Chapter V
Chamber of Secrets
A dragon was soaring through the air far off in the distance, a dark speck against the snow-covered mountains of northern Skyrim. Its shrill cries echoed throughout the area, reverberating against the peaks and carrying onwards through the valleys. Veryn held in the reins of his horse and peered in the distance, brushing his hair out of his face. It was finally growing longer again after Astrid had to cut most of it off a year ago. Even though the dragon flew far away, it was large enough to be seen with the naked eye. It was becoming a common occurrence nowadays to see them pass by, but Veryn never ceased to be impressed.
It was nearing the end of Sun's Dusk. After he had left Markarth Veryn had been back at the Falkreath Sanctuary for a few days. Cicero's incessant questioning had driven him away not long after he had arrived.
"Mother never abandons her children," the Jester had simpered. "Why do you still follow a Daedra when she has forsaken you?"
Veryn tightened his grip on the reins until pain flared through his finger joints. To be fair, Astrid had apologized about the Jester's behaviour, but she had also said that there was nothing she could do about Cicero until he actually started attacking or murdering fellow Dark Brotherhood members. Now he was on his way to Winterhold, to the Mages College, while Astrid still had the illusion he was merely retreating to his home in Whiterun. He had been with the College for decades, doing research and occasionally teaching classes in Magical Theory and Arcane Physics. Within Skyrim, the College used to be his home, more so than Whiterun or even the Sanctuary could ever be.
When he arrived there a few days later the courtyard of the College was in turmoil. A great deal of people was busying themselves around the main tower. Some of them seemed to be clearing out the Hall of the Elements, lugging around chairs and tables, and others were just standing around, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on.
"What is going on?" he asked Mirabelle, who was attempting to control the chaos. The woman spun around, lips drawn as tight as the string of a bow. Annoyance seemed to be dripping out of every pore on her skin.
"That's none of your business, sir - Divines!"
Veryn gritted his teeth as she studied his face for far too long. Mirabelle's expression was alternating between disgust, fear and pity, before she settled on just gaping stupidly at him. He felt his cheeks burn in embarrassment, especially when some of the bystanders started looking as well.
"Lord Uvirith," Mirabelle said at last, her voice almost a whisper. "So the rumours, they are true? That you are the Dragonborn, and that you were at Helgen and later captured by the Thalmor?"
Veryn was unable to suppress a wince when she mentioned the latter.
"Yes." he said at last, forcing the words out of his throat. "It's true. But well -” He coughed and scratched his temple. “I'm here now. It's good to see you too.”
He had not been at the College for over a year. He had intended to go there earlier, but first the dragons had absorbed his time and after what happened with the Thalmor he had decided to lay low for a long while. Meanwhile, Mirabelle kept asking questions. Veryn answered some of them absently, hoping she would cut her barrage short. He longed to be in the silence of his rooms and to get rid of his heavy clothes. The thick layers of fur, wool and leather offered excellent protection against the biting cold, but after riding from one side of Skyrim to the other, they were filthy and smelled of horse, smoke and sweat. He was saved by a lot of noise and agitated chatting coming from the main gates, which were opening to show a bizarre procession of mages levitating a wooden platform. Upon it, an enormous globe, crudely covered in cloth, was secured with hooks and ropes. The globe looked like it could fall off every moment, especially as the platform swayed in the air, tilting from left to right and back. Someone shouted to keep the thing steady, which was followed by the loud noise of splintering wood as the platform crashed to the ground. Sensing a new opportunity to boss around, Mirabelle left Veryn to his own and hastened herself to the newly arrived mages. They wore thick furs too, their woollen cloaks embroidered with the insignia of the College, and most of them were now stomping their feet and huddled around conjured fire in an effort to get warm.
It was easy to get away from the noise once the artefact had arrived. Avoiding most of the other mages for now, Veryn made his way to the bathing rooms. Many of the students and researches he passed were too absorbed in their work to notice him at all. In one corridor he stumbled upon Arniel Gale, who usually busied himself with the connection between magicka and Dwemer technology. Today was no exception: in one hand the man held a tattered piece of parchment and in the other some sort of metal puzzle he was trying to solve.
