"Welcome, sir. Divines bless you."
Bells of Kynareth rang.
"Welcome, m'am. Divines bless you."
Voices in the upper aisles chanted.
"Welcome, Octieve. Divines bless you."
"Bless yourself. Leave me be."
The priestess at the entrance sighed and watched the elderly warrior limp stiffly up the central aisle. "What am I going to do with you?"
While she was erstwhile distracted, I strolled toward the end of the great nave. Fat, yellow candles cast dancing shadows on the fluted columns and arches. Light scooped darkness into sculpted shapes like inverted statues. Pews clustered near candelabras like lost children, and at the end of a series of plush carpets sang nine altars to the Divines, each housed in its own tiny chapel. Grayish beams of light pattered the floor in diaphanous flecks of color from windows set high in the walls. Each depicted a Divine in the traditional Alessian interpretation of the Aedra. One window was blacked out by a heavy velvet curtain as if the clergy were in mourning.
It was wholly familiar, and I felt strangely homesick for a land I never truly called home. There was a cleanliness and sterility like the cathedrals of Cyrodiil, and for a brief moment, I half-expected to see my family's neighbor, Ellena, sitting piously for a Sundas service in Chorrol's temple. She would turn and stare pointedly at my family as we sat there blandly observing, remaining silent during a hymn, trying to learn this strange culture away from home. Then, she'd say something, but I could never remember what it was--I had yet to learn Cyrodiilic and she passed long before I was fluent.
I shook my head and the empty pews returned to their somnolent, dark shapes.
In the rounded apse at the end of the aisle stood a grizzled Breton, whose shadowed eyes gazed forlornly at the empty pedestal. Its chapel remained unlit and forgotten.
"Just isn't the same without old Talos there. Bear in mind, I think the Nords are silly to make him so important. But, alas, this place just looks like a broken wheel without his altar here. Don't you agree?" he asked, turning to face me.
Valindor opened his mouth to speak, but I put a hand hastily to his lips. "Yes. I admit it does look a little...off...with the dark cloth. Ruins the aesthetic, perhaps."
"Though, you Elves don't put much stock in the old bear, eh?" I shook my head. "Well, that priestess seems to think it just fine to deface the temple like she's done. Pah! If this had been done properly, the entire wing of the cathedral would have been reworked. Shows how dedicated Elesif really is to maintaining proper appearances. But you don't want to listen to an old man carrying on." With a wet smack, his lips gummed blindly for moisture that wasn't there.
The irony of his concern didn't escape me. This man was draped in hide armor worn thin in places. His balding pate gleamed greasily in the pale light, and a vague smell of severely unwashed crevices seeped through the air along with a whiff of stale wine. Watery eyes stared yellowly back at me, lost to some other place. Behind me, Valindor scoffed in disbelief, but when I turned to peer at my friend, he feigned distraction with a relief on a nearby wall.
"I was wondering," I began coyly, holding my breath as I edged a little closer. "You're such a very observant person. Have you noticed anyone unusual visiting the temple in the last few days? Anyone in a hurry? Someone elderly, maybe--a scholarly type."
"Oh, we get plenty of strange people in here. Moaning about their woes, as usual. But now that you mention it, I did see a mumbling man come in the other day. Can't say I remember what he looked like. Seems my memory's gone down the drain lately. One day slips into another, you know."
"What was he doing?"
Octieve looked at me as if I'd grown a second head. "Mara, girl! He was praying! What else would he be doing!"
"I meant, what was he doing that might be unusual?"
"Ah, well. He was asking guidance about finding some kind of scroll. Said he was on his way to Dragon Bridge." The Breton smacked his lips noisily again. "All this talking's got me parched. You wouldn't have anything to drink would you?"
"I'm afraid it's all packed away on our horses," Valindor said.
"Oh, well...that's all right," Octieve replied disappointedly.
We bid him a good day, but he waved us away irritably before sidling over to the chapel housing Dibella's offerings to steal a sip of wine from a sanctified bottle.
Outside, clouds obscured the day, threatening rain from the sea. Valindor and I stopped in the Winking Skeever for a midday meal, still feeling somewhat weak from our excursion to the castle to the north. I hoped we wouldn't ever have to see that desolate place again, but somehow I knew our previous visit was not our last. A little drink warmed us up and gave me enough impetus to push forward on our journey.
"Seems like we just keep going in circles." Valindor hung his arms off the walking stick laying on his shoulders, giving him the appearance of a scarecrow.
"You know, I read once there was this clan of people who believed Mundus was a giant snail in the garden of their neighbor. Believed all of existence was a spiral."
"What happened to them?"
"They starved to death. They didn't eat meat and they were too afraid to kill the snails eating all of their vegetables lest they destroy the world."
"I suppose that's our fate?" My friend rolled his eyes, but managed to grin anyway. As if the thought of such a twist of fate was only fitting for us.
"Nonsense. We won't be starving to death!"
"That's not what I meant." I pretended I didn't hear him.
To my everlasting delight, we found Breyle and his companion at the stables waiting for us. Not a single item had been misplaced or "mislaid", and in one of the bags, I found a small pouch of sweet blood loaf. It tasted just as my mother made it. Well, at least they've done her dish justice.
For a while, the clouds cleared and the sun beamed warmly on Nirn as we trotted away from Solitude through a swath of pine forest, pushed to the edges of cliffs by a snow-topped mountain. Bright yellow dust powdered the cobbles, forming hardened, swirled clumps in places where rain collected. I coughed, feeling the dust forming a film on the back of my throat. Valindor, in the meantime, sneezed and rubbed at his eyes as we passed a late-blooming young alder.
By the time we reached Dragon Bridge, his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. "I didn't hab this poblem before," he said with a congested sniffle.
"Well, you went to Solitude in the cold months. Guess alder's are doomed to plague you." I grinned lopsidedly at my friend. He blew his nose miserably while I dismounted and tied Brelye to the inn's hitching rail. With a toss of his head, the horse yanked haughtily at the reins. "It's only for a little bit. I don't trust people around here."
However, it wasn't the locals I didn't trust. I still remembered the Imperial soldier who spoke so scathingly of Hrefna and his other prisoners. She was only a little girl, vampire or not, yet he felt threatened by her. Such men usually didn't think twice about making off with someone's horses.
As I was stretching my legs and waiting for Valindor to untangle his walking stick from his horse's stirrup, a boy with a goat brazenly approached me.
"I know you!"
"You do?"
"You're the one that scared off that dragon! How'd you do that? That was amazing! Where's your lizard friend? I bet he looked so much like a dragon, he fooled that flying one!"
"I haven't seen my friend in a long time," I replied patiently. "I'm actually looking for him. Can you help me?"
"Sure! But you have to get him to teach me that thing he did with his voice. I bet if I could do that, no fox would set foot near the chickens again."
"Well, I need to find an old man who knows where my friend is. Have you seen a strange old man come through town?"
"Hmm." The boy thought carefully for several moments, his brow furrowed so deeply, I wanted to tell him his face would stick that way if he continued concentrating. "There was an old guy that went by on a carriage. Didn't stop for anything. He nearly ran Lucky over!" With a soft pat, he checked to see if the goat was still at his side.
"Which way was he going?" Jabbing a small finger into the distance, the boy pointed across the toothy bridge spanning a narrow canyon. Shadowed, ominous hills humped their way over the horizon. Wherever he was going, it was evidently heading into danger of some sort.
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