Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel (34 page)

“And then what?”

Sul cocked his head, as if studying some strange creature speaking an even stranger language.

“Then he’ll be dead.” He said it quietly, like a note plucked softly on the tightest wire in the world.

“But what about Umbriel? Without Vile’s power to run the ingenium, will it just fall out of the sky, or—”

“Vile said he would take it from there,” Sul said shortly. “Remember?”

“Right, but—” Then he understood. “You don’t care about anything but killing Vuhon.”

“When did I ever say otherwise?” Sul snapped.

“Well—never. But I just thought—”

“Don’t try to think for me,” Sul said. “And don’t act surprised. I kill Vuhon—anything else is up to you. You know what’s going to happen when I draw Umbra—you remember Elhul. Best get away from me when that happens, find that girl or do whatever strikes your fancy.”

“Then why do you want me along at all?”

“Because if Vuhon isn’t there when we appear, we’ll have to find him—and you’re the one with the magic bird and the friends in high places. So I might still need you. And speaking of birds …”

“Right,” Attrebus said, reaching into his bag.

He swam in black water, probing through the rotting leaves, lifting his eyes now and then above the surface to search the shallows and shore for movement. Larger things in the depths of the swamp couldn’t reach him here, amidst the twisting cypress roots; here the danger usually came from land.

Something in the mud moved, and he snapped at it with webbed paws and lifted a feathery-gilled wriggler into view. He ate it happily and searched for more, but in a short time his belly was full and he felt like basking. He swam lazily back to the gathering hole.

The old ones had already claimed the choicest perches, so he crawled onto a log already crowded with his siblings and wriggled down among them until he felt the rough bark against his belly. When his brothers and sisters gave up their sleepy, halfhearted complaints at his added company, he felt the sun on his skin and began to dream his life; swimming, basking, killing, avoiding death, the sun and moons, all mystery, all terrifying, all beautiful. Each day the same day, each year the same year.

Until the root came, and the taste of sap. Some changes were
slow, others came quickly, and he—they—flowed together, found the stream of time. His old body wasn’t forgotten, but it changed, became more like things the root remembered from otherwhere; his hind legs lengthened and his spine stood up. Small thoughts in his head put out branches, and those branched also, until what had before been warmth, light, shadow, movement, fear, contentment, anger, and lust became categories instead of simple facts. The world was the same, but it seemed more, bigger, stranger than ever.

Death followed life and life death, but it all flowed through the root, each life different, each the same.

Until that, too, ended, and the root was ripped away, and he was alone. The gathering place was empty except for him—no elders, no siblings. He swam in black water, forgetting everything. Losing his form, melting away.

But in that dissolution, the illusion was also dissolved. He was many, and he was one. He sang, a plaintive tune, a remembrance, a prayer. All of his voices took it up, trembling it out through every branch and root, through heart and blood and bone.

I want to go home
, he sang.
I want to go home
.

Glim woke gasping, spitting water from his mouth, remembering the ache closing in on his chest. He smelled his own terror, and remembered more—his heart stopping, the cold, nothingness.

And Fhena. Then he understood that he wasn’t just thinking of her—she was looking down at him anxiously.

“What?” he managed.

“You’re talking!” she said.

“Where am I?”

“You’re safe,” Fhena said. “Just know you’re safe.”

“I don’t understand,” he grunted. His skin felt tight, itchy,
and he was shivering. His mind was full of shifting images and half thoughts, as if he were back home, touching the root of the City Tree but stronger, stranger, freer.

“What happened to me?” he said. “I’m not the same. The trees—”

“You hear them now,” she said. “Like I do.” She touched him, and her face changed to an expression of purest wonder. “No,” she said, “not like me. Better—more—it’s like you’re one of them, Glim.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m me. I’m me.”

He fought back the thoughts invading his head.

“What happened?” he demanded. “I thought I died. I was sure I died.” He felt at his side, then his face. “Where are my wounds?” There weren’t even any scars.

“She did it to save you,” Fhena told him. “To keep you safe.”

“Did what?” Glim asked, starting to feel hysterical.

“I killed you,” another familiar voice said. “I killed you.”

The face was Annaïg’s, but the words made no sense juxtaposed with it.

“She did it to save you,” Fhena murmured, laying her hand on his shoulder.

“Neither of you is making any sense,” he snarled.