"Oh, were you gone?" Gale asked after bumping into him, not bothering to look up from his puzzle for even a second. "Hey – did you do something with your hair?"
Sleep always was hard to come by. Every couple of hours Veryn woke up, drenched in sweat and with the faint images of Northwatch Keep lingering before his eyes, his head pounding. After the fourth time it happened he decided to give up on sleeping all together. He conjured a small ball of magelight to drive the darkness away and tried to clear his mind. It took a few minutes to banish the recurring thoughts of the Thalmor and realize that he was just in his own room in Winterhold. Azura. Why? He shook his head and rubbed his right eye. It was acting up again. The damn pain was always there, sometimes faint, sometimes like this. He stood up reluctantly, feeling as if something was stabbing the inside of his skull over and over. He staggered over to his desk, shivering when his feet touched the cold stone floor and poured a cup of water. After, he reached for a leather pouch he'd carelessly thrown there the evening before. He took two lumps of moon sugar from it, small and crystal-like, and added them to the drink, twirling the cup until they slowly dissolved. It tasted awful when he drank it, sickening sweet. He put the cup away again and then sat back on the edge of the bed, waiting for the drug to take effect, cradling his head in his hands while he hoped the pain would end soon.
After an hour he gave up, the pain dulled only partly and took a walk. Even in the middle of the night the halls of the Mages College weren't abandoned. A group of people was still working in the Hall of the Elements, gathered in front of the artefact that had arrived earlier that day. It was uncovered now and hovered above the large magicka well in the middle of the Hall. Veryn walked near it, observing it with amazement. The orb seemed made of a dark green marble, but when he touched it he felt that its surface was more like a dull metal, unlike any he had seen before. Deep grooves cut through the metal, forming circles and ellipses, with symbols, runes and a flowing script carved in it as well. Thinner lines portrayed celestial maps, glowing blue with raw magicka. A low, humming sound seemed to come from deep within it and Veryn shivered from the sheer amount of magicka it seemed to be processing.
"Remarkable, isn't it?" a voice said to his right. "We call it the Eye of Magnus, after the runes. They closely resemble the script used by Magnus in his writings."
"Tolfdir. It's good to see you," Veryn said as he turned to face the man who had spoken. Tolfdir was a very old human, far in his nineties, who had been with the College for longer than almost everyone else. "Where did you find this?" He gestured at the sphere, captivated, in awe. “I've never seen anything like this before. It's astonishing!”
Tolfdir smiled, quietly taking in Veryns looks before turning back to look at the Eye again. "A crew of students ran across it while we were digging at that excavation in Saarthal. Savos Aren insisted on bringing it here, so we could find out what it is and what it does."
"You don't know anything yet?" Veryn looked at the Eye as well, which was slowly rotating above the magicka well. "How old is it? Does it have to do anything with the dragons returning?”
"We think it may date back to the Merethic Era, over five-thousand years ago, possibly even to before the Night of Tears. Some of us think it is as old as Magnus itself. Unfortunately, the records from that time are exceptionally vague, that is, if they even exist. Many of it is now regarded as myth, so we will have to delve in our archives and see what we can find. We haven't found any connection with the dragons yet, either. It is possible, but you'd have to search for it yourself."
Three weeks later, no one in the College had found much but obscure references in ancient books that might as well have been transcription errors, and thus people started to create their own theories. Some thought the Eye was a gateway to Aetherius, a sort of reverse Oblivion gate as it were. According to others it was very well possible that all of the Aurbis, the known universe and all of its planes, was contained within the Eye itself. Perhaps, instead, the Eye was a blueprint of Creation. Veryn didn't know what was true and what wasn't. He only knew that there was something irresistible in the Eye that kept pulling him towards it. Had had to know what the Eye was, but he had no luck so far. He also knew that when Tolfdir walked into the Hall of the Elements that morning the man came bearing bad news.
"I spoke to Savos Aren today," Tolfdir said. Carefully he moved a stack of books, clearing out a place to sit on the stone bench next to Veryn. Veryn marked the page in his own book with a piece of parchment and looked at the other man.
