Posted by
Paul M June 22, 2014 -
509 views
The air was still, but the candle flickered all the same, casting dancing shadows upon the damp stone walls. The flame was dancing to the throaty rattle of the dying man, his broken body fallen in the tight corridor. Yuri, the Woodcutter's son, stood before the body, his sword still wet with the same blood now filling the fallen mage's lungs.
"Do you know me, mage?" spoke Yuri, with a deep voice that could halt even a mighty dragon's charge. The dying man did not move his head, but slowly turned his eyes to the armoured figure, and gave a deeper rattle to clear his throat for one last conversation. There was a pause, but the mage did not speak. Yuri took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and, bending to the floor, held it in front of the dying man's eyes.
"If any wits you still have," commanded Yuri, "then turn them to this death note. A dark brotherhood has ordered my death. Tell me what you know of this, and I will bring you a swift end to your suffering."
At this the mage's gurgling breath turned to a cackle, and a fire beyond the candle's flame returned to his eyes. "I take... no orders from those such as you... I fear not death... for I have studied long its tricks and lies of infinite darkness... I have seen through these... I have seen another realm... where spirits are free of... of..." Upon these words the mage choked more upon his own blood, and his surge of venom was stayed by a fight to regain some of the stale cavern air.
Yuri stood tall and looked about him. He heard his housecarl shuffling around the bloodied caverns of Fellglow Keep, the stronghold they had fought through against a sect of trainee destroyers and defilers. This dying wretch was the last yet living, and even he would shortly meet his end. There were to be no answers here, he thought. He looked at the crudely raised stone walls, delved into the foot of the mountain above, and bolstered with rough bricks and limestone mortar. Taking the point of his sword he chipped away a small hole between the bricks, and then turned back to the mage.
The mage saw the sword seemingly for the first time since it had wounded him, and a new snarl came to his face. "You think to kill me... but my soul will yet live. And in death I place a curse upon you... that you shall not know peace in whatever sty you call home... and your arm shall tire from having to constantly wield that sword you carry... and pain and misery will follow you like a flock of vultures... picking at your bones for weeks before your grisly death. And when you die I shall meet you... and you will know pain for an eternity." At this the mage smiled with teeth stained brown with blood and some rank clotted foulness. But with a splutter the smile was broken, for the mage saw that Yuri met his curse with a grin.
"Your curse may scare the rabble, but it does not move me," said Yuri calmly, as he reached slowly into his pocket. "My home is many miles behind me, be it peaceful or not. I shall make a dwelling here in Skyrim after a time, but it shall never truly be my home, and so your curse is powerless in that regard.
"And were I not a sword wielding warrior I would still find my arms tired by the woodman's axe, or the smith's hammer, or the farmer's scythe. No life is ever free or toil or trauma, and pain and misery may come to all who are not wary. And to your final utterance, I bring this..." At which point Yuri pulled a clear crystal from his pocket, and held it before the fading eyes of the dying man.
"Tell me, my magic wielding foe: do you know the soul trap spell?" Yuri's grin flourished to a smile, and the mage's bewildered half snarl turned to stricken fear.
"No... No you can't..." spluttered the mage, before his throat closed on a final rattle, and his body used its last strength in a futile heave of his chest. Yuri held the gem a foot above the twitching corpse and whispered his spell until the flickering illumination of the candle was joined by a faint pink glow upon the walls and roof of the passageway.
Yuri stood, and turning to the hole he had made with his sword, slipped the captured soul of the dead mage into the walls of Fellglow Keep. A last shaft of glowing pink light shone from the opening in the mortar, but was soon stopped up with a bundled rag torn from the mage's clothing. "There you shall remain," said Yuri, "until the mountain is laid flat by the ice and rain, or until the foul sightless creatures that dig and worm their way through the dirt disturb these stone walls.
"And when you do at last find your release, even if it be not till the unmaking of all things, know that it is I who shall be waiting for you in that eternal realm beyond."
Comments