“Be calm, Glim,” Annaïg said in their private cant. “Just be still and let me explain.”

Annaïg watched Glim’s face as he listened to her, as she tried to explain to him that he was still Glim, still the friend she had grown up with, that she had rescued him, not murdered him.

But his face wasn’t exactly the same. It looked younger, which made sense, but there was also a little something different about the shape of it; the same for his coloring, which had more rust in it now. If she had seen this body a few months ago, she would
have thought it one of Glim’s brothers, but she wouldn’t have mistaken it for him.

But inside, he had to be the same. He had to. Sure, he seemed somehow more distracted than the old Glim, seemed to have a hard time focusing on what she was saying, but surely that was a side effect of the incubation process. To go from a worm to an adult with eighteen years’ worth of memories in a few days had to be a shock.

But Glim didn’t come to that conclusion.

“You’re saying I’m not me anymore,” he said, in as strange a tone as she had ever heard him use. “I’m a copy.”

“No,” Annaïg said. “You have the same soul, Glim. The poison I made caught it before Umbriel could take it away.”

Glim scratched at his flesh. “But this isn’t my body. It isn’t even a Saxhleel body. It’s grown from a proform. I’m not—” He jerked to his feet.

“This is all I’ve ever been to you, an experimental subject! ‘Drink this, Glim, you’ll turn invisible, this will let you fly, this will
kill
you and bring you back to life,’ but not quite right, never quite right!”

Annaïg felt as if layers of cloth were wrapped around her, muffling everything, hiding what Glim ought to be able to see, trapping anything she could say that might help in dense warp and weft.

“I’m sorry, Glim, it’s all I could think of,” was the best she could do, and she saw now that it wasn’t good enough, might never be good enough.

“Listen,” she said, reaching to soothe his spines, “I know this is a lot right now. I know you may hate me. But I need to tell you a few things, about what I’m planning—”

“No,” Glim said, jerking away from her touch. “I’ve had it with your plans, with doing things your way. I’m finished with it.”

“Glim, listen,” she said, but he turned and stamped from the room. She went after him, but his wet footprints led to the balcony and ended there. She stood looking down at the spreading ripples far below, while Fhena came and stood by her.

“Go back to the Fringe Gyre,” she told Fhena. “I’m sure he’ll find you there, if he doesn’t get killed again immediately. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

Fhena nodded and padded silently away, leaving Annaïg staring out at the wonder and madness that was Umbriel.

Her locket chimed.

She held it up and stared at it for a moment, then flipped it open.

Attrebus looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.

“Hello,” he said. “How are you?”

“As best as can be expected,” she replied.

“Look,” he said, “I may not have long. Sul and I think we’ve found a way to get up there. I’m not sure exactly when it will happen or where we’ll be.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Hierem, my father’s minister—he’s in league with Umbriel. We think he’s been traveling up there and back using a magical portal. We’re hoping when he comes down, we’ll go back up.”

The threads about her seemed to tighten.

“What can I do?”

“We’re going to try to use the sword, as we discussed earlier,” he said. “I’m not exactly sure what will happen then, even if we manage it. But I thought you should know, so you can be ready if—if any chance for escape comes.”

“What about you?”

“When it’s all over, Sul may be able to take us into Oblivion again.”

To her ear, it almost sounded like he didn’t care if he survived.

“Attrebus,” she said, “I’m sorry if I seemed angry before—”

“It’s okay. I think … I think maybe you had a right to be. I think we might have to talk about that someday.”

“Right,” she said. “Someday.”

“I’m going to put Coo up now—I need to be ready to fight whenever this happens. I just wanted you to know what was going on. If I have a chance to contact you after we get there, I’ll try.”

“Do that,” she said.

The locket went dark.

She took one last look at the vista beyond the balcony and then began striding purposefully toward her kitchen.

Hours passed, and Attrebus began to fear that perhaps Vineben was right, and Hierem had no intention of returning to the Imperial City. The wait did provide the time for a fuller exchange of information, but beyond that it was sheer torture. His mind kept trying to return to the feelings Hierem had violated him with, and he feared if he let that happen he would be useless in any confrontation, and so pressed for more conversation when he could.

“Arese?”

“Yes, Prince Attrebus?”

“You say you worked for my father.”

She glanced at her companion, but he didn’t give any sort of reaction. She pulled her shoulders back.