"Did Savos have anything useful to say?"
Tolfdirs expression fell.
"The Thalmor have inquired after the Eye and after you. They are sending a representative to the College. With the current political situation it was not possible for the Archmage to refuse. We would lose a large part of our private funding from the Imperial and Thalmor territories and -"
Veryn stopped listening to Tolfdirs continued ramblings about politics. After the man's words he suddenly felt nauseous and cold, as if he had forgotten to take any moon sugar. He raised his hand and touched the scars burned around his eye. Elenwen. She'd promised to take the other one too if he didn't do as he was told.
"Who's to say the Thalmor won't bring his friends with him? I'm a fugitive in their eyes."
Veryn put the book away and cursed, peering at Tolfdir from the corner of his left eye.
"Savos will be watching him like a hawk. And don't forget that Winterhold lies very deep into Stormcloak territory. There is no way a group of Thalmor can get by unnoticed. Savos thinks the only reason the Jarl permitted this representative to come to Winterhold is to thwart the College. Ever since the Great Collapse our relations with the Jarl's family have been strained."
Veryn wanted to answer Tolfdir, but his throat felt too dry to utter any words. He swallowed and rested his head on his knees. All too sudden the memories came back again. Someone throwing near-freezing sea water over his lashed-open back so he blacked out from the sudden sting. Small chains, the tails of a whip that ripped bits and pieces of his flesh away. His muscles cramping as he sat huddled in the cell, chained to the wall and unable to even lie down. He dug his nails in the palm of his hand, trying to push them through the cloth of his gloves, hoping to banish the thoughts away and focus on his surroundings. Tolfdir was looking at him, worry etched on his face. He seemed to be asking something, but Veryn was unable to process exactly what. As in a dream, he stood up and left Tolfdir behind. Perhaps it was all a dream, a hallucination brought on by the moon sugar.
"Veryn! Where are you going?"
"Away," he answered, his voice hoarse. "Before that Thalmor comes here."
"Wait, please." Tolfdir sounded tired and frail, and almost as if he was begging. "You're panicking and making an overhasty decision! Come back here, we'll talk about it! I'm sure Savos will keep him in hand. Veryn?"
Veryn had intended to go straight to his rooms, but once he stepped out of the Hall, the world froze. Everything around him turned a faint blue in colour, and although he could move freely a nearby moth was caught in mid-flight, suspended in the air and unmoving.
"A Telvanni walking away from a great magical artefact. Every day seems to have a place for something new under the sun," a man said. Veryn jerked his head up, glaring at what turned out to be an Altmer, his breath immediately catching in his throat. The strange mer seemed to have a certain agelessness about him and his robes were cut in a fashion that looked like it might have been popular in some bygone Era. Although he did not look like a Thalmor at all, his clothing cream coloured and accented with red, Veryn took a few steps back and narrowed his eyes in distrust, reaching for a knife to be sure.
"Who are you?", he asked, his voice still quavering. And how do you know I am part of House Telvanni?, he added in his mind. "Did you just freeze time?" From the corner of his eye he looked at the moth again. Its wings had not moved in the slightest, and around it particles of dust had stopped floating around.
The Altmer smiled in a nearly grandfatherly way. "I am Quaranir of the Psijic Order", he said. "I did not alter time, as only the Elder Scrolls are capable of that. I merely changed your perception of it."
Veryn crossed his arms. "What do you want?"
The Psijic sighed. "The Psijic Order does not usually intervene in the events that are about to happen. Right now, I am stretching the rules of my Order, because of this object you have here in the College. You call it the Eye and it is immensely powerful. This world is not ready for it."
"So? If you just said you don't intervene, why are you here then?"
"Because a chain of events has been set in motion. It started in Saarthal, when the Eye was discovered, and we cannot see where it will end, especially now it turns out that you are involved. You must stay at the College. As long as the Eye remains dormant, you will be safe here. Listen! Do you hear that? Footsteps! I must go now. Please, please remain here. I will try to contact you as soon as possible."
