The Infernal City (27 page)

“No, Prince,” Evernal replied. “I would not.”

Attrebus clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he said.

Evernal bowed, then beckoned to his men. In a few moments they were alone with the Khajiit.

“That was quite a gamble,” Sul said when they were gone.
“Telling them who you were. What if they had decided to ransom you?”

Attrebus smiled, suddenly feeling a bit shaky.

“I saw he was wearing the badge of the eighteenth legion,” he said. “Just under his cloak, pinned next to a lock of some girl’s hair. I knew he’d not only fought for my father, but that he was still proud of it.”

Sul’s glare lessened a bit.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

Attrebus sat down on the ground. “Right,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t really think. I’ve made so many speeches—and people cheered and followed my orders. But if all of that was a lie—”

“You sounded like a prince,” Sul assured him. “Confident, in command, imperious.”

“Yes, but if I had given it any thought …”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Sul replied. “For Evernal, the tales about you are true. You acted the part, and where we might have died, we live.”

“Become who they think I am,” Attrebus muttered.

Lesspa was approaching, so he stood.

She regarded him silently for a moment, then scratched herself on the chin and reached over to scratch his.

“You brought it,” she said. “Another might have taken our money. And what you did just now—we are grateful.”

“You protected us,” Attrebus said. “I couldn’t do any less.”

She nodded. “Your words ring like music. You are really the prince?”

“I am.”

One of the tents was down, and the Khajiit were already folding it.

“We will be ready in less than an hour. I pray you wait.”

“You said you were going back west. I must go east.”

“They would have taken our kits and slain the old ones,” she said, “imprisoned the rest of us until we became city-ghosts, sniveling in the dust, begging for skooma. It was not your concern. You reached out from your interests to embrace ours. That is Sei’dar, an important thing to us.” She smiled. “Besides—you survive, you are Emperor, yes? That’s not a bad friend to have.”

East of Rimmen the land rose from the dust in a series of rolling ridges covered in brush and scrub oak, and eventually—as they ascended higher—timber.

The hills were swarming with Khajiit renegades organized around rough hill forts, but they kept their distance, which they certainly had Lesspa and her companions to thank for.

By noon the next day they were descending into the lower Niben Valley, and he was back in the Empire. It was like walking down into a cloud, so much wetter was the air of County Bravil than the Elsweyr steppes. Thick mats of fern and moss muffled their footsteps and a canopy of ash, oak, and cypress kept the sun from them.

It seemed to make Lesspa’s people nervous.

They reached the Green Road near sundown and made camp there.

“What now?” Sul asked.

Attrebus considered the road. Dusk was settling and the frogs in the marshes below were singing to Masser as it rose above the trees. Willows rustled in the evening breeze, and the jars and whills tested their voice against a forlorn owl. Fireflies winked up from the ferns.

“North takes me back home,” he said. “My father might listen to me now, give me troops.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No. The only thing that’s changed is that I lost the men and
women he
did
trust me with. He’ll still think Umbriel is no immediate threat. He’ll put me in an extremely comfortable prison to make sure I don’t run off again, at least not until I’ve supplied an heir.”

“What then? You said Umbriel was traveling north, toward Morrowind. I think it’s going to Vivec City, or what’s left of it. If that’s true, we need to beat Vuhon there.”

“You said that before. You didn’t explain it.”

He saw the muscles clench in Sul’s jaw. “Where is it now?” the Dunmer demanded. “How fast is it moving?”

“I’m not sure of either of those things. It’s moving slowly, or it was. It took the better part of a day to cover the distance from the south coast of Black Marsh to Lilmoth, which Annaïg said is around fifteen miles.”

“Thirty miles in a day and a night, then. That only gives us a few days.”

“To get to Vivec City? Through the Valus Mountains? We can’t do that in
twenty
days. What if we went to Leyawiin, got a ship there—”

“No, not unless you know someone with a flying ship. We’d have to sail all the way up to the top of the world and come back down, or else land and go overland through wasteland.”

“Walk back, then. Why do we have to beat it to Vivec City?”

“Because I believe there is a thing there, something the master of Umbriel needs. Something he fears.”

“You seem to know everything about Umbriel except where to find it—and now I’ve told you that. I think it’s time you told me
what you
know.”

Sul snorted. “Don’t let your success with the regulators go to your head. You’re not my prince, boy.”

“I never said I was. But I’ve told you everything I know. You can return the favor.”

Sul’s eyes flamed silently for a moment, then he scratched his chin.

“I don’t know much about this flying city of yours—not specifically. I believe its master is a man named Vuhon. He vanished into Oblivion forty-three years ago, and now I think he’s come back.”

“This is the man who killed your woman.”

Sul went rigid. “We will not speak of her,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “There was once a place in Vivec City—the Ministry of Truth.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Attrebus said. “It was considered a wonder of the world. A moon from Oblivion, floating above the Temple District.”

“Yes. Held there by the power of our god, Vivec. But Vivec left, or was destroyed, and his power began to fade, and with it the spells that kept the velocity of the ministry in check.”

“What do you mean?”

“It fell from the sky, you understand? It was traveling quickly, more quickly than you can imagine. Vivec stopped it with the power of his will. But the velocity was still there, ready to be unleashed. Do you see what that meant?”

“You’re saying it would complete its fall as if it had never been interrupted.”

