A few hours of sleep and a watch spent idly stoking the fire, not moving much more than my eyes which darted about like fish, had me feeling refreshed as I stood and stretched in the dawn light. It began golden and crisp across the snow, turning bright white as soon as Magnus completely opened his eye. Serana was still missing. I watched her melt into the shadows shortly after moonset, but she had yet to return. If she would return at all. As I set about preparing a small meal, I found I didn't know how I felt about that thought.
When I had a pot of water and dried meat hot enough, I woke Valindor who lay curled in a tight ball inside the bedroll. We ate quietly, listening to the soft sounds of a still, snowy morning. To my relief, Valindor looked much more alive today: the redness in his eyes was gone as well as the sickly pallor to his skin. He caught me examining him and reflexively smiled. His teeth were neatly aligned and all the same length and slightly pointed. I returned the smile. The potion had worked.
As we were packing up the camp, ready to move on with or without Serana, she waded through the trees, squinting at the bright light. She, too, looked more human. Must have found someone to eat, I thought with a chill.
"We leave now?" she asked.
"No time like the present."
"But... So bright. Eye hurt."
"Then shade them," Val retorted.
We finished packing relatively quickly and started off down the mountainside. It wasn't long before we reached the burning hall where our horses stood patiently waiting. Brelye gave Serana a derisive sniff before leading the way. Halfway down the path, I wondered what to do with the vampire if Val and I were on horseback. No doubt Valindor would be more than happy to have her walk in the snow, but I felt it somewhat unfair.
My concerns were unfounded when she summoned a horrible flaming horse from Oblivion. Both of us balked.
"How can you ride that thing! It's an abomination!"
"Not abomination!" She glared at us crossly. "I not a monster."
"Not you, that...thing..." He pointed an accusatory finger at the horse, who plodded blandly through the snow, melting a path rather than treading one. At his gesture, Serana patted the skeletal beast affectionately.
"Serana, we're going to Dawnstar. You cannot ride that around people. No riding in town, understand?" I gestured to the north, where I knew a small port town lay. After what seemed an endless pause, she nodded. With a high whistle, I called Meeko, who joined us across the plain, barreling through the snow and pouncing on rabbit holes.
Early morning came and went as we huddled in our clothing, the vampire the only one unaffected by the cold. She seemed to be made from it the way she was breathing in the icy air. The first signs of civilization came in the form of a khajiit camp just outside of town. They eyed our strange procession with mild wariness.
"That is a strange sight, is it not?"
"This one has seen stranger creatures in the cold snows." The Khajiits' voices rolled melodically off their tongues in a half-purr.
Their blasé reaction gave me an idea. Dismounting, I approached them around their fire, pausing to warm my hands idly.
"Greetings to you, Y'ffer-child. Would you like to take a look at our wares?" A heavily armored Khajiit grinned broadly.
"Do not be foolish, Dro'marash. This one has no interest in making a purchase," chided a second Khajiit warming his hands.
"Fusozay, he kids. Kharjo is making gzalzi--not serious. What can Ahkari's caravan offer you to-day?"
"I was hoping you could transport our horses to Solitude. I think we're about to take a ship out into the sea, and our horses won't survive out there."
The Khajiit growled deeply, thinking for several moments. "You wish for Khajiit to take your horses a very long way. Out of caravan trail."
"I can offer you septims for the task. Never would I expect you to do this for free."
"Hmm. Perhaps."
In the end, my purse was several hundred septims lighter, but I knew our horses would be in good hands. Many locals didn't trust the Khajiit, but for all their secrets and thievery, they always maintained their end of an agreement, especially if they felt they gained the upper hand. What had sealed the deal was not the money, but my mother's recipe for Sweet Blood Loaf, which was mentioned in passing during idle conversation. The sweetener was imported from Elsweyr, and the trader felt he had the right to claim the recipe for his own. I didn't argue, nor did it matter to me. It was only a recipe.
From Serana's broken ramblings, we concluded her home lay somewhere out in the Sea of Ghosts. I had drawn a rough map of Skyrim from memory on a scrap of leather, and she had pointed eagerly to some empty spot north of Solitude. We would need to hire someone to take us out that far, and since Solitude was several days out of the way, Dawnstar's port sounded like the best solution.