The moment the door behind Veryn opened, Quaranir suddenly disappeared into thin air. Time unfroze immediately and the moth fluttered towards a nearby candle. It was almost as if the Psijic had never been here at all, leaving Veryn behind, bewildered and confused.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Kill the Archmage, and kill him slowly. It should look like an illness or a disease did the work. It was easy for Ancano to demand that, but a lot less easy for Bricca to actually carry out. The only way that seemed to comply with Ancano's demands was to use a poison that would turn the Archmage into a weak, bedridden old man, with Ancano at his side to whisper the future of the College into his ears. If only Astrid had sent a real poisoner in Bricca's stead. Babette had perfected her skills in alchemy over the course of several decades, and she would know whether to use herbs or mushrooms, finely ground powder from exotic Black Marsh or the strange residue the people of Hammerfell called the tears of the poppy. But Babette looked like a ten year old child, with bright red eyes and long fangs added for good measure. The second best option would have been Festus, but the old man had been banished from the College after murdering some of his students and with a Thalmor involved it was impossible to send Veryn.Except he was here. There was no way in Oblivion Astrid could have known about that, and Bricca was not about to ask Veryn for his help in a Thalmor-led plot. Thus, in whatever spare time she had, Bricca searched the library, but none of the readily available books seemed to have exactly what Ancano was looking for.
Like the rest of the College, the library was a quiet and serene place. Officially, it was called the Arcaneum, and it had the odd trait that it seemed to be much larger on the inside. It was impossible for all those shelves to fit in, but somehow they did. That evening, she set out to hunt first. While Astrid had suggested there would be more than enough prey around, Bricca chose instead to sustain herself with animals. The rats and mice and occasional snow foxes did not taste like much, but going out for human blood would only cause suspicion. When she arrived at the Arcaneum afterwards, it was as good as deserted. The old Orcish librarian headed off to bed around midnight, and would be unable to see her take an unusual interest in deadly poisons. Unfortunately, it meant she could not ask him for help either when the Arcaneum shifted its books again. There were times when entire rows of bookcases flat out disappeared or switched places with other rows. Other times, shelves flickered into existence depending on the time of the day or the position of the moons. As soon as she walked past the many tables, some newly revealed shelves held more books than she could ever hope to read. Bricca randomly picked the first five that seemed of interest and threw them at the nearest table. Once the morning came they might vanish again, so she had to read what she could in the few hours that she had. Many of the books were manuscripts, written in the Tiberian Minuscule, and reading them went very slowly. Some texts she discarded immediately, as they weren't written in Imperial at all, but others drew her interest. One heavy volume in particular was wonderfully illuminated, with colourful detailed drawings of the effects of some of the poisons it mentioned. Balmora's Bane turned its victims innards inside out. She read about Languorwine and Leper's Curse, until she stumbled upon something with the unimaginative name of Lungs Rot. Unfortunately, the ingredients it required were far out of her league to acquire: the fresh remains of a Nix-Hound, slaughtered with an ebony blade? Those beasts didn't even live here in Skyrim. Stalking Fade looked better. The poison would slowly work on the liver, causing the victim to die in agony after weeks of suffering. The picture next to the description showed a bright yellow human with a grotesquely swollen belly, clutching it in pain.
The ingredients for this poison were rare, but nothing outrageous. All Bricca had to do was listen into conversations and drop a few innocuous questions to learn from Colette Marence that the College kept its supplies underground, in a place called the Midden. It was a well kept secret within the College that the rock upon which the main towers were built was hollowed out, and contained countless storage rooms, secret hallways and hidden dungeons. It was in the Midden that the mages conducted their less savoury experiments. Necromancy and Daedric summoning all happened down below, as did the anatomical practices of those who studied restoration magic. Acquiring the key was easy enough as well. A shrewd little Wood Elf, named Enthir, prided himself in being able to acquire almost everything one could want. For the right price he sold highly illegal alchemical ingredients, smuggled in artefacts from far away countries and supplied moon sugar and skooma for thrice as much as you could get it for in Riften. Enthir sold keys to the Midden as well, like a baker sold bread, and soon Bricca was able to make her way down.
