Even the best laid plans could fall apart due to unforeseen complications, and his mission had already been a gamble from the start.
Still, it had been a reasonable gamble - although over half of the bidders were nobles and stand-ins for nobles, none owned quite the capital that the primary target did. There was quite a lot of money to be made from human trafficking, and as the single largest backer of the underground slave trade, the target’s wealth was comparable to that of Anvil’s Count.
They’re rather elusive as well. The fact the village is only referring to them as the target speaks volumes about their ability to cover their tracks. We don’t know where they live, we don’t know how they operate, we don’t even know if they’re male or female.
What was known was that the target made regular purchases of Altmer through a network of middlemen. Hence his infiltration method via the auction.
It made sense to assign roles this way - other leads and clues in Anvil could be followed up by regular Po’ Tun operatives, but given his appearance and the target’s predilection for elves, planting him in the auction undercover as the merchandise could offer one of the most direct ways to complete the assassination..
Which could have cut the duration of the entire operation down by three quarters - we could have been done in two days or less and spent the remainder of the time pursuing our secondary targets.
He had come close, too. The Imperial middleman who’d bought him was very likely in the target’s employ. He might even have brought him straight to them.
Then the trio of ‘freedom fighters’ had come along and that was the end of that. Their disguises had been good, but the Orc, the Dunmer and the Khajiit - especially the Orc - had relatively poor self-control. Their outrage had been apparent in their microexpressions. The Khajiit had mentioned something about the Twin Lamps during the whole mess inside the theatre. That was noteworthy; something to highlight in his report. The Twin Lamps mainly operated out of Morrowind, but if that was changing…
A new party is at play here. I would do well to investigate - and turn this failure into an opportunity. The Twin Lamps may have resources I can use. Few organisations are as well-informed about slavery across the Empire.
The middleman was out of his reach for now, as was the Dunmer. The Khajiit was dead. Which meant that right now, his best option was the Orc.
And speaking of the Orc…
Harrow studied him from behind, listening to the rustle of fabric as he moved and sensing the patterns of air pressure he left in his wake. There was no light in the tunnels, but the Orc was pushing forward with less clumsiness than he’d expected. The rest of the slaves, sight-reliant as they were, groped through the darkness like swaddling infants, their arms linked, every one of them terrified they would lose their way and end up alone in the tunnels. Harrow made sure to adopt a similar pace. Not the Orc. He marched forward, his body language and gait making it clear he knew where he was going. Was he used to being deprived of his vision? No… he wasn’t moving like that. He doesn’t move like someone accustomed to blindness. He doesn’t move like we do. The Orc knew where his body was going, but there was a hesitancy in his step, a lack of rhythm and confidence. It was as if he was being guided.
Curious - most curious. What was guiding him? Voices in his head? Harrow had heard him talking to himself on several occasions during the one hour and thirteen minutes they’d been spending in the tunnels. It wasn’t the only unusual thing about the Orc. The magic he used was quite unconventional for a Tamriellian. The shadow hound that he had summoned - was it him, or some other entity? He had been shouting for a distraction moments before it appeared - seemed to be some form of illusion, but more optical than mental. Tsukikage shinobi are trained to recognise conventional illusion magic, and the Yellow Flask complements that training. I am not wholly resistant, but I felt none of the telltale signs of my perception of reality being altered.
An individual bearing further investigation, to be sure.
The Orc led the group of liberated slaves around six more intersections. Harrow was keeping up a facade of directionless confusion, but he actually did find the tunnel system a little difficult to navigate. He lacked a map, and although his internal compass was still constant, the tunnels’ twists and turns could throw even him off if he wasn’t careful. The only straight sections were narrow with low ceilings. And smells of metallic dust. There was mining activity here, decades or centuries ago. It was very strange that they hadn’t come across any collapsed shafts yet, considering that much of the tunnel system must have been converted from old mines.
‘All right, stop,’ the Orc called out after another half-hour of wandering in the tunnels. ‘Is everyone still here?’
One by one the slaves called out ‘here’. Some sounded timid, others simply tired. Three among the group were children, one a teenager about a year or two older than Harrow, five adults, two elderly. Eleven slaves, all accounted for.
‘Good,’ the Orc breathed. ‘Good… all right, come over to me; follow my voice. There’s a ladder here where I’m standing. Yes, there. Feel it? All right, now go up one after the other. There’s a latch at the top, pull it and-’
The first slave to go up was one of the children. The girl let out a delighted cry as she pulled down a trapdoor and moonlight came streaming down. The night outside wasn’t that much brighter than the tunnels, but for the slaves who’d spent almost two solid hours in all-encompassing darkness, light, no matter how dim, came as a relief. As for Harrow, his surroundings sharpened into full view instantly.
‘Tusk,’ the Orc swore. ‘We spent this much time down here? All right. Everyone up now, let’s move.’
