Whiterun's main street stretched before me. Heavy breathing chuffed through my ears, drowning out the steady beat of the smith's hammer and on-going repairs to the shop up the street. For a moment, all I saw was the neat, carefully mortared bricks of the road, then the blue-slated houses whirred to the right and Derkeethus was running again.
Thoughts raced through our minds, mingling together indistinguishably. Hrollod. Find Hrollod.
Where is Hrollod? Barracks?
No. He's reporting in.
The palace, but where--Up.
Go up.
Stairs bobbed in a nauseating dance of bounds, and we were up and running through an arch. This quarter was familiar. I had been here before. Blurry memories of purple haze and grief, wandering the streets in little more than rags. Lying on the bricks in a cold rain. A tree.
And suddenly it was there, and it loomed larger as Derkeethus knelt at its base, just as I had.
Jorin.
Its branches were still apparently deadened. In his mind, I could hear the voice of the tree in a way I never managed to comprehend.
"Dying...we are dying..."
"Saxhleel...we are the last. We are alone."
Surprise coupled with bewilderment and I pondered this drifting voice through his mind. I remembered the sickly thrumming of thready life under its bark and wondered if there was a way to heal this tree. But my thoughts drifted away from me with the rapid lifting of the world and the square washed away.
The Talos priest cried his blasphemous message to the world and I felt that old darkness seeping into my thoughts, responding to his worship of this most devastating of mortals. We could kill him. We could. Now. No one would miss him.
Derkeethus' lope was interrupted, and for a moment he wavered. Fear rose up like bile, and I could taste it. Part of me savored it. What would we become if I allowed the maddened chaos to take us over now? Would we change both of our bodies? Create two monstrous beasts? I felt a force push past me and slip into the crevices of my friend's mind.
No. Please, don't. I don't want to be controlled anymore. Stop it.
His pleas erupted into sinking guilt and I attempted to get a grip on myself, reigning in and shutting away the voices. Mentally exhausted, I floated listlessly in the watery space, watching stairs bound by like holes in the road.
Above us loomed a palace I had never seen before except from very far away. A breezeway formed by delicate, almost mer-inspired arches led the way to a door large enough to admit a two trolls, one riding the other. The wood was a deep redwood that suggested age and strength in the mother tree. Derkeethus paused just outside the door, molten anxiety pouring through his mind, sluggishly coating its surface.
What if he's not here? His voice echoed, reverberated, redoubled until the question was a cacophony of 'what if's. I whispered a thought into this boiling impression of sound.
You have no choice.
I drifted about for a moment, dancing between this half-dream and true sleep. Boots thumped across an ancient wood floor, well polished with oils. Overhead the ceiling rose to greet daylight washing through the large front windows. Smoke coated the rafters in a warm haze as a fire pit large enough to roast a mammoth blazed in the middle of the floor. Under the glaring gaze of a charred dragon skull, a man slouched in a throne.
"If you have come to seek an audience with the Jarl, I'm afraid you'll have to make an appointment," clipped an ashen-faced man to the Jarl's right with leer of distrust.
"I've come for Legate Hrollod. May I speak with him?" Derk's voice croaked breathlessly.
"To your right. Up the stairs. Move along now. I have little patience for your kind," snarled a Dunmer to the Jarl's left. The world swam for a moment as anger flickered hotly across his vision. My kind... I heard him hiss as he ascended a darkened staircase.
"What a surprise!" a Nordic voice boomed. "Derkeethus, I thought I requested you in Rorikstead."
"I had other errands that were more urgent."
"The Bosmer woman. Yes. I take it she at least made it to Rorikstead?"
"Of course. She would have been the one to bring the White Phial to Windhelm for repairs, but..."
"She is not well. Why not use one of my men to deliver it?"
"There's not enough time."
"And you've come to request my return." With a dizzying dip and rise, the room tilted as Derkeethus nodded. The Legate sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I had hoped to request reinforcements from the Jarl here, but his men are spread thinly enough with the dragon attacks on the local settlements. It seems this venture was for naught. If we're to seize Constantius and Hrefna, we will need more man power than I can afford to spare. Headquarters refuses to lend me aid. Our friend has done well to block my funding for further reinforcements for what has been termed a 'private project'."
"Then how can we save the girl?"
"I don't know. I need to think on this. When we meet again with Tormir and your lady-friend, I may well have a plan. Or at least an idea. Was that all you came here for?"
"Yes," Derkeethus muttered heavily, hopelessness dragging me further down into the watery space towards a darkness I did not like. The vellum map on the table occupied my vision for some time.
"Derkeethus." The Legate consumed my vision once more. "I received a new trial weapon from Headquarters some weeks ago. I suppose they don't mind if my men go around shooting themselves in the foot, but it proves to be an effective weapon nonetheless. Consider it a token of gratitude." With a heavy thump, a strange metallic object was placed on the table along with a leather pouch of very short, thick arrows.
I felt questions probing in my direction. It looked like a bow in one place, though the arrows were utterly useless for any other kind of bow. There was a thin, hooked lever on one side and a handle on the other. I had no idea what it was, but I supposed it fired those darts. If that was its purpose, I recoiled in disgust. No clunky weapon like that could ever replace a bow. What a ridiculous contraption.
But in spite of my misgivings, Derkeethus was unfazed, and hefted the apparatus eagerly, thinking already of selling his bow. I never liked archery. I heard him think, and to my dismay, I realized he had been working so hard at it only because I wanted him to, not because he loved the feel of the bow. I was, in part, flattered at his dedication solely to please me.
As he parted with a hushed utterance of gratitude, I fell into true sleep and the warm hall was lost to me for a time.
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