The Midden was chilly and dark. Many walls were covered with ice and shimmered when lit by her torch. Bricca passed rooms full of dead beasts: skeevers, wolves, sabre cats and more, all frozen stiff and buried half in the earth. Small wooden signs indicated what carcass was what and in many cases what disease the beast had carried with it. She had to visit four different storage rooms before she had everything the poison required and she was just wrapping a Daedra heart in a thick layer of cloth to stop it from oozing blood when she heard footsteps. They were very faint and masked by magic and any normal person would not have heard them, but it was clear to her that someone else was sneaking around here too. Bricca snuffed her torch and carefully put the heart in her bag. She pulled up her hood, tucking in some stray curls and made for the stairs. If she headed back now she could get some hours in on working at the poison. It was not long however before she noticed that the footsteps were coming closer. She and the other were walking towards each other. Sithis, don't let it be Ancano. She could not use the Thalmor grubbing around in her business right now, not at all. Moving with her back into a nearby niche, she tried to recognize who the other was, but the magic made it impossible to hear even a heartbeat. The only way she knew now that someone was near was the strange way the dim light that fell through the cracks in the ceiling was passing through the air. It was slightly off in one place, with the light bending at angles it shouldn't do. As she slowly, silently, drew her dagger, her foot hit a small pebble. It shot loose, ricocheting off the floor and the wall and making more noise than Bricca had thought possible. She cringed. Stupid. Now the other would know they weren't alone as well. The bent light was now nearly opposite her. Bricca stopped breathing and pressed herself against the wall to hide as far in the shadows as possible. To her relief, the other passed her, but then there was a sudden noise near her, a crack as loud as lightning hitting the ground. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough for Bricca to cover her ears and look up. For one second she saw a cloaked and hooded silhouette, and then everything exploded into pure white light. The flash engulfed her vision, and it was as if she had been staring directly into the sun. The light was so bright that it burned, like fire, and Bricca couldn't stop herself from crying out in pain and surprise. She felt tears run down her cheeks and bright spots were dancing in front of her eyes, flaring in and out of existence.
"You. What are you doing down here?" the silhouette asked, its gravelly voice sounding familiar. With the after-image of the flash still on her retina, Bricca squinted in the direction of the sound.
"Veryn?"
The elf grunted as he made himself fully visible. His hood and the darkness made it impossible to discern his features.
"What are you doing at the College?" he asked again.
"I'm working on a contract. Astrid sent me here." Bricca deliberately stayed vague. "You live at this place, don't you? Why did you stay at the College when Ancano showed up?"
Veryn seemed to be satisfied with her answer for now. "The Psijic Order showed up as I was about to leave the College and then things went a bit awry. Besides, I was in the middle of working out some rather complex equations about the Eye with some of my friends. We've actually found out that according to the commonly accepted laws of magic, it is impossible for the Eye to exist at all. And yet it's here, at the College, so now we'll have to be using some less conventionally means of calculation, such as dividing by zero, and-"
"Hold on," Bricca interrupted him, before he could get carried away too much in his enthusiasm. "Who are the Psijic Order? What do you have to do with them? Are you part of it?”
“They're-” Veryn fell silent and scratched his arm, apparently deep in thought. “They're an ancient order of very powerful wizards. I don't belong with them, but they somehow got wind of what's going on with the College here. That's about all I know about them either.”
Veryn motioned for her to follow him. As they descended a pair of stairs, covered with moss, he started explaining.
"On the same day that I learned of Ancano coming to the College, a Psijic monk visited me and what he said turned me around when it came to leaving. That, and well, the Eye. The Psijics want to stop Ancano and the Thalmor from taking the Eye for themselves, so we are on common ground there. A few days ago, that monk, Quaranir, visited me again, much to Ancano's distaste. Suffice to say, damn fetcher hates my guts even more by now." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Quaranir, as vague as only a Psijic can be, told me to find someone – or something – called the Augur of Dunlain down here."
He halted at a narrow door, its iron decorations long since rusted away. "I need to go through here. Would you like to join me?"
Bricca nodded and watched him crouch at the door. She wondered what Ancano would pay for this information. "You don't know exactly what to expect when it comes to the Augur?"