They surfaced in a part of Anvil that Harrow didn’t recognise, with rickety, closely clustered buildings that hadn’t been maintained for at least five years, which Harrow deduced from the degradation of the paint. Judging from the turns we took and the total distance we walked while underground, our current position is one and a half miles east by northeast of the Théâtre Provincial, which puts us further inland… in the slums.
The Orc led them on. Harrow memorised the directions. Left, right, straight, left… another five hundred feet to the north, then two hundred feet east.
Movement from the right. He glanced at it without moving his head, resisting the urge to frown. The Orc had stopped for just a moment - and his shadow extended in front of him, almost seeming to pool forward before reattaching to his form a split second later. What is he doing? Harrow thought warily, surreptitiously gathering his magicka. It doesn’t seem like anything that would present immediate danger, but still…
The Orc continued to lead the group around the slums. They did not come across a single person, which was odd. The slums were not an official residential district, but people lived here all the same. Harrow could hear the distinct sound of active occupants. The Orc had picked a route that was completely free of witnesses.
His shadow… Did he sweep the area with some form of detection spell? If so, it would have been quite powerful, and I should have sensed magic of such magnitude.
At last they stopped, right in front of a large two-storey building covering an area of approximately five thousand square feet, almost half a mile away from where they had left the tunnel system.
‘This is one of our safehouses,’ the Orc said. ‘It’s been converted from an abandoned warehouse, so there’s room inside. It won’t be comfortable, but- it’s at least better than your shackles.’
Two slaves threw themselves at him with tears in their eyes, stammering thanks.
The Orc looked away, as if he was ashamed of something, and mumbled a weak ‘It’s alright’ before unlocking the door and leading the freed slaves inside.
It was dark and musky in the warehouse. The Orc strode around the room as the slaves stood about, uneasy. Harrow heard a few sharp snaps. Steel on flint. The Orc was lighting lanterns set into the wall. ‘Only one cot on the ground floor, and my own bed is as dirty as it gets,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry. There’s cotton and wool sheets around you can use, though. This used to be a fabrics warehouse.’
The slaves murmured more thanks. The adults took charge of the children, laying them down in bed with hugs and comforting words. The cot was in the middle of one of the storage rooms. It was dusty and must’ve been abandoned along with the warehouse years ago, but someone flung a sheet of cotton over it and it was instantly serviceable. The Orc watched them for a while, then retreated into another, smaller room.
The rest of the slaves cleared out the room and began arranging sheets of cloth into makeshift mattresses and blankets. Harrow headed over to help - it would be wise to blend in for the moment. He laid out one strip of cotton, then one of the elderly slaves reached out to grip his arm.
It was an Imperial woman in her sixties. Harrow looked at her questioningly, and the woman pointed a finger at the children, who were curled up shaking in the cold.
‘Take one of them sheets to the little ones, eh lass?’ she croaked. ‘It’s Sun’s Dusk and they could catch the winter fever sleeping like that.’
‘Of course,’ Harrow said softly, picking up a thick woolen sheet and carrying it over to the bed. The youngest child on the cot was five years old - the Breton boy who’d gone onstage right after he had. The oldest was nine. Another Breton. She was hugging a six-year-old Imperial girl to her chest. ‘Here,’ he murmured, draping the sheet over all three. ‘Is it warm enough?’
‘Mhm,’ the Breton girl nodded, quiet from the shock of the day. ‘Thank you, my lady.’
Harrow allowed a twitch of his lips. ‘My lady? I’m not a noblewoman, you know.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the girl said. ‘I thought- well, your clothes...’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Harrow replied, keeping his voice low and gentle. ‘Now do go to sleep, you must be tired.’
‘Not really,’ the girl whispered. ‘I can’t- stop thinking about what happened…’
The two younger children began to whimper.
‘I lost it...’ The girl rubbed her scalp. Harrow recalled seeing a headband on it during the auction. It had been hers? Strange that the slavers let her keep a personal item. ‘It was a gift from mother… m-mother...’
‘Trouble?’ the old woman said, amused, walking over just as they began to cry in earnest. ‘Never dealt with children before, eh?’
Only once, madam.
‘Ahh, the little daedra,’ the woman continued. ‘You can’t help but love them, you know?’
‘Well, I-’
‘No, you don’t,’ she interrupted, forehead wrinkling even more as she cackled, patting her belly. ‘But you wait till you squeeze out some little daedra of your own, lass. You just wait. Your man will never love them the same way you do, you know that too? Ahh, us mothers.’
It would be exceedingly awkward to correct her now, so Harrow simply nodded and smiled to her face.
Meanwhile, the children continued to cry, the stress of the day bursting out of them through their sobs and tears.
‘All right,’ the old woman bent over, rocking them to and fro. ‘All right… all right… hush, you’re safe now.’
The children quieted down a bit, hiccuping, their eyes still wide open in fear - an uncertain fear that the rest of the slaves doubtlessly shared. None of them knew what to do, what tomorrow might bring.
