Eye of the Wind – Ch. 8 – 7: Change of Hands

• Posted by Kyrielle Atrinati November 4, 2012 - 388 views

  Quintus scrambled back on the bed until his head hit the post behind him.  Grunting in pain, he clutched the back of his head momentarily, raising his other arm to shield his eyes.

  "Please!  Don't hurt me!"

  "What?  I'm not going to--" Derkeethus' voice rasped in a confusion we both shared.

  "Please!  I'm sorry!  I didn't mean to!  I-I had no choice!  They came after me, and-and they were so strong.  They beat my poor master to death.  In his sick bed!  I-I d-didn't know what to do.  Just don't hurt me, please..." the young man begged, scrabbling for purchase on the fur and hay, which slipped under his frenzied movements.

  They what?!  I raged, thinking of the weakened Altmer, lying still as death with his life's work torn away from him.  I searched the edges of Derk's vision for any sign of who "they" might have been, but we already knew.  Quintus sat up in the bed properly, and hid his head in his hands.

  "Constantius's men came here, didn't they," my friend said, picking up on my thoughts as a tremor of rage trickled through his body.  I heard his teeth click and chatter with the effort of restraining himself.

  

  "Yes...no...it was a khajiit woman.  S-she came in the night and demanded I tell her where you were going.  This was weeks ago.  When I refused, she tied me to a chair and beat my master in front of me.  I-I couldn't stand it anymore.  I f-finally told her everything.  Where you were going and what you were doing.  Then, when I asked her to let him go, she broke his neck!  Right there!  Right over there!" he cried frantically, pointing over to the floor where a faded brown, scuffed stain had seeped into the floor.  His whole body trembled all over, and after a moment, he began to retch, snatching a bucket from beside the bed and hanging his head over the rim until he vomited.

  When he stopped, Derkeethus seized his arm in a tight grip, and I felt the sickly heat of the young man against his leathery palms.  "Get a grip on yourself, boy.  Where did she go?  Did she say?  Has she come back?"

  "You m-mean...you haven't encountered her?" he paused, but my friend made no effort to answer.  "N-no," he stammered, "I don't kn-now where she w-went.  I'm sorry.  I've betrayed you."

  I forced my friend to take a deep breath.  The Phial... I prompted.  A rattling sigh hissed out of the Argonian's teeth, and I sensed some measure of gratitude as his blood cooled.  Wordlessly, he removed the pouch containing the broken White Phial, the powdered bone dust, the punctured briarheart, and the sample of frozen snow and dropped it into the man's hand.  "You can repay us by repairing this damned thing."

  "I...I don't know if I can," he replied, looking up towards the ceiling with the expression of a wounded cub.

  Derkeethus shook his arm roughly, "Don't give me that!  Henny and I have gone to Oblivion and back trying to find these ingredients.  Now you're going to at least try to repair the Phial, or I'm going to snap your neck."  I felt exhaustion pulling on my friend's body.  When was the last time he slept? Outside of Whiterun, two days ago... I heard in answer.

  "All...all right.  I'll try.  Do you have my master's notes, still?"  The world bobbed as Derkeethus nodded, producing what was left of the notes I had carried with me all this time.  Quintus took them, and slowly meandered over to the dusty alchemy station.  

  The furnace simmered to life with a fitful hiss and cough.  The Imperial's nervousness frittered away as he blew delicately on the small flames.  Taking the unmelted snow, he broke it into pieces so infinitesimal I could almost see the individual flakes.  These he set aside with a pair of small tongs.  "What happened to this briarheart?" he asked, turning it over in his hands.

  "It's a long story.  Can you still use it?"  After a moment of intense inspection, Quintus nodded, peeling the bud apart until only the virulent, dark heart remained.  This he squeezed into the alembic until the green, poisonous fluids dripped clear from the plant.  We waited for several moments, as he adjusted the heat no less than seven times, until at last, a clear, golden liquid dripped out into a waiting mortar. When nothing more could be recovered, he turned to my friend.  I saw his expression was uneasy.

  "I'm going to need a sample of your b-blood," he muttered so low it almost didn't register.  With a snort, a green arm appeared in my vision, and the sleeve was rolled back revealing jade-tinted skin.  Quintus nervously prodded the tip of a silver dagger and turned Derk's arm over so the blood was caught and mixed with the briarheart fluid.  It sizzled and bubbled viciously as he carefully measured in the bone dust.  When it was mixed into a horrifically red paste, he delicately dipped each chunk of snow into the mixture, and placed them on a crack in the Phial.  The remaining bone dust was smeared over the patches until they melded into a diamond-hard seal.  

  Derkeethus rested his head on the dusty counter, and I watched the room tip sideways before his eyes closed and all was dark for several moments.  A soft clink sounded somewhere in front of his nose.  "It is done," Quintus murmured, sweat beading on his brow.  His expression had cleared somewhat, and he looked incredibly relieved.  "From what the songs have described, the White Phial will heal whatever ailment the drinker wishes.  It will never run out, though it must recharge every few days."