Veryn pressed his fingertips against the lock. "Tolfdir mentioned something about a magical accident. Everyone else is rather evasive about the Augur, so we'll have to see. The Midden, especially the part that we're entering now, is full of old experiments. We cleared out most of the skeletons two decades ago, but I'm sure there's been people down here who've been messing around with necromancy since."
The lock flared up green for a second, but the door didn't budge. Bricca felt her curiosity being peaked by whatever was beyond it. She loved to delve into old ruins and discover long lost treasures. Everything, even mere knowledge, could be valuable when it was sold to the right person. To learn more about the Eye and to know things that Ancano did not, that was worth all the undead or cobwebs she could run into.
"Sure," she said, just as the lock lit up again and then clicked faintly. "I'll come." Why not?
Down and down they went, until Bricca had no idea any more how far underground they were. The moss on the walls had been replaced by rime, and parts of the walls were covered entirely in ice again. Bricca could see Veryn's breath condense in the air into little clouds. Slowly, the place became more natural as the remains of human work sunk away in the ice and made way for passages running through rough stone. They passed a large cavern, entirely frozen and with a thin bridge of ice that was held up only by magic. Now and then there were doors, most of which led to nowhere or opened onto collapsed ceilings and heaps of frozen-over debris. One door was closed shut and did not have a lock, and even Veryn was unable to open it with magic.
"The Psijics didn't tell you about this?" Bricca asked, slightly amused. Veryn answered with a grunt, staring at the door with his arms crossed.
"Not exactly. The Psijics never tell you anything you really ought to know. This door is brimming with magic though. I doubt you are able to feel it, especially with the Eye drowning almost everything else out, but I'm convinced the Augur may have something to do with it."
Bricca nodded and tried to make herself comfortable on some nearby rocks, while Veryn set out to somehow undo the enchantments on the door. She amused herself by luring critters towards her, enticing them to come near, only to sink her teeth in their veins and suck out the sweet blood. After at least an hour had passed, she started to get bored. She cast a glance at Veryn, who was too absorbed with his spells to notice, and stood up, stretching her limbs and attempting to wriggle her numb toes. When she was about to mention that she would head back to the College proper, a disembodied voice filled the air.
"Still you persist. You may enter."
As the door swung open, she met Veryn's eye. He shook his head in quiet disbelief, and entered the room, a ball of fire ready in his hand. The room turned out to be empty and disappointingly small, containing only a crumbling small well. Something was floating above it, roughly shaped like a ball and looking as if it consisted of pure magicka. It radiated blue light and flickered in and out of existence.
"Are you the Augur?" Bricca stared at the thing with undisguised disappointment. "I had expected something more... substantial."
The Augur shifted a few times, and then that booming, ghostly voice sounded again.
"I am that which you have been seeking," it resonated.
"I was told to find you," Veryn said. While he no longer was immediately ready to attack, he still seemed very wary.
The Augur hummed. "Your efforts are in vain. Those who sent you have not told you what they seek. What you seek."
Bricca narrowed her eyes at the Augur, wondering if it was somehow trying to trick them. "And what is it that we seek?"
"You seek that which all who wield magic seek. Knowledge. You shall find this: Knowledge will corrupt. It will destroy. It will consume. You seek meaning, shelter in knowledge, but you will not find it." Veryn shifted on his spot, clearly uncomfortable with the answer, but the Augur was not done talking yet. "The Thalmor sought the same thing, and it shall lead to his end as it has so many others. Inquisitor Ancano, he calls himself. He seeks information about the Eye, but what he shall find will be quite different. His answers will be his undoing. Your path however differ from most. You are being guided and may save your College. I will tell you what you need to know to follow it."
"What do I need to stop the Thalmor from getting their hands on the Eye of Magnus?"