‘Hey, lass,’ the old woman rasped, looking at Harrow. ‘I’d normally do this myself, but I came down with Rattles a few years back and my throat hasn’t been the same since - know any lullabies? Nothing like a good song to help calm the little ones.’
Harrow thought back to some of the Tamriellian verses he’d read in the Tsukikage library. ‘Some,’ he said, inclining his head
‘I’m sure you do, with a voice sweet as yours.’ The old woman beckoned. ‘Come, come, sing them to sleep, eh? These poor children. They must miss their mothers so…’
It’s quite likely that their mothers either abandoned them or sold them into slavery in the first place, Harrow thought dryly, then recalled the lyrics to a short West Weald cradle song, opened his mouth and began to sing.
He paced through the stanzas, adjusting the song to a higher key fit for his voice, which he kept light and lilting. His breathing modulated, his tones at the most ideal pitch, he sang of fruit and swaying vines in the wind and small animals in their snug dens and the soft wind under the starry night sky, crooning out couplet after couplet. The adults stopped their work to listen, and the children snuggled up under the sheets.
By the time he was done, the children had nodded off, drowsy. A few of the slaves smiled with misty eyes, nodding at him appreciatively.
The old woman, though, looked strangely unhappy. ‘What a voice, such a sweet voice, like honey and cream,’ she sighed. ‘But I don’t know, something’s... missing.’
Harrow blinked. He should have done everything correctly on a technical level. Putting a pout on his face, he turned it on the old woman.
‘Oh, now don’t look at me like that, lass,’ the aged Imperial winced. ‘It wasn’t anything wrong, just…’
The Orc’s voice rang out from the other side of the room. ‘Excuse me-’ he began.
‘Shh!’ the old woman hissed. ‘You’ll wake the children!’
‘Oh. Sorry,’ the Orc said, walking over. ‘Do any of you know how to treat wounds?’
Utter silence. The slaves looked at each other, fearful. They had all seen the cut on the Orc’s back, but it seemed that none of them knew what to do about it.
‘All right,’ the Orc grimaced. ‘Can any of you sew at least?’
‘I sew,’ Harrow said immediately. This is a chance to get some information out of him.
‘You…’ the Orc turned his crimson eyes on him, frowning. ‘All right, follow me.’
The Orc led him into his room. It was sparsely furnished, with only one chair and a desk. The Orc stripped off his leather coat and white shirt and sat down after turning the chair around, his bare chest pressing against the back.
The two of them stayed like that for a while, Harrow still acting as if he was too shy to take the initiative. Then the Orc spoke.
‘Needle and twine on the desk,’ he grunted, passing over a bottle of some homebrew alcohol. ‘Wash the wound with this first.’
‘All… all right,’ Harrow said, taking the bottle. He drew closer to the Orc and poured the strong-smelling liquid down the cut. The Orc’s only response to the pain was a quiet groan.
As he rinsed the wound, Harrow observed the scarring patterns on the Orc’s back. Many of them were far more severe than the cut, and Harrow discerned scars not just from long and short blades, but also whip-mark upon whip-mark upon even more whip-marks. The Orc’s back was one large mass of scar tissue.
Time for a little tenderness; soften him up a little.
‘Oh, your poor back,’ Harrow murmured, running a finger up a particularly nasty tangle of patchwork scars. ‘How could anyone…?’
‘Slavers,’ the Orc spat, as if that one word was sufficient explanation.
Harrow remained silent for a few seconds, suggesting contemplation, then leant closer, lowering his voice to a husky whisper. ‘Thank you,’ he said, intimating sincerity with quietness. ‘For saving me from… this. You were so brave.’
The Orc did not respond, and Harrow moved a hand up to his shoulder, massaging it lightly. The muscle there was hard and firm, the result of rough labour. Despite the Orc’s coarse appearance, he was not unpleasant to the touch.
‘How badly does it hurt?’ he asked soothingly.
‘I’m used to pain,’ the Orc grunted. He was rather fond of speaking in grunts, it seemed.
‘I’m sorry…’ Harrow murmured, then set the bottle down on the desk and picked up the needle and twine.
‘Don’t be- nngh,’ the Orc growled as Harrow threaded the needle and poked it into the wound.
‘What was that you did with the giant dog? I’ve never seen magic like that before…’
Grunt.
Perhaps I should start over.
‘It just occurred to me,’ Harrow said, looping the thread around into an overhand knot. ‘I don’t even know the name of my valiant savior.’
‘Lash,’ the Orc said, the corner of his mouth tightening as Harrow moved a quarter-inch up to the next section of the cut. He shook his head. ‘Grulmar. You can call me Grulmar. I’m with the Twin Lamps. We free slaves; it’s what we do.’
‘Grulmar,’ Harrow said gently, shifting his own body so that the two of them were even closer, their skin inches apart. Concentrating, he released a trace amount of his scent, just enough for the Orc’s subconscious to register the aroma. ‘Thank you for my life, Grulmar of the Twin Lamps,’ he whispered, making sure his breath tickled the Orc’s ear. ‘You’re my hero.’