  A greedy kind of joy slithered all over me as my friend gazed at the repaired relic.  Had I any skin, it would have crawled unpleasantly.  Reaching out, his fingers closed delicately around the neck of the small bottle, and he drank, wishing for more stamina to continue on.  The effect was immediate.  The mysterious, chalky substance within sluggishly crept down the back of his throat, sticking disconcertingly, but the Argonian's muscles twitched with renewed energy and his mind was a whir of thought.

  I was pushed away for a while into a tired, lonely darkness and a slept for a time.

  Voices murmured just outside my door as I peered from my position on the bed.  They were too indistinguishable to understand, but the tone was tense and heated.  Eventually they faded and I closed my eyes once more.

  Heavy clouds rolled across the sky as the tundra slid by underfoot.  I pulled Derkeethus' will and looked behind us to see the dawn breaking far away to the east.  Ahead of us thunder flashed and grumbled.

  Nael with huffing even more painfully than before, her tired legs jolting up through our body, shaking our bones and jarring my vision.

  "Come on, just for today.  We'll be back with her today.  I promise," the Argonian whispered to the horse, who whinnied in response, pushing herself ever harder to return.

  A bolt of lightning clashed with the mountainside and a small grove of dry pines erupted into flame.  The light blinded my mind and I--

  -was being awakened by Tormir once more.

  "Hrollod wants to speak with you," she said quietly.  I sat up, and coughing as fluid in my chest shifted, I pulled on my shoes and made my way into the main room where I saw the Legate waiting patiently in a chair by the front door.  He motioned to the one next to him, and I sat down with no small measure of relief.

  "Gwaihen, I know you have been through much since I last saw you.  Word of your travels has spread through the holds like a wildfire.  It isn't easy to conceal the identity of an elf and an Argonian travelling together and under such strange circumstances," he began, steepling his fingertips.  For a long time he looked at me searchingly, his eyes boring into mine.  At last he sighed.

  "Someone is out there hunting for you.  I'm sure you recall the khajiit that kidnapped Hrefna."  I nodded, thinking of the way the cat had leapt into the trees with grace to rival any Bosmer.  My thoughts drifted for a moment, thinking of the khajiit.  Thinking of the soft footfalls my friend chased into Windhelm...

  Across the plains, rain poured down upon the roads, thunder flashing violently.  Far away I heard a horse screaming in triumph, and thundering hooves slowly drew near.  My own horse heaved and coughed excessively.  Blood spattered the stones as it flowed freely from her nose, but still she persisted.

  

  "--I'm only going to tell you this once, so listen carefully," the Legate barked, catching my attention once more.  I glared at the ground, trying to stay in focused, and then I met his eyes once more.  "Where I'm sending you next, you must do everything in your power to remain as hidden as possible.  That may mean you'll have to treat your friend with as much kindness as a slave driver would treat his slaves.  You cannot give in to your normal habits of interacting with people.  Derkeethus I know I can trust to pull off any artifice, you, however," he paused, smiling gently, "Are a terrible liar."

  "Are you saying, that from now on, Derk is my slave?" I asked incredulously, feeling a both ill and vaguely exhilarated at the thought.  What kind of slave... I wondered, feeling a faint flicker of lust in my gut.

  "Not quite.  More of an indentured servant.  It's too late here, but the next stage of your journey will undoubtedly bring you into esteemed courts.  Something I will discuss with both of you once your friend returns."

  "Then why are you telling me this now?"

  "He'd kill me where I stood if I said this to his face, that's why you're going to be the one to tell him," Hrollod replied with a ghoulish smile.  Bristling, I sat silent for a long time, until one of his soldiers called him away.  "If you'll excuse me..."

  I glowered at his retreating form, and as the command filtered through my consciousness, I felt Derkeethus hiss with disapproval.  In that same moment, a khajiit blew by him on horseback, slashing his arm with her blade.  He howled in fury, clutching his arm before unhooking the contraption on his back and firing after her.  The dart struck her horse and she fell to the ground as it collapsed under her.  The horse then took off in pain and terror, the white of its eyes glowing in the storm.  He prepared another dart and aimed, Nael charging for the cat in an asthmatic gallop.

  The dart missed, and the assassin, slashed at him once more.  Ahead there was a dip in the road, and Nael, distracted by her attacker stepped right into it and stumbled forward, her exhausted limbs folding and sending them both crashing to the ground.  The world tumbled to a halt.

  Rain dripped into his eyes as the yellowed film slid across them, only making it halfway.  Into my slowly darkening vision, the khajiit woman knelt and spat in the Argonian's face.

  Then she was gone.  And the connection between us closed.

  And I was alone.