"You wish to acquire knowledge about the Eye, not just to stop Ancano, but for your own gain as well. If you wish to see through Magnus' Eye without being blinded, you will need his staff. I bid you good luck in finding it." With that, the Augurs light dimmed down, leaving the room shrouded in just a pale blue sheen.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
A few nights later, Bricca made her way up the stairs through the main tower. At the top, far above the Arcaneum, resided the Archmage. Although he was giving a lecture downstairs, he'd left his door unlocked. That man was entirely too trusting, especially with a Thalmor around. His quarters were fancy, richly decorated with elaborately carved and gilded furniture, thick tapestries and a great deal of shelves, packed with vials, books and small Dwarven instruments. In the middle was a large round garden. Wisps of magelight hovered around the pale white tree growing in there, casting the room in a ghostly blue light. Bricca pulled the poison she had made earlier out of her bag. It had turned into a thick, muddy brown sludge that slowly churned and moved around in its flask as if it had a life of its own. Savos Aren liked to drink a glass of good Skingrad wine before he went to sleep. Some of the higher-up mages complained loudly about what they called a waste of septims, especially when it came to importing the bottles all the way from the Empire. On a tall side table stood one of those much discussed bottles, opened already and roughly three-quarters full. Surilie Brothers, the label read. A rack on the nearby wall held the rest of Aren's alcoholic treasure: more Surilie Brothers, expensive spiced wine from southern High Rock and fruity cider from Anvil. Unfortunately, all of them were sealed, so Bricca decided to pour some of the sludge only in the opened bottle. She didn't even have to shake or stir the poison. It sizzled faintly and then dissolved, leaving no trace at all. From then on, she visited Savos Aren every other night, watching him sleep from a distance and dripping the sludge in his wine, and as time passed his health started deteriorating slowly.
Some weeks later, Ancano called her again for a meeting, this time in the Hall of the Elements. He made an angry and anxious impression on Bricca, continually muttering under his breath and pacing up and down past the Eye of Magnus.
"My assassin," he said, wringing his hands together. "Here to save the day."
Bricca raised an eyebrow at him. Ancano seemed very distraught about something.
"I need you to do an extension on the original contract. Nothing you should not be able to handle, especially not with the great job you're doing with the Archmage." The Thalmor made a nearly choked sound. His pale gold skin was flushed and Bricca smelt cheap beer on his breath when he talked. It amused her greatly to see the man lose control enough to get drunk, especially on beer, instead of wine. "I know what he did," Ancano continued, rambling half to himself. "Talked to the Augur about it, but it's mine. I came here for the Eye and I will not leave before I have discovered its secrets. And you are going to help me with that. I want you to kill Uvirith. He's gone away for a while, looking for something he believes will pry the Eye from my hands. Unfortunately for him, that's where you come in. As soon as he comes back you will kill him. I'll pay you twice the price you'd normally get."
Bricca felt her stomach slowly sink towards her toes as she heard the elf speak. Suddenly his drunkenness didn't seem so funny any more, nor was the way he glanced continually at the Eye anything to laugh about. It was as if Ancano was checking as if it was still here, with a maniacal hunger in his pale eyes. She couldn't kill Veryn just like that! To slaughter a fellow Dark Brother was a near unforgivable sin, something you just didn't do. It was unthinkable to do it at the direct command of someone else then the Night Mother or a Speaker of the Black Hand. And now some stuck-up, power-crazed high elf demanded of her to kill someone she regarded as something like a friend, just to further his own goals. What was this, some sort of sick test the Night Mother had thought up? A part of her confusion and loathing must have shown on her face, because Ancano stalked towards her, spittle flying out of his mouth. Bricca tried to stand her ground, clenching her jaws stubbornly.
"No backing out. You know what will happen to your Sanctuary if you do and what will happen to you, you filthy daughter of Molag Bal!" Ancano made a mocking gesture at her, conjuring fire out of nothing and pretending to throw it at her. Bricca flinched, letting out a high squeak of fear and surprise. She backed away in fear and felt her cheeks burn in humiliation when Ancano laughed out loud.
"It's good to see we are on the same line here," Ancano said, smiling amicably. At that moment, Bricca decided that she hated him, and that she would not mind seeing him dead once it was safe to kill him. But first, she would have to kill Veryn, a thought that did not sit well with her. Once she regained her composure she forced a smile.