Grulmar twitched. ‘You don’t need to keep thanking... no, I don’t, I’m not- be quiet for a moment, for tusk’s sake.’
Harrow paused and withdrew slightly. Am I overdoing it?
‘Ah, not you,’ Grulmar said tiredly. ‘I mean, not- agh, never mind. I’m sorry.’
Talking to himself again… perhaps he suffers from auditory hallucinations.
As Harrow worked on the second suture, he leant to the side, studying the Orc’s face. Cruelty and hardship had toughened his features, but Grulmar was still quite young - no more than twenty, perhaps barely any older than Harrow himself. The burn on his cheek was very large; easily his most distinguishing feature. It ran down from his cheekbone to his jaw, red and angry.
‘Why did you save me?’ Harrow finished the second knot. ‘You- you could’ve died…’
‘I…’ Grulmar’s jaw worked. ‘Look at me - look at what people like them are capable of. You should know why.’
‘Who… who were they?’ Harrow asked, beginning to probe.
‘What?’
‘The people… those awful people,’ he said, making sure to inject an appropriate amount of distress into his voice. ‘The ones selling us-’ He added in a sniff. ‘-they wouldn’t tell us anything, but I saw nobles out there.’
‘The rich bastards are always the worst,’ the Orc said plainly. ‘It’s just the way it is.’
‘Did you know any of them?’ Harrow continued to stitch.
‘No,’ Grulmar said grimly. ‘I was never the brains of-’
He stopped talking. Had he suddenly realised he was saying too much?
It was enough. Grulmar himself knows nothing, but his associates may. I should use him to access the larger organisation behind him... a pity the other two in the team are out of my reach.
The Dunmer was likely the one with the plan, at least among the three. She seemed the most level-headed, being the only one with enough presence of mind to retreat. It could have been the Khajiit too, but he was dead, so that avenue was closed.
Harrow moved up to the last quarter-section of the cut as he changed the subject. ‘I’m sorry about your friend.’
‘You saw?’ Grulmar turned his head, then flinched as his motion dragged on the string in his flesh. ‘Tusk. It was my fault, you know, I-’
And then he fell silent again. Haltingly, unnaturally. It was almost as if an invisible hand was clamping over his mouth, dictating what he could and could not say.
‘Were the two of you close? I’m so sorry...’ Harrow said softly, even as he probed deeper. Guilt could be used.
The Orc grunted.
‘He died for me… for us,’ he whispered, leaning close again and adding just a small touch of ki to his voice to make sure it wormed deep into Grulmar’s ear. ‘I won’t forget that.’
Silence as the Orc broke out into a cold sweat. Then, as he was wont to do, he let out another grunt.
I suppose that’s as far as I should go for the moment.
Harrow finished up the sutures and straightened. ‘All right, it’s done.’
Grulmar stood up, testing the stitches as he stretched and moved. Seeming satisfied, he turned around and nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Harrow rewarded him with a glowing smile. ‘It was the least I could do.’ Maybe one final touch. He let his smile fade, replacing it with the upturned brow and trembling lips of fear and anxiety. ‘What’s going to happen to us now?’
Grulmar swallowed, turning his back to him as he pulled his shirt back on. ‘I... don’t know,’ he muttered, chuckling bitterly. ‘Some hero, eh?’
Harrow waited for a few seconds, but no other response came, so he left the Orc alone in the room as he went to rejoin the rest of the slaves, who had all fallen asleep. The old woman had stretched out a sheet of cotton for him. He let his hair down, closed his eyes, threw a woolen blanket over himself and meditated for a few hours, recovering his energies.
He opened his eyes fully refreshed at approximately three fifteen in the morning. Concentrating, he listened and felt for the presence of the other ten freed slaves. All asleep, despite the traumatic events of yesterday. Shifting, he sat up, sliding the blanket off noiselessly and slipping out of the storage room.
Now to have a closer look at this safehouse.
He could hear Grulmar breathing from outside his room in a pattern consistent with sleep. He briefly considered going in, but decided against it. Didn’t seem as if there was anything useful in there. His desk didn’t even have drawers.
There were more rooms on the first floor, though. Likely for more senior agents, which was where he ought to start.
The stairway was to the left. Harrow glanced back at the sleeping slaves, closed the door silently, and stalked upstairs.
It didn’t take long before Lash fell asleep. He was lying on his belly, the scarred side of his face pushed into the pillow, which only showed how young he actually was. Too young, some would say.
Too young for this shit. For all this shit, the shadow thought. It was strange watching the Orc sleep, creepy even, but when one was an intangible shadow that required no sleep - he hadn’t gotten any in almost seven years - what else was there to do? Well, plenty of things actually, but watching Lash sleep was mesmerising in a very strange way.
