Chapter 27

"Varanu?"

Her eyes flew open as one hand groped for her scimitar. It ran into someone's cool hand instead. Esgeriad's face entered her field of view a moment later. A strand of his hair brushed her shoulder, and she felt it through her thin linen shirt, gentle as a butterfly's wing.

"Where are we?" Varanu said. Esgeriad politely withdrew his hand. He was sitting there with it next to mine. Not touching.

"We are in the Undercroft at Bruma," he said. "Tychicus Varen seems to have brought us here by means of which I confess I am uncertain. He seemed rather fatigued, so I did not press him."

"I've never seen him fatigued." Varanu sat up slowly. Esgeriad leaned back, dragging his hair with him. The collar of his own shirt was loose enough to reveal the Necklace of Molag across his chest. The scar was white against his golden skin now, no longer angry red. They must be in a back room. Other beds lined the walls, and there were a few candles lit here and there. The room was otherwise quite dim, for there were no windows, and the only door was shut.

She felt weak, but the sensation of ache and fever had gone. Well. Most of the ache had gone. She did not clearly remember everything that had happened in the last several hours, but she had some idea she had been talking to Esgeriad and he had said... Varanu steeled herself against hope.

"I suppose we were both pretty feverish, out on the road," she said neutrally.

"I will accept your word for it. I have never before been afflicted with disease," Esgeriad said. He shuddered slightly. "I sincerely hope it never happens again."

"More curse than disease, I think," Varanu said.

"As you say," Esgeriad said.

"I'm sure we both said some odd things," Varanu said.

Esgeriad stared at her. "Odd?" he said. "I tell you I love you and you think it odd?"

"Well, you were probably under the curse from before the first time you told me that," she pointed out. "You might not have said it if you were in your right mind. It's not your fault."

"Why, you..." Esgeriad stopped short. A look of very Altmeri haughtiness crossed his features. Then it slid away and he grinned. Varanu blinked, dazzled. "Oh, no," Esgeriad said. "I will not stoop to profanity on your account, Knight of Arkay. Apparently I have made myself insufficiently clear." He stood up, removed the chair to one side, and sank gracefully to one knee.

"Oh, not again," Varanu said, rallying as best she could. "Will you get - "

"Silence," Esgeriad said sternly. "I am trying to pledge my undying affection and you are making it very difficult."

"No, I don't suppose I've made it easy," Varanu said slowly.

"Indeed," the Altmer said. "Nor have you given me a clear answer."

"I'm not sure there is a clear answer," Varanu said. "You're beautiful. You have been since I first saw you, and nobody but you and maybe two other snotty mer from the Chapel of Dibella is going to care about your scars - "

"I suppose I deserved that one," Esgeriad said.

"- And I like you. You've shown more guts than I'd have thought any Altmer in Tamriel could have, with a lot less reason than most and no training for it at all. If anybody can survive the life I have to live, it's you."

"Thank you," Esgeriad said. Varanu shook her head irritably.

"I'm not sure that's the same thing as love," she said.

"Truly?" Esgeriad said. "How would you feel if I told you I must go now and never return again?" His voice held such absolute conviction that her stomach gave an involuntary lurch. Esgeriad, watching her face intently, must have seen what he expected to see. "If that is not love, I will never know what is," he said.

"You bastard," Varanu said weakly.

"So I hear," Esgeriad said. The smile from a few moments before made a glowing reappearance. "I want your promise that you will not leave me. And where your vocation takes you, I too must go. No matter the hazard."

"I promise," Varanu said. "Although I'm pretty sure that means you're going to get blood on you again."

"For the sake of my one true love, I am prepared to risk it," Esgeriad said grandly.

"Smug fetcher," said Varanu Ashazzarnitashpi.

EPILOGUE

Somewhere far to the East, a pair of Eyeless Ones had just come to the end of a very long run. They were not out of breath. That would have required them to have been breathing in the first place.

They were well into the highlands of Eastern Cyrodiil now, surrounded by tall trees and wildflowers. Neither remembered anything before the sewers of the Imperial City, and while they could not see it, the persistent sunlight felt odd in a way that was new and not precisely comfortable.

One of them had been male once, and one female. Neither knew anything beyond that, except that the madness that had seized their brethren had somehow passed them by, and they had fled the carnage before the vampires burst onto the scene and destroyed all that was left. They had been connected to the others, tightly linked mind-to-mind beneath the overarching will of the necromancer. Now those bonds were broken, leaving them confused and isolated from everything but each other.

And yet something had brought them here. They sensed rather than saw the great house in front of them, a rambling manse of stone whose two wings had mostly caved in and been filled with living plants. The central portion was intact, and inside they felt things moving. All the magicka within reach was bent toward the house, its twanging threads indented like a sheet with a body in the middle. Power was being constantly drawn in from all around them. It was not the awful burning of the Fire of Arkay.

A light step reached their ears from the northern wing of the house. Each one reached out for the other's hand as they waited. They had no more weapons, and no one to tell them what to do with them.

"What in Oblivion?" said a deep voice. Orc, the male mind informed the female. Not only Orc, she shot back, and the two of them felt the thread of undeath clinging to the pulse of life in front of them.

"Oblivion is not concerned with this," said a second voice, this one with a metallic echo to it. The Eyeless Ones recognized the daedra who followed the Orc, but their master had held daedra to be of little importance.

"We came for the necromancer," said the male. "We need her."

"For what?" said the half-Orc.

"Ours is dead," said the female.

"And we're dead," said the male. "But we still go on."

"So I see," said the half-Orc's voice. "I'll go and get No Claws."

"Get me for what?" The two Eyeless pivoted instantly toward the voice. It didn't matter to them that it belonged to an Argonian, or that she was very young, or that the robe she wore was dusty (they were unaware of this latter fact in any case). All they knew was that she drew in magicka like water into a drain.

"Necromancer?" said the male.

"I am," she said. The two Eyeless cocked their heads as the heavy tread of another undead moved around her, edging between her and them. They recognized that behavior. They had been taught it very early. The necromancer is your master. Protect the necromancer.

"Tell us what to do," said the male.

"We will obey," said the female. "Only let us be yours."

"All right, then," said No Claws. "Let's see how you are at carrying wood."

The Eyeless Ones followed her gladly into the house, letting go of each others' hands. They felt the presence of other Undead around them, ghosts and zombies and another revenant of a kind they had never sensed before. We found her, said the male to the female.

Yes, said the other. We are home.

THE END