"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I shivered in the thin, rumpled clothing that lay under my armor. Said armor lay scattered about the entryway along with anything else I'd been wearing. The snow melted into a cold slush under my feet. I couldn't feel my toes. Valindor stood next to me in a similar state of undress.
"Of course. Haven't you heard of removing your shoes in sacred places?"
"Just a moment ago you were talking of doing a lot more than removing shoes."
"Look, don't worry about it." The Bosmer began to remove his shirt, looking at me expectantly.
"Val, I'm not going to take the scroll back from that Orc naked! And neither are you. Now, stop that!" I slapped his hand away from the hem of his tunic, though a part of me wanted him to continue. For a moment, he stared at me in confusion, then an infernal look of knowing came over him.
"All right. We don't have to face the Orc naked. I'm sure the Aedra will be appeased enough so long as our feet are bare. Though, really, I don't understand why you're making such a big deal about it," he replied. His feet slapped on the stone as he casually strode away, that irksome smirk still planted on his face.
"Why do we need the Aedra anyway," I grumbled in his wake.
"Because it may mean the difference between us getting the power of the scroll or Durak."
I still didn't understand. When I stood on the tower of Fort Dunstad and initiated the Wild Hunt, I had been clothed and armored. And you had everything taken away from you. But what I was wearing had nothing to do with that strange series of events. What was Valindor expecting anyway? Some kind of battle of wills? There would be no battle. We'd get the scroll back and I'd read it and the way to release Derkeethus would be clear to me. Durak couldn't have opened it yet. I didn't think he knew how--much less how to read.
We rounded a bend and came upon a tight chamber with a low ceiling. The floor was carpeted in moss that felt spongy and damp. Stooping, we squeezed across the expanse, I holding my breath and clenching my fists so tightly my knuckles turned white. At any moment, we'd be crushed forever under the rock. Already, I could hear the stone cracking and crumbling. My feet slowed down as if mired in glue.
"Henny, breathe," my friend said, noting my reddening face as I ran out of air. I scrambled my him and ran forward until I found a taller space. Once free, I straightened and heaved air into my lungs. The fear gripping the sides of my head dissipated, and I realized the cracking sound had been water dripping onto a stalagmite. I laughed hysterically.
"Just water," I said as Val approached. Suddenly, his eyes went wide. "What?" I glanced behind me, limbs already thrumming with adrenaline.
"You," came a soft, reedy whisper. The sound came from a spriggan, taller than any I had ever seen. Violet leaves emanated from the glowing innards of her body, which also took on a purple sheen. Her wooden form was blackened with age, power, and perhaps the remains of a fire. On the whole, she reminded me of a withering nightshade plant--all poison and bitterness. I spun on my heel, ready to run, when the shifting mass of roots that composed her face fell in sadness. "Will you not help me, sister?"
"Sister?"
"My family has fallen, and I am the last." With a sweeping wave, she gestured to the battered remains of other spriggans, their bodies toss unceremoniously into a nearby crevice where they smoldered. The smoke had the acrid smell of charred hair. "Will you not help me avenge my family?"
"Who did this?" I asked, appalled.
"We grew here to protect this place, so that Auriel and Y'ffre might treat with one another. But then he came, he of the biting axe and crude eyes. No one has ever disturbed our rest here, nor confused it for it's purpose. But he...he hacked us up like common trees!" The great spriggan bowed her head as sap leaked from the openings on her face and body. With her great claws she clutched at her face, hiding it from view, though pulling as if she wanted to tear herself apart.
"What do you want her to do?" asked Valindor.
"Take the remains of my life, so that you might smite him with it!" she cried in a voice that rattled like dead branches. Brilliant violet light rushed from her body into mine, and as the last of the light left her, she smiled. It was a terrible and full of malice.
After padding across a thin, decomposing bridge made from a fallen tree, we came into a vast chamber reminiscent of the cave housing the Eldergleam. From above, a blazing beam of light shone down on a naturally formed dais of volcanic rock. We stood at the top of a cliff surrounding the edge of the cavern in a rim of uneven stone. A narrow path curved down to meet the frothing pools and steam vents below. I was actually glad to be rid of my armor, for the room was stiflingly hot and humid.