“That’s what our best feared, yes. And one of our best was Vuhon. Along with others, he built an ingenium, a machine that continued to hold the ministry aloft. But there was a … cost.”

“What cost?”

“The ingenium required souls to function.”

Attrebus felt pinpricks along his spine.

“Umbriel—Annaïg says it takes the souls of the living …”

“You see?”

“But what happened?”

Sul was silent for so long this time that Attrebus thought he wouldn’t speak again, but he finally sighed.

“The ingenium exploded. It hurled Vuhon into Oblivion. Then the ministry crashed into the city, and Vvardenfell exploded.”

“The Red Year,” Attrebus gasped. “He caused that?”

“He was responsible. He and others. And now he has returned.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know what designs he has on Tamriel, but I’m sure he has them, and I’m sure they aren’t pleasant ones,” Sul responded. “But I think his immediate objective is a sword, an ancient and dangerous weapon. It’s tied somehow to Umbriel and Vuhon.”

“You’ve been hunting Vuhon all of these years?”

“I spent many of them merely surviving.”

“You were in Morrowind when all of this happened?”

Sul made an ugly sound that Attrebus later would realize was the man’s bitterest chuckle.

“I was in the ministry,” he answered, “I was also thrown into Oblivion. For thirty-eight years.”

“With Vuhon?”

Sul rubbed his forehead. “The ingenium used souls to keep a sort of vent into Oblivion open, specifically into the realm of the daedra prince, Clavicus Vile. You know of him, I assume?”

“Of course. He has a shrine not far from the Imperial City. They say you can make a pact with him, given the right cantations.”

“That’s true,” Sul agreed. “Although a pact with Vile is one you’re likely to regret. He’s not the most amiable of Oblivion princes.”

“And yet he allowed Vuhon to draw energies from his realm?”

Sul cracked his neck. “Vile has a thing for souls,” he said, “and if he noticed the rift at all, he probably enjoyed what was coming through more than he missed the energies going out. It’s even possible that Vuhon made a formal bargain with the prince. I just don’t know.” He gestured at a log and sat on it. Attrebus followed suit.

“When we arrived, there was someone—or something—waiting for us. But it wasn’t Vile. It was shaped like a man, but dark, with eyes like holes into nothing. He had a sword, and as we lay there, it laughed and tossed it through the rift we’d come through. I tried to follow it, but it was too late.”

“Waiting for you? How did it know you were coming?”

“He called himself Umbra, and like Vile, he had a thing for souls. He’d been attracted to the rift by the ingenium and had even tried to enlarge it, with no success. So he’d cast a fortune and learned that a day was coming when it would briefly widen, and so there he was.”

“Just to throw a sword through it?”

“Apparently. Umbra took us captive—he was powerful, almost as powerful as a daedra prince. In fact, it
was
the power of a daedra prince—he’d somehow managed to cut a piece from Clavicus Vile himself.”

“Cut a piece? Of a daedra prince?”

“Not a physical piece, like an arm or a heart,” Sul clarified. “Daedra aren’t physical beings like you and me. But the effect was similar—Vile was, in a sense, injured. Badly so. And Umbra became stronger, though still not so strong as Vile. Not strong enough to escape his realm once Vile circumscribed it against him.

“Circumscribed?”

“Changed the nature of the ‘walls’ of his realm, made them absolutely impermeable to Umbra and the power he had stolen. Understand, at all costs the prince didn’t want Umbra to escape. The circumscription was so strong he couldn’t even go through the rift himself—but the sword could.”

“Again, why the sword?” Attrebus wondered.

“Umbra claimed to have once been captive
in
the weapon. He feared that if Vile got his hands on it, he would return him to it.”

“This is making me dizzy,” Attrebus said.

“But you wanted to hear everything, remember?” Sul snapped. “Well, let’s keep it simple then, shall we? Clavicus Vile was nursing his wounds and hunting for Umbra. Umbra used his stolen power to conceal himself in one of the cities at the fringe of Vile’s realm. But he still couldn’t escape. Vuhon promised him that if Umbra spared his life, he would build a new ingenium, capable of escaping even Vile’s circumscription. Umbra agreed, and I suppose that’s what they did.”

“They brought the city with them?”

Sul shrugged. “I don’t know about that part. I never saw much of the city. Vuhon wasn’t very happy with me. He only kept me alive to torture. After a few years he forgot about me and I escaped. I had some arts, and since the forbidding wasn’t on me, I managed to leave Vile’s realm, albeit into another part of Oblivion.”

“So it’s Umbra that wants the sword, not Vuhon?”

“It might be either. Maybe Vuhon has turned against Umbra and seeks to imprison him. Whatever the case, we can’t let them have it.”

Attrebus opened his mouth, but Sul jerked his head from side to side. “Enough. You know what you need to know for now.”

“I—So I allow all this—we still can’t get there in time.”

“No,” Sul said. “As I said, there is a way. If we survive it.”

“What way would that be?”

“We’ll take a shortcut. Through Oblivion.”

And he left Attrebus there with the willows and soft, gliding voices of the night birds.

“Perfect,” Toel opined, his mysterious little grin turning into something a bit larger. He dipped his finger in the little bowl of viscous mist and brought the bit that clung to it up to his lips for another taste. With his other hand he stroked the back of her neck lightly, familiarly, and she felt her cheeks warm.