A patrolling guard warned us against staying the night in the inn. "Folk in this town can't seem to sleep. Don't let yourself become one of them. We're lucky the ships haven't crashed into the docks. Seems the sleeplessness is only spreading."
"What's causing it?" Valindor asked.
"People'r saying it's nightmares, but it could be anything. We've been seeing shadows on the edges of the houses. Never amounts to anything being amiss."
"We'll keep that in mind," I replied. We weren't planning on spending the night here anyway. Serana, blessedly, kept quiet the entire way. Perhaps the sun really was bothering her in spite of the heavy hood that almost completely shrouded her face.
Down in the bay, a large ship lay anchored. Valindor hopped down onto the deck, while the vampire remained in the shade of the pier. I, on the other hand, carefully stepped onto the deck of the vessel, feeling incredibly unsteady on its slightly undulating surface. It's like trying to stand on a mammoth.
"Come on, Henny. It's just a ship. You won't drown from standing on it." Val grinned and offered his hand. I took it, clutched at it, worried I would stumble or be sent rolling across the surface. It was, as far as I recalled, the first time I had ever stepped on any boat of any size. We made our way over to an authoritative-looking Dunmer cloaked in thick furs.
"If you're wanting the captain, I'm afraid he's stepped out for a moment. But you don't look like sailors. What d'you want?"
"I'd like to book passage to a small island in the Sea of Ghosts. If you're going to Solitude that is," I said, glancing over at a man eating his lunch. He had a very amused expression on his face. Stepped out indeed.
"Ah, I'd love to help you, miss. I would. But this isn't a passenger ship. Unless you can fit yourself in a barrel, which I don't recommend, you'll be wanting that little dinghy over there." He pointed to a tiny little tub of a boat drawn up on the gravel. A man slouched on the edge of the hull, staring gloomily at the rounded pebbles on the shore.
"That? Are you sure? That boat's far too small to be out in that icy mess," Valindor exclaimed as he stared wide-eyed at the sea full of icebergs and floating sheets of ice the size of a mattress.
"Aye. Make no mistake. That man's the best ferryman 'round Dawnstar. Smaller vessels do better at avoiding the ice."
"But it's no bigger than a bath tub!"
"Well, you're not goods, and you're not going to Windhelm. So there's your boat." The Dunmer stalked into the cabin, shaking his head. "Damn travelers."
Skeptical to say the least, we crunched over the gravel to the small boat, which Meeko investigated excitedly. The man looked up at me with a drooping face. "Can I help you?" His voice was a slow drawl of extreme boredom and disdain.
I pulled out the little square of leather and showed him the place where Serana marked earlier. "I need to go to this island here. Do you know of it?"
The man's eyes widened and he spit between a circle he made with his thumb and forefinger. "That's a cursed place, lass. Why do you want to go there?" He eyed us suspiciously, then spotted Serana and her shrouded face. His expression crumpled.
"Look, I don't want no trouble. I ain't some venison steak to be laid on some table. I'm not taking you, especially her, there."
"Sir, I'm only trying to take this young woman home. She's not want you think she is. Right, Serana? Why don't you take that hood off?" I added in Bosmeri to her, giving her a meaningful glare. With some hesitation, she lowered her hood and looked the man full in the face. He studied her for a moment, eyes narrowing until they were slits.
"Hmph. Well, I see you're all fairly normal people. Why should I take you so far out? And, what's more, what'll you pay for it?"
I struggled to answer him in a way that wouldn't give away our intentions. Valindor strode over to the man, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder and leaning close to his ear. "Why good sir, do you not recognize a member of the prestigious Vigilants of Stendarr when you see one? We, my friend, are on a mission. Granted, we are only a few, but we seek to purge that terrible place of its spirits." A cheshire grin that looked borderline unsettling shone into the side of side of the man's face.
Eventually, he agreed. I suppose he decided it was easier to simply take us to the island and leave us to our fate than listen to Valindor continue to sell the idea to him. Knowing my friend and the time he spent in the College, where I recalled students debating over the use of a single word in a verse, he could easily have spent the entire day trying to convince the ferryman. We all climbed into the tiny boat, weighting it down dangerously in the frigid water, especially after the supplies were tucked under the seats.
With a heave, the boat waddled into the channel leading out into the broad water.