"You are barking mad", she hissed. "And if you intend to have this contract fulfilled well, you will treat me with some more respect. The Dark Brotherhood is not your servant and so help me Sithis, if you do ever do something like this again, you'd better start checking every darkened corner of your quarters just in case. But let's head back to the contract. Uvirith will be dead before he knows it. Do you have any specific wishes in how you'd like to see him killed?"
Ancano stammered something that might have been an apology, before raving on about Veryn again. "I want him to die! I don't care how. For all I care you slice his throat in the courtyard once he comes back here! Anything you can do to kill him before he conspiring even more with his friends in here against me!"
The following days she hid in her room, lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling while she thought. She mulled over Ancano time and again, trying to assess his risk. Did he truly know about their Sanctuary or was it just a good guess? There were rumours enough after all in Falkreath Hold about the Brotherhood. He also didn't seem to know that Veryn was a Dark Brother or did he know and was that the reason he insisted on using the Brotherhood as a tool? She had tried to pray to the Night Mother for guidance, but She stayed quiet. Far off, in a distant corner of her mind, she could feel the Night Mother's presence, nestled there ever since that morning Bricca had hidden in the coffin. It was strangely soothing to know the Night Mother would watch out for her, but Her continued silence worried Bricca. Before Aedoric had been chosen as a listener he had been required to slay his friends and kill off an entire Sanctuary. How much of all this was the Night Mother's doing? She kicked the bed with her heels in frustration. What would Aedoric have done if he was here in her stead? He would probably have told her to get her act together and do what she thought was necessary. The Dark Brotherhood never failed a contract. But then, did Ancano telling her what to do even count as a contract? Bricca severely doubted he had completed the Black Sacrament, which technically was the only ground for a contract to even exist. A letter to Astrid, despite her position as a Matron, was not enough. Astrid wouldn't want Veryn to die either, but if the fate of the entire Sanctuary and everyone in it depended on his death, did Bricca have any choice?
Aedoric would have laughed at her. "You're over thinking this again," she could almost hear him say. For him, everything was always simple. He had a strong sense of duty; to the Brotherhood, to the Empire, and to her. And still he left you behind and disappeared, a little voice in her head said. She scowled at the wall, and at the wardrobe, and at the little desk full of maps of Skyrim. No, Aedoric wasn't much help right now. She rubbed her eyes, feeling worn out. Motierre. Another of the problems she couldn't overcome at the moment. The Night Mother had told her to go to Volunruud, but instead of going there she had been stuck in Winterhold for months. She already imagined arriving at Volunruud and discovering that Motierre had left long ago. Too late, the party was over, and her credibility as a Listener was tossed out of the window. Astrid would be delighted. Motierre. Ever since she had heard the name for the first time it had nestled itself in her head. There was something about it, something she couldn't entirely put a finger on.
It wasn't until the next week, while she was sitting in the back of the Hall of the Elements listening to a lecture on Doomstones, that it clicked in her head and she made the connection she'd been looking for all this time. As soon as Drevis Neloren was done talking, Bricca sprinted away to the Arcaneum, grabbing Famous Families of Greater Betony from its shelf and swatted the swarm of moths around her away. The damn bugs seemed attracted both by the magelight and the musty old books in here, but all they ever did was hover in the way. Unable to contain her excitement, she smacked the book on a nearby table, earning herself some angry glances from nearby students. Hurriedly she leafed through it, looking up the Motierres again and wondering how she ever could have missed it. Some of the Motierres had originally lived in Chorrol, for hundreds of years, but had moved to the Imperial City during the Oblivion Crisis due to a business conflict. Except it hadn't been a business conflict. It had been a conflict between a certain François Motierre and a group of shady underground thugs, culminating in the latter group sending an assassin after Motierre. Then the Dark Brotherhood had been hired, and Aedoric had solved everything in a matter of days. With a sudden, grim satisfaction Bricca snapped the book shut. She would just follow Aedorics example and everything would end up as desired. Ancano would get his contract, Astrid wouldn't have to know anything and just had to take the money and once she was done at the College she'd make a detour to Volunruud to check out the Night Mother's assignment. Smiling, she made her way to her room to start planning.
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