It was like looking into a mirror, one of them funny ones that made a person’s reflection fat or tall or just all kinds of twisted. Lash was a reflection that had somehow turned out completely different.
Strong, unbroken, iron-willed, even after all the pain he had experienced.
It was infuriating. Because he was everything the shadow was not. Maybe it would be alright to hate him for it, to envy him that, and the shadow did try to convince himself that he hated the runt. But it simply didn’t stick, because wasn’t it all his fault, the way Lash turned out? If he hadn’t screamed in his head back then, maybe the slavers wouldn’t have taken him away and-
Ugh. Yeah, keep goin’ in that direction, matey. It will totally make a difference now.
Insomnia was a bitch, and staring at his own reflection - sleeping peacefully in the bed - wasn’t helping anything. He needed some kind of distraction.
He spread his awareness, focusing on the room behind the door, his senses sliding through the shadows. He had no eyes or ears, and what he could perceive couldn’t be described through the definitions of the classic senses.
He couldn’t see or hear, but he could feel the shadows and through them he perceived the world, because everything casted shadows and they were like… Echoes, reflections. They mimicked everything, and through this mimicry he sensed everything.
In a way it worked like a form of sight, though with certain advantages and disadvantages. When he didn’t focus he could take in a wide area without noticing any details - and a wide area meant his immediate vicinity in all directions - but he needed to focus to recognize the details.
So he could sense the slaves in the next room, huddled together as they slept, trying to cope with their current situation. What a shitshow, he thought. Today was one damn mess, and now he and Lash were stuck with nearly a dozen slaves hanging around their necks and-
Wait. Where’s the flowery boy?
He focused and yes, he certainly wasn’t among the slaves. Where the blazes did he go? If he went outside and ends up leadin’ every bloody guard here then I’m going to personally haunt ‘im for the rest of his whorin’-
Movement upstairs, right at the edge of his awareness. What was upstairs? It was Baker’s room. Hmm. What’re ya up to?
He peeled off Lash’s sleeping form and surged through the shadows, through the cracks in the ceiling and slipped into Baker’s room’s shadows. And there he was, a small, girly sprite rifling through some papers on the desk. Gone was the shy and bashful creature from before, replaced by something… Well, something.
The boy moved without producing any sound, and his motions were elegant, economical but with an efficient grace, driven by a singular focus. The room was not lit and yet the boy moved with certainty, one with the darkness, and if anyone entered the room now they probably wouldn’t be able to notice him at all.
But darkness was nothing but one big shadow to some.
Well, he knew there’d been something strange about this little flowery elf. First dodging the bolt and making it look like sheer luck, then the seemingly innocent questions directed at Lash, and now this.
What are ya up to?
The boy had been presented at the auction as a slave, and a high-end pricey one too, but nothing about him screamed slave now. Who was he? Hmm. Could he be a Twin Lamp agent, from another cell maybe? Planted as a slave to obtain direct information from the inside?
Or what if he was working for the slavers?
Nah, matey, ya gettin’ too paranoid now. But fine, let’s shake the tree and see what falls down.
He reached out towards the boy, winding his way towards him like a snake in high grass. And then he spoke.
‘I think ya took the wrong door, the girls’ room is the other way.’
The boy twitched and jumped in fright. He spun around, his head hanging in shame and something closely resembling a guilty submissiveness. He paused as his eyes darted the room. Unable to find anyone, his breathing quickened, fear clawing its way into his voice. ‘W-who’s there?’
Heh. ‘Yer conscience. We don’t speak very often these days.’
‘I-I,’ the boy stammered, his eyes frantically searching the dark room for the source of the sound. The room suddenly filled with a sweet smell and if the shadow had eyebrows they would most likely be furrowed. ‘I j-just wanted to be alone for a moment,’ he mewled, his eyes watering. ‘All the… d-death and… I didn’t want the others to see I was scared.’
‘Damn! I love it! Y’are good, really good.’
‘I don’t understand… W-who are you? Where… I- I’m scared.’ The boy lowered his shoulders and tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear like a nervous Breton schoolgirl ashamed to admit she was still playing with dolls.
Doll. Ha! That didn’t take long to figure out.
‘Oh, I’ll bet.’ He let that hang in the air for a moment, just curious to see what reaction he would be getting. With every passing second the boy was quivering more and more, holding back terrified sobs, and the shadow almost started to believe him. Almost. If he hadn’t caught him red-handed he might have swallowed that bait hook, line and sinker.
The elf then broke into full-blown crying. He covered his face with his hands and his shoulders shook with his sobbing. ‘Please, don’t punish me. Please, I’ll do anything, I’ll- I’ll be a good boy. Anything, anything!’
Shit! That got weird real quick. The boy was one damn skilled actor, no doubt about that. It would take someone with a heart of stone not to get moved by this. Sadly, shadows didn’t have hearts. ‘Nobody’s goin’ to punish ya, Doll. Just take a deep breath, yeah? Good. Now tell me who y’are workin’ for.’
