Of Wine and Gold: Preface

• Posted by Casey March 6, 2014 - 1,250 views

  I can remember vividly, even now, waking up to the birds taking flight that frigid morning as the carriage rambled along the roadside. The fluttering wings of their multitude stand out in my mind as a symbol of my life; a series of rude awakenings and tumultuous escapes, desperate journeys away from blind fear but unknowingly deeper into chaos.

  They awoke me as I said- in any other situation I would’ve known better, but as it was I thought nothing of the fact that birds don’t flee from horse-drawn carriages. But rather, I was alarmed by the coarse rope binding my wrists together, the strangers I shared a strange wagon with, and the fact that I awoke not at all where I had fallen asleep. I felt I was in a drugged-stupor, which much later I discovered wasn't entirely incorrect. The men around me might have spoke, but I believe they were silenced by the men steering the carriage.

  I awoke again what must have been some time later, as the horizon had fallen further away from the sun, and there was more warmth in the air. I had regained some degree of lucidity, and was alarmed to find my captors were of Imperial blood as I. I wondered what charges were being held against me. I had been in this backwoods province for less than a month, having successfully fled the Imperial City, and I was holed up in some backwater inn thinking to have evaded any pursuit.

  You will have heard of Helgen being destroyed by a dragon- and to this I can attest as a witness firsthand. One of my captors, the one driving the wagon, announced themselves to a far off sentry, who stood on a fortified platform atop a squat stone wall. The sentry in turn allowed us entrance; we passed the heavy gates and rode through Helgen- as spectacle for the townsfolk. When we stopped it was to hitch the wagon next to others, where a multitude of similarly clad men stood together, all in binds like myself. Some stood proud and defiant- others pitiful and forlorn. All stood at wary attention to the Imperial soldiers who barked commands and gestured with sword points. I learned then two things.

  These bound captives were the rebels of Skyrim, and their ring-leader; Ulfric and his Stormcloaks. The second thing I learned, was not a soul could name me, that I was being executed under suspicion as a sympathizer. The irony of a nameless corpse being sent back to the Imperial City and dumped, being a corpse with a most incredible bounty- a corpse required to be strung from the ramparts of the Imperial City by the Thief Takers, by personal decree of the Emperor himself! Again, in any other situation I would’ve perhaps laughed at the thought as I do now- but as I was being led to the slaughter I then learned another thing. There are dragons this far North of civilization.

  At times like tonight, warm and safe around my hearth fire, I reflect on the past year and all that has transpired, all the strife, the uncertainties and sheer dreads, the cold nights, blind fears, the shattered nerves. And I hate Skyrim for it. But I have seen beauty here, perhaps learned the meaning of the word through my travels. Perhaps there are no dragons or dire wolves in Cyrodil, but there also lacked any comparable sense of grandeur! The exultation one feels in life’s little successes is here magnified by the risks one encounters- Here you will love your maidens much more deeply, you will taste your wine with a dream-like clarity, you will foil deaths snare and know then what it means to laugh, to laugh in that mad hilarity one may only know in the wild and desperate wooded vales and mountaintops of this land. I have never known another land like it, and I doubt I ever will.

  However you, patient reader, will be tiring of what shallow philosophical digression I’m capable of. And I believe I have yet to introduce myself to you, gentle reader- I am Gerson, known in certain circles as the Snake Charmer, and known in Cyrodil at large by the staggering bounty on my person for the moderately successful practice of my art.

  Now then, I was writing of the existence of dragons. Suffice it to say these ranges of wooded granite knuckle and soaring peak are the haunt of an extraordinary variety of predators. Though I have had occasion to fear many of them, in person, I now personally accept the Nordic point of view that no creature however malignant, could hold out long against the grim, heroic determination of the natives themselves; it was sometime after the events at Helgen however, that I had adequate experience for understanding this intuitively.

  The business with the dragon was a brief affair, yet it still gives the people cause to search the skies even now so many months later, so great was the impression. Men speak of prophecy, new rumors of dragon sightings abound, and people fear the end times. Personally, I believe the great lizard ran afoul some hungry band of Skaal huntsmen. Regardless, I have not seen evidence during my travels of any dragon since that day at Helgen.

  Of seeing the dragon myself, the whole episode went by quickly; they placed my head on the chopping block, down swooped the reptile saving me from the axe-stroke at the last possible moment. I raced through the town, evaded shrapnel and dragon breath, darted through collapsing masonry. My ears were ringing, yet still I could hear the disorienting roars of the beast rampaging around me. I made my way up a tower, leaped down onto a rooftop, down again into the courtyard of Helgen Keep, and in a trice was inside the relative safety of the fort proper- this like many fortifications in Skyrim being built into a mountainside. All this with my hands bound and my head spinning, mind you.  

  I then made slow progress from the keep to the escape route, a gauntlet of most terrible adversity. Escaped Stormcloaks and Imperials going at each other’s throats, wanton slaughter, roofs and walls collapsing. All the while, the dragons roar could be heard, could be felt shaking the fort with earthquake force. My head swam, and it hadn’t felt right since waking up that morning. I could apply none of my usual skill or cunning; I clung to the shadows, and at times crept on my stomach. Fighting men almost stepped on me, corpses fell across my path. At times I could not advance for fear of being seen and I lie deathly-still in near delirium, and bore witness to the most savage madness that men can produce. I got sick many times- but it was a quiet, empty, dry heaving that could not be heard above the din.

  In the keep I had at some point found myself in a despoiled armory and there equipped myself: a frail, unreliable bow and a few warped arrows someone had left behind with an old leather quiver, a hood to cover my face in the shadows, and a pair of ill-fitting boots. It was an eternity after time had lost any meaning that I emerged from the exit and found myself in an inconspicuous cave mouth near the base of the mountain.

  My mind and body had been neglecting all functions other than those geared for self-preservation. I stood there, shocked, for one sobering moment, beholding vibrant sunlight beaming across an infinite azure panorama, the lush green foliage screening the roadsides, hiding everything beyond with a thick tangled mask; my muscles were a coiled spring, every nerve taut, nearly shaking against a barely contained instinct to flee.

  That disorienting howling and roaring, ever present for what seemed like an eternity as I had gone through the keep, boomed close overhead, preceding the dragon for one startling moment. I dropped down to a knee, nocked an arrow to string, and pressed myself against the shadowed walls within the cave mouth. It flew overhead, faster than anything I have ever seen- and here, my readers, I will admit to watching it fly in one direction, and running in the direct opposite as fast as I could. You may call me a coward, patient reader, but there are no heroes in this degenerate era. There are martyrs and fools however. I have never been keen on the ideologies of the former, and have learned little patience for the bravado of the latter.

  These memories are not dear to me, and such an unprofitable line of thought threatens to spoil the wine, yet I supposed it necessary to begin the record thus. I feel I owe an explanation to those who have been kindest to me here, and if I want to apologize for my betrayal to this foster family, I must first explain the gravity of the choice made, and the solemnity in which I made it. To anyone else who might happen upon this record, I shall do my best also to explain just what it is I have done to Skyrim, indeed, to all of Nirn...

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