I watched as the muscles under the skin rippled with each strike of the hammer, and when the man half-turned to quench the blazing metal, a gaping wound stared out of his chest. The wound had been sloppily closed with leather thongs and something sat nestled in the flaming red cavity. Dark veins slithered all over his body, darkest at the center of the wound.
In my horrified curiosity at this strange magic that must be keeping this man alive, I scuffed my boot on the last step. The sound bloomed overly loud and multiplied itself as the walls of the cavern imitated it back at me.
The man stopped his work and slowly turned to me, his facial expression slack and empty under the bone and antler hood he wore. Air was sucked into his chest in a wet wheeze. The eyes that stared right at me were devoid of life--black holes in a skull. Somehow worse than the gaze of the dead Nord men we'd encountered.
I stood frozen in place by that stare. He gazed at me for a moment longer, drawing me in with those eyes as he approached, soundless and sightless. Suddenly I was standing at the edge of a black abyss. Hands were reaching up, groping the air, grabbing my feet, dragging me over the edge. I didn't fight them. Couldn't fight them.
"NO!" Derkeethus shouted, breaking the spell as he collided with the Forsworn. The Forsworn immediately threw up some kind of magical shield, and as I came to, I felt the air about me freeze as a whirlwind of ice brushed my left arm.
My grip on my bow became difficult as the fingers went numb, and several shots that should have hit the beast in the head went wild. Derk did his best to corner the mage, and eventually backed him into a cage that had contained any number of unfortunate victims.
In a wild, animalistic panic, the Forsworn flung shards of ice out of the cage in an uncontrolled frenzy. I ducked behind a wooden table, until its surface resembled a giant, frozen thistle. Panting, the man ceased his casting and we both stared each other down, his face still empty of emotion.
Derkeethus hooked his enchanted pickaxe on the edge of the cage, and the charge rippled through the man as he bashed against it, attempting to escape and forgetting about the door in front of him. He seized the cage with his hands, and his body shook as the power burned his body from the inside out.
I felt only loathing building in my chest, until he began to howl like a lost dog. The cavity in his chest vibrated with whatever was beating in it, and the dark veins rippled and undulated as darkness spread across his chest.
Even as I knocked an arrow, his breathing quickened and body trembled, until at last he fell to the floor, convulsing as the darkness overtook his form, rendering it a black mass of jittering flesh. A painful groan erupted, almost human, before it was extinguished by a guttural roar.
I swallowed around a lump in my throat as I realized this was no longer a man, but something less than a man. Whatever had happened to him, he was lost forever in some nightmarish world. Perhaps the same one I glimpsed: a pit of groping hands promising to rend and tear his soul apart.
He was a pitiable sight, and I could barely stand to watch. So, twitching the bow slightly below his chin, I let loose my arrow. It lodged firmly in his throat just as the darkness was creeping upward towards his head. His shuddering ceased and he lay still at last.
"Finally, I thought we'd never end him," Derk murmured, nursing a wound on his shoulder.
Cautiously, I approached the cage with my sword drawn. The soft glow of the filigree illuminated the corpse's battered form, and I watched as the darkness oozed back into the object in the chest cavity.
" 'A heart stolen, pricked by grief.' I think this is what was meant," I said, looking at Derkeethus and gesturing to the object.
"Hmm, well, I wouldn't have known they meant it literally. Better than coming across some forlorn lover. For a moment there, I wondered if we might have to do something with farmboy and his goat," he replied with a shudder.
With a grimace, I tilted my blade so its glow lit the gaping wound. The object was a part of some kind of plant that, even as I looked, closed like a blossom in the night.
Carefully, I sliced away the laces holding the skin together. As I did, the flesh opened and turned outward. The wound had been heavily infected, and strangely, no blood flowed. It only sat clotted and congealed in the bottom of the cavity, a dark mass that slithered out with a sickening squelch.
Removing my glove, and not knowing why I did so, I reached in and plucked out the plant, looking at it in the dim light. As if sensing the warmth of my skin, the bulb sprang open, the tips sharp as needles. By reflex, I squeezed and felt the thorns dig into my palm. Then, by another reflex, I flung it away from me.
"Ow!" I exclaimed, shaking my head about, trying to fling away the pain. The plant heart--briarheart, now that I thought about it--rolled away, closing and lying innocently under the table.
The Argonian made to pick it up. "DON'T!" I shouted before throwing him a scrap of leather. "Use that. Don't touch it with your bare hands!" He obeyed, carefully wrapping the heart in the leather and slipping it into my pack.
In the meantime, I examined my hand under the guttering light of a candle. Tiny pinpricks dotted my palm in a spiral pattern. Absently I traced it with my gloved finger. There was very little blood flowing out of the small punctures, but the sites burned as if I had placed them over a fire. Derkeethus handed me my discarded glove.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, peering at my hand. I closed it, not wanting him to see my foolishness.
"No, I'm fine," I lied. "Let's get out of this midden."
I stalked out of the cave, moving quickly. My friend followed once he decided there was nothing of value to be taken from the place.
Outside, the cold night air blew in our faces. We both breathed a sigh of relief, and out of sight, I opened my still-naked palm to the air, relishing the chill to the burning flesh.
"One more ingredient to find," I said, trying to draw Derk's attention away from the connection between us. I hoped he wouldn't notice my anxious discomfort over my hand. I didn't like how the wounds were spiral shaped. So orderly and neat. I didn't like the burning, and I didn't like how the briarheart had sprung open as if it possessed a will.
"Yes! But civilization first. I could do with a decent night of ale and food," he replied with gusto, gazing longingly towards the path.
Nodding, I headed down the hill back towards the water, following his form through the darkness.
Comments
Good show.