Colin blinked.
If I had anything to report I would have-he began thinking, but quashed it, lest it show on his face.
“Not much, really, sir,” Colin said. “Is there something wrong?”
“You received the latest interceptions.”
“I did, Intendant,” he replied. “I still can’t find any connection between the Thalmor and this-flying city.”
“And yet they must be up to something.”
“Oh, yes, sir, they’re up to plenty,” Colin said. “Thalmor agents continue to harass the refugee communities in Sentinel and Balfiera-there has been a series of murders in the latter we can pretty confidently assign to them. The pattern is typical-the victims were all of mixed blood or had associations considered by the Aldmeri Dominion to be unclean. It’s much worse in Valenwood-our supplies are no longer reliably getting to the rebels there. Sixty were caught and executed last week, along with four of our own men. There’s a leak we don’t know about, someplace. They know too much about our movements.”
“But in all of that-”
“Nothing. No Thalmor connections to the east at all.”
Marall looked sour. He took the other chair in Colin’s nook, slid it toward Colin’s desk, and sat down.
“Have you seen the reports concerning the flying city?”
“I haven’t, sir. Since being taken off the Attrebus case-”
“I’m sorry about that. The more so because you were right about everything. But you made Administrator Vel look foolish, and there you go. At least I managed to get you back on something-eh-important.”
“I appreciate that, sir.”
“I’m going to tell you a few things, Inspector, because I hope you may have some thoughts on them. But you understand you may not repeat them.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You’re aware, I imagine, of the stories in popular circulation concerning this-Umbriel.”
“I am. They are based, as I understand, on letters written by Prince Attrebus and sent to his biographers- before he vanished again.”
“Yes. They’ve rather captured the popular imagination. A flying city from Oblivion, populated by strange creatures, destroying all it passes over and creating an army of living dead from the corpses.”
“I’ve heard all of that.”
“Well, we’ve a good bit of information from our scouts now,” Marall said. “It’s all basically true. There are just a few new details. Umbriel-apparently the name of this thing-landed at Lilmoth and proceeded in a straight line toward, it appears, Vvardenfell. It is indeed accompanied by some sort of reanimated corpses, and those who die beneath it also rise again. But here’s the thing-the cities of Gideon and Stormhold were both overrun. Do you see what that means?”
“Neither lies between Lilmoth and Vvardenfell,” Colin answered after a moment’s thought.
“Correct. Apparently this army of the walking dead needn’t remain near its creator.”
“But do they continue to grow in numbers away from the island? Do they reproduce themselves?”
“That is unclear,” Marall replied. “What we do know is that a large force of them has entered Cyrodiil and seems to be making its way toward the Imperial City.”
“I see,” Colin said.
“Are you certain you’ve seen no evidence that they might be colluding with the Thalmor? If they strike from the east, and the Dominion from the west, or up the Niben, we could find ourselves in a very precarious state.”
“I’ve seen no evidence that the Thalmor are aware of these goings-on, much less that they are involved with them. Why-if I may ask, sir-why do you feel the Thalmor must be involved?”
“Well, if not them, someone. ” He tugged at the slight beard under his chin. “You were educated concerning the Oblivion crisis, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The received wisdom in the highest circles is that Tamriel can never be invaded from Oblivion again.”
“And yet we have been.”
“Yes and no. Umbriel is apparently not entirely in our world.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It exists in a sort of pocket of Oblivion.”
“And yet it can affect our world, obviously.”
“Yes. But the consensus opinion of both the Synod and the College of Whispers-who never agree on anything-is that even given its strange nature, Umbriel could not have come into Tamriel even so much as it has without being asked.”
“Asked?”
“Summoned. Conjured. Facilitated. The sort of wizardry one naturally associates with the Thalmor.”
Colin nodded. “More than ever, then,” he said, “I think we’re looking in the wrong place. Once it becomes clear we’re being attacked, I have no doubt that the Dominion will take some advantage of it, but in my opinion that would be to consolidate their hold on Valenwood while our attention is elsewhere. They have a plan, a plan laid out in decades-I don’t see them rushing into some strange alliance with an Oblivion prince or what-have-you.”
“Who then?”
“Why not the An-Xileel?”
“The lizards?” Marall’s voice dripped with contempt. “They’re entirely parochial. Even if they could muster the sort of arcane knowledge this would require, why would they bother? They’re content in their swamps.”
“They invaded Morrowind.”
“For revenge. They stopped their advance decades ago, and haven’t showed the slightest interest in doing anything since then.”
“Except keeping the Empire from reclaiming their territory,” Colin pointed out.
“To my knowledge, we’ve never tried to invade Black Marsh. Who wants it?”
“I just think they might bear looking at,” Colin said. “After all, that’s where Umbriel first showed up.”
Marall looked unconvinced, but then he nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll make the appropriate reports available to you, and send any requests for whatever else you may need through my office. You were right about the Attrebus thing, after all. But-keep your head low, yes? I don’t need this getting back to Vel.”
“Understood, sir.”
He watched Marall go, and then returned his gaze to the papers, but he wasn’t really seeing them.
The Intendant was probably right that the An-Xileel were not a threat. They were entirely nativistic in their views, interested only in purging the former colonial influences and returning Black Marsh to whatever state they imagined it had been in before it was ruled by foreign powers. And technically, of course, Umbriel had appeared somewhere out at sea, so one might just as well suspect the elusive Sload of having helped the flying city conjure its way into Tamriel. After all, they were supposed to be great sorcerers.
He turned it around a few ways and didn’t get anything, so he directed his thoughts to his other “case.” There wasn’t much there either. Despite her dramatic recruitment of him, he hadn’t heard from Arese, and since he didn’t have anything to tell her, he didn’t see any point in risking contact with her.
He got the intelligence from Black Marsh a few hours later. He started with the most recent stuff; both the College of Whispers and the Synod had collected intelligence remotely, but there were also a number of on-the- ground reports. A few had been relayed by riders, but most were also transmitted through sorcerous means. It was mostly information regarding the size and travel path of Umbriel, and the accounts of Stormhold and Gideon seemed somehow light. Feeling he was missing something, Colin turned to what little they had in the way of information regarding the An-Xileel.
He found something very interesting indeed.
It had rained, and Talos Plaza was awash in reflected torch and lamplight. The air still smelled clean as Colin stepped through the puddles. A troupe of Khajiit acrobats was performing nearby, gracefully tumbling, forming unlikely structures with their feline bodies, juggling sparkling torches. A crowd clapped and tossed coins at their feet. He passed through a group of kids enthusiastically swinging at one another with wooden swords, and felt stiffness in this throat. He’d been like them once. He remembered playing such games. But he couldn’t remember at all how it felt.
