IX. More Questions Than Answers
Aela met me at Jorrvaskr's door, eager to see the stratagems I'd stolen for her.
Have you been bringing the battle to the Silver Hand? I wish I could be there with you, she said, as she flipped through the pages. We've got them on the run!
Yes, they do seem to know we’re after them, I said. I didn't say, why can't you be there with me to bring the battle to those who murdered Skjor. Where are Vilkas and Farkas? Aren't we brothers and sisters of the sword and shield? If you were with me, no one would be here to cover for anybody, and no one would need to. This kind of thing is not a solitary pursuit as if we were assassins sneaking around in the dark with poisoned blades. Is it?
I pushed all that aside and, like a good little whelp, asked if she had any work for me. Her reply brought me up short. There's always more to be done, she said…then, pausing just a beat: But you'd better go see Kodlak. He's gotten wind of our recent activities, and he wants to see you.
What should I say?
Be honest with the old man, but don't tell him anything he doesn't need to know.
Maybe I should have voiced my jumbled feelings to her about the way things had shaped up at Jorrvaskr since I became part of the Circle. Now it may be too late. For some reason, I seem to have become the focal point for everything that's going on here, and I don't know why. But I do know I respect Kodlak, and I will tell him what he needs to know. And that may be a different conversation than the one Aela prefers.
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I found Kodlak sitting at the same table outside his sleeping quarters where he’d been the day I first came to Jorrvaskr, knowing nothing. It seemed like years ago, or yesterday....time plays its tricks on our lives.
I didn't like what he had to say to me, that this sneaking around we'd been doing did not befit honorable warriors, that Aela knew better and I should have, too. I felt unjustly held to account for something that I had done in good faith. I felt like a scolded child. But worse than anything, I knew I had disappointed someone whose respect I wanted very much.
But Kodlak didn’t linger on the rebuke. He had other matters on his mind: Do you know how the Companions became werewolves?
I repeated what Skjor and Aela had told me that night in the Underforge, that it was a gift from Hircine. I should have known that answer was too simple. Simple answers make simple minds.
The Companions had been around for over 5,000 years, Kodlak said, but they had been werewolves for only the last few hundred. Lycanthropy had become their lot through a misbegotten pact with the Witches of Glenmoril. What would become a permanent condition of the Companions was to have been a power for only the duration of a special hunt in honor of Hircine that the witches desired. We were deceived, Kodlak said, with the air of a man who had sold everything he owned to buy a pearl of great price only to discover that its value had been a lie all along.
Of course, the disease affects bodies, he continued, but it also seeps into the spirit and consigns us eternally to Hircine's hunting ground. Every true Nord wishes for Sovngarde. I long for Sovngarde.
I repeated what I'd asked the day of my membership ritual when we first spoke of this: Is there a cure?
He'd finally discovered what he believed would lift the taint of the werewolf from his soul. It was the witches’ magic that had ensnared the blood of the Companions, and only the witches could free us. But these dark creatures would not do so willingly, Kodlak said. You must find them, strike them down, and bring me their heads. Only this will undo the centuries of enslavement they've created. Go alone and with the spirit of Ysgramor. May Talos guide you.
I'd forgotten my earlier indignation. I could see the pain in Kodlak’s gray eyes, and I would do whatever I must to bring him peace. I would find these Witches of Glenmoril and kill them. Kodlak would have their magic in his hands. Now I was the lone assassin.
I did not return to Aela before leaving Jorrvaskr. Kodlak wanted discretion, just as she had. And he would get it.
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The ride out to the lair of the Glenmoril Witches sent me southwest of Whiterun. Anybody who takes to the highways of Skyrim heedless of the dangers won't last long. I didn't have to wait for the Glenmoril witches to fight for my life. I saw the sparking magicka flying at someone up ahead, and then a blast hit me, too. Good armor helps, but when the fire and lightning start, steel quickly becomes an oven. I had to cut this off at its source, and now.
The attackers were a man and woman wearing unfamiliar armor. The Imperial soldier they'd been fighting was already dead by the time I came close enough to strike. I cut one down with a few rapid double-axe slashes, when the remaining one, the woman, began throwing a new kind of magicka at me. Immediately, I could feel my strength begin to drain away from every part of my body. Meanwhile, she seemed to grow stronger as I became weaker; a strike from my axe glanced away when it should have taken her down. With my deepest reserves of determination, I backed her up against the cliff face bordering the road, and hit her with a killing blow. That had almost been me.
In the quiet of the night, I searched the bodies. Vampires. Weren't dragons and werewolves enough for this land? I had heard a couple of Whiterun guards comment recently about a new group called Dawnguard, dedicated to fighting vampires. But no one in the Companions had said anything about threats from vampires. Yet here they were, just a few miles from Whiterun. I don't know where they came from, but they were dead now.
A road, even a dangerous one, holds heartening promise. Even when you don’t know where you are going, it is durable evidence of human intention mapped upon the world, that we may travel in trust of those who have gone before us. Not much past where I’d met the vampires, the cobblestone pavement I’d been following since I left Whiterun gave out. Now I had entered Skyrim’s trackless wilds with only a vague idea where I might find what I had come seeking. Which hidden cleft, which sunken hollow might these ancient witches call home in this unwelcoming landscape of shadowy crags and stony sentinels? A solitary hunter I met knew nothing useful, except that she had occasionally heard weird, mournful cries toward the west. I circled my horse in and out of one blind ravine after another, searching for an orifice into the earth. When I found a dark fistula marked by eyeless goat heads on sharpened stakes, I figured it was the right place.
The cavern of the Glenmoril Witches was a horror I hope to never see the likes of again. These were my first hagravens, degenerate creatures that were once women, now more vulture than human at all. May they not haunt my dreams. These foul witches, five in all, made their nests in a series of cramped tunnels and chambers, claustrophobic and filled with a noxious miasma accumulated from centuries of Skeever stink, putrefied carrion, and the smoke of depraved magic. Their screeches echo in my ears even now. And for each, I had to take the head. But it was for Kodlak.
Vindstjarni was waiting patiently for me when I exited the cave. We walked away with rain falling, and the thunder began to roll. It would be a soaking journey back to Whiterun.
I was attacked again, this time by name! Someone wants me dead! The note on the assassin's body said the Dark Brotherhood had been paid to kill me. It was signed by someone named Astrid. What is this about? I have no idea, but I must find out. I know little about the Dark Brotherhood beyond the nature of their trade. Could the Silver Hand be behind this...or someone from that business in Riften?
The rest of my trip was an uneasy ride, but the skies had cleared by the time we made Whiterun. I hoped the old man would find what he needed in my loathsome cargo.