‘W-what?’ the young elf paused and stared into the darkness, taking a few shaky steps forward.
‘Did I stutter? Actually, do I stutter? Never noticed myself to be honest. So again. Who are ya workin’ for? ‘Cause wantin’ to be alone in the dark AND goin’ through the documents on the table in the said dark… Well, ya got to admit, it’s weird. But points for tryin’, matey. Now let’s skip this charade, shall we?’
The boy stared ahead of himself for a second, his stance making him look fragile and vulnerable. And then he straightened, his entire aura changing, reverting to that efficient creature who had been searching for something among Baker’s documents. He took a few more steps forward, swift and steady, his gleaming silver eyes scanning the room from corner to corner, narrowing at the shadows in the room.
For a brief, absurd moment, it almost felt as if he could see him; which was impossible, since he was all the darkness in the room.
He’s not. He can’t see ya or sense ya… right?
‘Tch,’ the boy said, flicking his tongue against his teeth as he turned to one side and stretched a hand out to the window. ‘Let’s.’
In an instant, the air filled with energy and the shadow could feel the magicka gathering. The boy’s form became a lightning bolt that illuminated the room in a bright flash of light, casting all the shadows away, literally throwing Shade out of the room and ‘blinding’ him for a moment.
A strange sensation overwhelmed him and it took him a moment to realise it was actually pain. He hadn’t felt anything like that for quite some time now.
That little shit just rode lightnin’! he cursed and as soon as he regained his awareness he sped into the room, only to find what he’d expected. Nothing. He began expanding his awareness as he rushed to the roof through the ceiling and-
There he is! The elf was dashing across the rooftops at a breathtaking speed, heading away from the warehouse and zooming towards the entertainment district. Oh, no ya don’t.
The night was dark. Heavy clouds had rolled in, covering up the moons, and that only made the darkness over the city even more prevalent, providing Shade with more than he would normally need for this kind of thing.
He rushed forward, skipping from one pool of darkness into another, keeping the little doll in range of his senses. For a moment the shadow considered just letting him go wherever he was heading, which would allow him to watch and find out what this was all about, undetected.
But then again, he couldn’t allow anyone to expose Lash’s location.
Shade burst forward, catching up with the boy in matter of seconds, and latched onto his shadow, settling in comfortably for the ride.
‘Nice trick back there, been some time since I s-’
The boy immediately rode the lightning again, shaking the shadow off, sending a surge of pain through his form. Shade was left on a roof, trying regain his awareness again, and he snickered to himself. Well, that’s just rude.
He surged through the shadows to catch up with the elf again and he noticed that he’d changed direction and was heading away from the entertainment district now. He glued himself to the elf’s shadow once more and chuckled. ‘How long can ya keep this up?’
Just as he spoke the elf rode the lightning yet again, disappearing for a second only to reappear on a rooftop across the street. Oww. Annoyin’ piece of…
‘Just want to talk, nothin’ more,’ he said when he reached the elf again. This time he didn’t get blown away by another lightning teleportation. Instead, the boy immediately changed his direction again, soaring over a twenty-step-wide gap between two roofs. ‘Damn! What a jump. I’ve seen my share of rabbits jumpin’ around, especially when poked by lightnin’, but ya just put them all in yer pocket. Oh! Tell me y’are not secretly a rabbit. Were-rabbit! Hahaha!’
No response, only another change of direction. Now the elf was headed straight for the main street, moving across the slums more quickly but also more quietly than anything the shadow had ever seen. He flitted from one house to the next, swung himself ninety degrees sideways using a weather vane without losing a lick of speed, ran diagonally up a twelve-foot-high wall like it was even ground, then used it as a springboard and leapt thirty feet up from a short building to a taller one, all with ridiculous ease.
Overall, this boy was something the shadow had never encountered in his life. He had seen mages capable of enhancing their physical abilities through Fortify spells, allowing them to perform extraordinary feats, but he couldn’t feel that kind of magicka concentration from the boy. No, he could feel the arcane energies only when he rode the lightning, but otherwise all these athletic and acrobatic feats were being performed without a single drop of magicka. Very interestin’.
‘Is there any chance ya could slow down for a bit? It must be hard to speak with all the runnin’ and jumpin’ - though ya don’t seem anywhere close to losin’ yer breath. Alright, that’s enough-’
He formed himself into a thick, viscous glob of black and splattered himself all over the boy’s face, rendering him completely blind just as he reached the edge of the building.
‘All right, now can we stop and-’
The elf took the jump.
‘Ya crazy?!’
He landed three stories down without making a sound, then continued on his way, not even losing a step. Tusker doesn’t need eyes!‘Ya a bat or something?’
The shadow felt the boy’s eyes narrow against him, and with a jolt his form scattered once again as the boy became another lightning bolt streaking away into the night. The pain was worse this time, the shadow having compacted himself to fit on the boy’s face. It took him a few extra seconds to catch up.