Faintly, I heard a voice cursing and grousing in a guttural language about as appealing sounding as a squashed slug. Repeated metallic clinks echoed through the thick air up to us. Durak was attempting to read the scroll. That he was frustrated gave me a strange sense of calm and I proceeded down the path.
About halfway down, my spriggan appeared, standing atop the rock, completely unconcerned about being so visible. She turned to me and smiled. "He is watching you. So is the Prince of the Pellanche--he of the exiled. Be wise in your choices to come."
"What choices?" I asked, but she'd already disappeared into a wisp of green that merged with the leaves circling my body, now too numerous to see properly.
Together, Valindor and I descended, keeping close to the stones and tree trunks littering the path lest the Orc suddenly become aware of us. I longed for my bow as we crouched behind one such outcropping, thinking of how easy it would be to cripple Durak's hand or pierce his brain. He didn't even look up from his mutterings and incantations over the scroll, which he opened and squinted at in frustration. Around him, tiny moths fluttered in clouds, veering this way and that, like a swarm of disturbed bees. Angrily, he swatted at them, crushing the ones he captured in a meaty fist until his palms were white with powder.
"We'll sneak up on him from behind. I'll latch onto his neck and throw him off balance, you take the scroll," hissed the Bosmer.
"See if you can't get him to smear that power into his eyes," I replied, shrinking lower behind the rocks as our quarry grunted and turned our way. With a nod, Val led the attack, slipping down the path smoothly as a cat, bare feet making nary a sound. I followed, circling in the opposite direction so that I passed in front of the oblivious Orc. "He's watching...he of the exiled." The words of the spriggan spun around in my head. Malacath was watching us? Why?
But my thoughts were broken when Valindor completed his circuit behind Durak and sprang from the shadows, seizing him around the neck with his arms. His heels dug into his sides, and he clung tightly as a tick as Durak twisted and thrashed.
"What the hell are you doing here!" the Orc grunted. Dashing forward, I made a grab for the scroll, but missed when one great, flailing arm smashed into the side of my head. I went sprawling on the hot stones. Eventually, his wild thrashing sent his fist crashing into a circular stand holding a myriad of lit candles. They fell to the floor with a soft hiss when their flames hit a steaming pool. So too did the Elder Scroll.
"Grab it, Henny! Now!"
I scrabbled frantically after the rolling artifact just as my friend was flung from the Orc's back to the ground. My fingers brushed against the gilded roller, and I almost had the thing when I was yanked painfully back towards the beam of light by a massive hand.
"Where do you think you're going? I've had enough of the likes of you," grunted Durak. He unhooked his axe as he gripped my ankle, no doubt ready to behead me as he intended months ago. Valindor scrambled to his feet and seized the scroll in a frenzied sprint, holding it aloft and grinning.
"I think you dropped something!" he said, waving it around, practically dancing in impish glee. Durak dropped me and lunged after my friend.
"No! Malacath damn you. This is my time for glory!" However, just as he reached the Bosmer with the scroll, it was tossed into the air over his head. The bright light winked off the gold as it sailed toward me. I caught it, fumbling a little and almost dropping it. Astonished, I forgot what I intended to do with it, instead seized by a desire to run away.
"Read it, Henny!"
As I opened the Elder Scroll, Durak came for me, thundering through the pools with a crash. The first shape of blinding ink hit me. I stopped. "Hold up my soulgem!" I cried, frantically thinking of all the ways one could interpret the word open. Opening doors. Portals. Hearts. Minds. Locks. Chests. Souls... With a rasp, I yanked the remainder of the scroll open just as Durak clutched the roller and tried to pull it away from me. Brilliant light blazed in the back of my eyes, and I dimly heard Valindor shrieking something about the soulgem. Durak's head leaked light from his eyes as he screamed in agony. Slowly, we were lifted up, buoyed on an invisible fishing line, the world growing ever brighter until...
There was a faint pop, and we were gone.
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