Sometimes, life is like a recurring dream--a persistent déjà vu where time seems to loop back on itself in endless coils. As we rode down the road toward the Hall of the Vigilants, the trees a riot of green, new growth even in the deep snows, I felt I was traveling on one of these loops. The events that resulted in my last ride down this lane had not yet come full circle, but it wasn't without some feeling of disorienting déjà vu that I progressed through The Pale. Snow fell lightly down on us, and our progress was grim and silent.
Though Valindor and I grew closer, his distrust of my reasons for journeying increased with every step forward. He followed, and often wrote in his eloquent hand while we rode, but I could see him watching me intently from time to time. When I told him we were to visit the Hall of the Vigilants, he wanted to know why I kept torturing myself with my past. I supposed he heard the story about the man I put to death there and how it haunted me from time to time. He seemed keen on adventure, but as we progressed into darker and more dangerous mysteries, I could see the hesitation growing in his eyes.
Was I getting in too deep? I didn't want Valindor to die like Derkeethus had. Derk isn't dead, stop saying that. He's not dead. He's just trapped. But what would happen when I freed him? He would need a body. The thought filled me with revulsion, and I shook my head as if to fling the thoughts to the ground as a dog shakes off dirt.
Nevertheless, I intended to find out why these vampires stole Falion's shipment of black soul gems and what they intended to do with them. If they knew something about the Soul Cairn that I didn't, I was going to find out. It won't be long, Derk, I thought as we wound through the snows, shivering slightly.
"It's still here," I whispered when we arrived at an unfortunately familiar stretch of road. A horse lay collapsed in the snow, still attached to an abandoned cart. The drivers were gone, no trace of where Derk and I had set them after dispatching the bandits that killed them. I saw no sign of any other bandits and cart itself had been stripped bare.
"What's still here-- Oh. Where are the owners? I don't see anything," Valindor said, rolling a parchment and slipping it back into a pocket inside his tunic.
"They're gone. Bandits killed them, though I tried to save them. I guess no one else knew to retrieve their cart."
"That's sad. To die with no one knowing where you were last."
"I did," I sighed, "But I never said anything about it." Feeling somewhat guilty of never notifying the College of Winterhold of their deaths, for they were heading there for training, I placed coin on each seat where I recalled setting their bodies. I stood there watching the air hissing out my nose for a while, and I felt the Bosmer's hand on my shoulder, gently squeezing rhythmically. Then, I slipped out from under his hand and mounted Brelye, who had danced away from the fallen horse with nostrils and eyes widened in fear. With a pat, I soothed his nerves and we moved on, retracing my trail across the low ridge along the mountainside.
Several hours passed and we made it to the Hall of the Vigilants. I avoided looking at the still-smoking building, but noticed the deceased Vigilants were gone, though the vampires remained, their bodies looking stony and untouched even after so many weeks. Faint bootprints in the snow indicated recent activity, and I heard Valindor commenting in quiet sympathy behind me, his voice coming over on the cold wind in a thin memorial song.
"The cave should be here somewhere," I said to myself, clambering atop a brow of rock for a better view. The trail we took to the Hall curled around the bottom of the hill to join the road running north to the coast where Dawnstar dwelt in its bay. It was where the path diverged from the hill that I saw a branch slithering through the rocks, almost unseen from that point in path. Following it, I saw a set of stairs almost obscured by snow crawling up into the mountains.
With all the activity on that path, I couldn't believe I almost missed it. Deep furrows sliced through the white, exposing the brown, decaying peat and earth underneath. They were roughly the size of a man's legs, and I knew this was the Vigilants' trail. In one place there was a scuffle and a little blood, but not much else. After this point, the snow was violently displaced--a body had been dragged.
"Is that were we need to go?" a voice asked suddenly behind me. I jumped, slipping on the icy rocks and falling on my rear. Wincing, I took Valindor's proffered hand and was pulled to my feet. This put me very close to the Bosmer's cloaked form, and he smirked from under his fur hood. "I'm telling you. Losing your touch. You're becoming...nordic." I couldn't remember how to move my face in response. Instead, I looked stupidly into his hood, my brain frozen fast, as if it had fallen out of my skull and was now rolling in the gully behind me.
"Not on your life," I managed in Bosmeri at last, my lips twitching into a slight smile.
We loped around the bottom of the hill, trudging upward through the gully and slowly up the icy steps. More signs of struggle were imprinted in the snow as we ascended the mountain in earnest. The trees grew thinner and the wind sharper, but, blessedly, the skies remained bright and clear. Meeko snuffled about, testing each track for different scents, though he needn't lead us for the way was very clear.
At the crest of one of the longer slopes, a charred book lay on the path, forgotten by one of the parties. I picked it up, and carefully turned the cover to reveal the title page, which was barely legible for the smoke damage. Immortal Blood was the name of the book. I owned a copy in my home in Falkreath, and knew it to belong to one of the vampires returning.
"Wherever they went should be up ahead," I concluded, taking the book with me for reasons I couldn't quite grasp. In part, it felt wrong to leave a book just laying out in the elements, damaged or no. Of course, what I would do with it was lost on me, so I simply carried it as we walked.
"Here, I'll take it. Maybe someone will be interested in a charred copy of the book. We could create a suitable story as to how it was burned. You know, give it a decent history."
"You sound like Derk. That's the sort of thing he'd do."
"Ah, but I have no intention of scamming anyone. Simply saying it was involved in a battle between the Vigilants of Stendarr and a local vampire clan will easily increase its value, and there's no lie in that tale." Again, that sickle smile that I'd come to associate with Valindor when he was feeling particularly clever. With a shrug, he removed his pack and slipped the book inside.
Further down the path we came to a cave flanked by braziers. The fuel in each was freshly placed, meaning we arrived not too long after our quarry came this way. A small set of steps led to the entrance with ancient markers on either side, and on the second lowest step lay a still-burning torch.
"We must have only just missed them," commented the Bosmer.
I nodded, then swallowed thickly as I looked at the dark entrance. This wasn't like the entrance to the Eldergleam Sanctuary where a soft welcoming presence had beckoned me inside. No, a cave housing vampires probably meant other undead. My skin crawled unpleasantly as I saw the dead rising from their resting places, bones grinding and creaking, skulls filled with chips of cold ice.
Suddenly, I was in a tiny room in the cave containing the White Phial, where the walls were lined end-to-end with resting dead. I could feel those walls closing in on me, crushing me, condemning me to spend my afterlife in that tomb, bereft of a proper disposal. My head started to swim and I clutched at my arms, rubbing them in agony as the delusion grew stronger with each moment. Now there were vampires, and my breathing fluttered as I lost control of the mechanism.
"If you keep that up, you'll pass out. Henny?" Val joked, amused at first, then worried when I didn't respond. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears and I distantly felt something cold touching my face, like a dead thing's damp, icy hand as it clutched my cheek. It was over. I couldn't fight them off, and the dead just kept coming.
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