‘Alright, I get the point, I’ll just sit along and enjoy the ride then. Wheeeeeeeee! Look, no hands!’
The boy glanced over his shoulder and the shadow almost thought the distraction would be enough to trip him up, but his body stayed completely in control and he sprang up over another roof, now heading towards the chapel of Dibella.
‘So where are we runnin' - oh, they sell amazin' oranges at that stall - ya have passed it, so no oranges. If ya take the left here ya - fine, take the right, be my guest. Jumpin' and jumpin', left and right. Ya bunny-wabbit. Just make up yer mind already 'cause I have all night. And day. Actually, I have pretty much an eternity.’
Still no reply, though this time there was a nearly imperceptible clenching of his jaws - a sign of frustration maybe? I hope so.
‘Well, y’are a stubborn one, I give ya that. Be my guest then, ‘cause I got to tell ya, there’s somethin’ I've figured out since I came here. A body is in reality quite a fragile and limited thing. I mean, ya have to eat, sleep, shit, ya get tired and all that. So while I have to admit I’m actually quite impressed by yer stamina - that’s what she said, hahahaha! - I’m fairly sure ya can’t keep this up forever. Neither can ya ride yer fancy lightnin’ forever, ‘cause what’s that quote? “Even the best mage has a finite reserve of magicka; none born yet have been graced with Magnus' infinite reserves of power.” Yeah, so there’s that. By the way, do ya mind if I call ya “Doll”? Of course ya don’t mind. It is a perfect fit.’
Doll leapt over another gap and then jumped again, this time landing on the roof of Dibella’s chapel. He darted over the tiles, heading straight for the bell tower, bounding up the wall using even the invisible gaps in the stone as footholds.
‘So how long can ya keep this up? Hours maybe? Well, by my estimation, it won’t be long before the sun gets up and - purely a subjective opinion here - I think that ya jumpin’ over the rooftops in broad daylight might raise a few heads. So, shall we sum this up? Ya can’t keep this up forever and ya can’t get rid of me... wow, that was much shorter than I wanted. Wanted to be a bit dramatic, ya know, but oh well. So with that now covered, how about ya stop for a second, catch yer breath and we exchange a few words? ‘Cause I got a feeling - not sure why - that all this time it’s just been me talkin’. Though it’s a good thing I can’t run out of breath, eh?’
The elf reached the top of the chapel’s tower, leaning against the cold stone, seemingly catching his breath. But the shadow felt his heart beat slowly - as a matter of fact it beat so slowly his heart was moving almost once every three or four seconds. Another ruse?
Opening his mouth, Doll spoke. The demure girly voice was gone, replaced by a strange, exotic accent that the shadow had never heard before. He spoke like each syllable was a word in of itself, sinking his tongue and his teeth into every consonant. His voice was soft but low, and tinged with an unmistakable cold.
‘Very well,’ said the mysterious elven boy. ‘Let us talk.’
‘Great!’ With that the shadow rose from the floor like smoke, taking the shape of a man dressed in robes with a cape. ‘Ta-da! How’s that for a trick?’ He extended his arms and bowed mockingly. ‘So let’s start with somethin’ quite simple. Who do ya work for?’
‘What are you?’ Doll countered with his own question
‘Stuck,’ came his reply even before he managed to think it through.
If Doll was surprised by that answer he didn’t let it show on his face, which remained an impenetrable mask. ‘“Stuck” implies being somewhere you don’t want to be.’
‘Somethin’ like that. Heh, stuck. I just realized how fittin’ that is. Stucker maybe? Nah, that’s not it. Anyway, I simply have no other option but to stick around here - Stick! Ha! That’s it! Sticker. I did it again and damn! I’m good!’
‘Sticker. Not your real name, I take it. “Around here”. “Here” is rather vague. All I can infer from that is that you are from... somewhere else. Where?’ Doll tilted his head, somehow completely disregarding how fitting that name was. No appreciation for theatrics here, I see.
‘Not from around here. Aren’t ya nose-y?’ Sticker chuckled. ‘We don’t even know each other yet and ya go for personal questions without answering my own. See, that’s not really goin’ to work. So somethin’ a bit different now. Why were ya at the auction as a slave? ‘Cause from what I have seen, a few teensy chains shouldn’t have been able to hold ya for long.’
‘Why were you there?’ the elf countered with his own question once more, which was slowly starting to annoy the shadow beyond reason. ‘Not to rescue the slaves, surely, not when there were just three of you - four if I count you too. Hardly a sufficient number for such an operation, so you were likely there just to observe. But Grulmar lost his head, didn’t he?’
‘Tuskin’ Oblivion, matey, this leads absolutely nowher-’
‘“Tusking.” That is an Orc colloquialism. Are you-’
‘Enough!’ Sticker raised his voice and felt his form twitch a bit. If he could sigh he most likely would right now. ‘I’m tryin’ to find some common ground and all I’m gettin’ is this psychological bullshit. Fine, if y’are not interested then shoo, off with ya.’
