” I replied tersely, slapping the journal down on the table before him and then placed the blade down on the table alongside. I then tugged on my tunic slightly at showed the scar on my throat. Brynjolf’s eyes narrowed to slits; he didn’t ask where I had earned it. He didn’t have to.
“Is that – ?” Delvin coughed, wheezing as he strode forward, his eyes alight as he studied the Nightingale Blade.
“Yes, it is…and I’ve got the real story on what has been happening. But you’re going to have to trust me, right? Now, where’s Mercer? He has a lot to answer for.”
“I don’t doubt he does,” Brynjolf grunted – I’ve never seen the redhead angry before, but I was seeing it now; an icy gleam in his eyes even though he stayed level enough as he flipped through the journal pages. ”And how did you get this, I wonder?”
“From me,” Karliah replied, stepping out of the shadows – no one had even known she was there, but even though it took me by surprise, I guessed she might have done. She was after all one of the best thieves around.
Everyone jumped, and knives and blades were drawn, but Brynjolf barked out with authority. ”Stand down, all of you! If she wanted your skins she’d have done it by now.” He turned to Karliah, still flipping through the journal pages. ”This is quite an accusation, lass. You stand by it?”
“It’s why I brought it to the Guild,” she replied. ”It’s not our way to just kill our own, and I would stand to see him tried. He’s been stealing from the guild for years – it’s taken this long for me to get any proof, but I have it now.”
“Well, I suppose there’s one way to test it then,” Brynjolf responded, taking a rather battered key off a thong round his neck. ”May as well open the kitty and see what’s there, and then we’ll deal with Mercer if need be. Vex, Delvin.”
All three strode forward, each with their respective keys, finding the locks of the vault and then turning them all together. There was a soft, echoing click and the vault door was swung open. Delvin went back, whistling between his teeth and held a lantern high -
Upon nothing. Not a single thing but empty chests, row upon row. Not a single coin or gem or artifact to be seen. Every one of us stood in silence, staring in disbelief. Mercer had been leader of the guild for over twenty-five years. He had plenty of time to spend everything, and with such meagre pickings as the guild had taken over the past decade or so, there’d been no way to stock it back up.
“That son of a bitch!” Vex spat, her eyes glaring at the chests and cobwebs. ”He took it all! I’m going to – “
“Remember that you’re a thief and not a Brotherhood scamp,” Brynjolf said dryly, staring Vex down, even though he kept his own anger barely in check. ”We have to think rationally, but he’s not just taken the jewels, he’s taken the plans.”
“What plans are these?” I asked.
“We’ve compiled documents over years of how to do the biggest heists in all of Skyrim,” Delvin said, sighing as he lowered the oil lamp - there was precious little to see. ”Took ages to get all that information together into one place. If we could ever pull those off, we might have been able to bring us back to our former glory, but the jobs are so complicated who knows if we would have ever got the chance?”
“Well, there’s a few things we can do here,” Brynjolf said, then he swept his gaze round the gawping thieves. ”Right, as of now Mercer is no longer one of us. I want this place sealed. No one gets in or out without my say. Go spread the word in the Flagon, get moving people!”
While my guild-kin scrambled to and fro, I managed to draw Karliah to one side – something was still bothering me. ”It takes three keys to open that vault door…and Mercer did it with one. I know he opens doors and locks like an afterthought, but he’d never let me see how. Now…what else has he done?”
“He has something which he stole from the Shrine of Nocturnal,” Karliah responded reluctantly. ”It allows him to open any door. That’s how he’s been getting into the vault…and that’s also why Nocturnal is angry with the guild. I wish I could tell you more, but there’s still more work to do.”
“I know, believe me,” I replied. I still had an old man to find, for one. I strode over to the desk to take up the Nightingale Blade and offer it back to Karliah, but she shook her head. ”Keep it. I may have…an opportunity for you, if we can manage to bring this next plan to fruition. Save it for now.”
“Actually, you’re probably going to want to keep that,” Brynjolf said as he approached us both, nodding to both myself and Karliah in turn. ”Come on, both of you, I have an idea.”
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