‘Cutting me loose that easily? What if I revealed the location of the safehouse to the slavers?’ It was said calmly, without a single facial muscle out of place. The elf was waiting for a reaction, probably thinking he had him cornered now.
‘Then I will haunt ya for the rest of yer life and annoy the shit out of ya.’
This time the elf frowned, almost as if he was confused by the logic of the statement. ‘A rather unconventional threat.’
The shadow shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s a threat ‘cause ya can’t get rid of me. Think about it. Every second, every minute of yer life, draggin’ me everywhere with ya, revealin’ all yer secrets.’
‘That,’ Doll said frostily, ‘could prove exceedingly problematic. Would any of it matter if the slaves and your friend Lash were captured?’
‘Could prove exceedingly problematic’. What the tusk does that even mean? That it would be problematic if I figured out his secrets or problematic figurin’ them out?
‘Ya assume I give a flyin’ Khajiit shit about the slaves or the Orc,’ was the answer that he gave him, his voice in his classic cheerful tones. It was partially a lie, but he was quite sure that it was nearly impossible to call his bluff. His form had no face, no facial expressions and he was quite confident his voice was quite hard to read as it was.
‘Well, you did say you were stuck here, but from what I’ve seen, “stuck with someone” seems more appropriate.’
Observant son of an Old Mary bitch! Don’t give him any more than ya already did, matey. Talk bullshit, as always.
‘Sounds like marriage, and trust me, me and the Orc - we’re not married. I just enjoy the way he tusks up everythin’. Kind of reminds me of someone, and I’m very nostalgic.’
A tense silence followed, but Doll didn’t seem like he was done just yet. Instead he stared right at the smokelike shadow standing in front of him and the shadow did the same.
‘We could bark and measure each other like two street mutts all night,’ Sticker said after a while. ‘Or we could help each other. ‘Cause the way ya went through the documents seemed like we have somethin’ ya need.’
‘And what would you want from me?’
He got ya there. Maybe a bit of honesty now?
‘Honestly? No idea yet, since ya’ve told me shit so far. For all I know ya could be a Fist tryin’ to dismantle the Empire - not that I care, mind ya.’
‘A fist?’
‘Yeah. Fists of Thalmor. That’s what the agents of Thalmor are called, at least where I’m from.’
‘Where... you’re… from,’ Doll repeated slowly. ‘I see. How would the Thalmor dismantle the Empire using one of their agents as a slave?’
Back to the stupid guessing game again, which Sticker had no interest in playing anymore. ‘I have no idea! It was just an example, alright? Just - be so bloody kind and give me somethin’ so that I don’t have to make an idiot out of myself anymore.’
The boy tilted his head at him again for a few moments.
‘Well?’
It was very sudden, like flipping a switch. Doll nodded once, his head bobbing up and down in a sharp motion, and began to talk, his voice clipped, businesslike.
‘I seek the single largest backer behind the underground human trafficking operations in Anvil. Their identity is unknown, as is their location. The auction had been an opportunity for infiltration, but-’
‘The runt tusked it up. Alright, this is much better, isn’t it? Now what d’ya want with this… uh… backer?’
Another long stretch of silence as the elf studied him with those weird big silver eyes that almost seemed to glow. Tryin’ to decide how much he should tell me, eh? The silence lasted for a full minute, then he spoke again.
‘I want him - dead,’ Doll said flatly.
‘Ooh. Gettin’ the shivers now. Just to make one thing clear here, yeah? Ya were runnin’ and jumpin’ over the rooftops for what seemed like hours, did all that fancy lightnin’ ridin’, climbing a gods damned Chapel of whorin’ Dibella, and all that just to spill out we’re actually on the same side? Well… it does seem quite pointless now, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Doll said emotionlessly, his face still completely unreadable. ‘I feel very foolish.’
The shadow felt like forming a set of eyelids just to squint at the boy. ‘Uhm. Is it weird I feel very satisfied that it actually wasn’t me bunglin’ somethin’ up this time?’
He said that to the boy’s face, but made a note of it in his mind - Doll had run for a reason, and there was no way in tusking Oblivion he was on the exact same side as the Twin Lamps.
‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘One more thing, and you may not like it. Lash - Grulmar - needs to know.’
Doll’s eyes sharpened into slits.
‘That a problem?’
‘Inconvenient… but acceptable.’ The elf - what was he actually? He wasn’t a Fist, that much was clear. So who would want to put down some slavery backer in Anvil? A rival gang maybe? Killer for hire? Or the Empire itself? Definitely some kind of assassin, so let’s go with that for now - nodded after a second of consideration.
‘All right, now let’s head back, shall we?’ the shadow said, keeping a close eye on his new friend as he leapt straight down from the bell tower without even flinching. ‘We’ve got some ‘splaining to do.’
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