“My father, my mother, most of the court—they all must have been sniggering behind my back.”
“So what? More people believe in you than don’t.”
“They believe in a lie. You just said it.”
“Then become the truth, you idiot. Become what they
Attrebus let that sink in for a moment.
“You think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know. But we can find out.”
“You’ll help me?”
“I suppose I must,” Sul sighed.
“Why?”
“You said it yourself—it’s just the two of us. We have to get to Morrowind, and we have to get there before Umbriel.”
“Why? What’s in Morrowind? How do you know Umbriel is going there?”
“It is, just trust me. And we’ll never beat it on foot or horseback. I think I might know the way, but we’ll need to make it to the Niben Valley first. And it would be helpful to have allies. The legendary Prince Attrebus ought to be able to drum up a few.”
Attrebus thought that over and found that it made some sense. “Thank you,” he finally said.
Sul nodded reluctantly.
“But here’s the thing …” Attrebus continued.
“What now?”
“Prince Attrebus wouldn’t take Lesspa’s money and betray his oath. He’d get the moon-sugar and bring it back to her.”
For a long moment Sul didn’t say anything, but then his shoulders seemed to relax slightly.
“Right,” he said.
Rimmen had elegant bones of ivory-colored stone with few towers but many domes. Soldiers—human soldiers—met them at the gate, searched them, questioned them, and eventually passed them through. For another hundred yards they snaked through the twists and turns of an entry overlooked by platforms for archers, mages, and siege weapons. That brought them to the market, a bustling, colorful plaza empty in the middle but girdled by tents and stalls and bounded by canals. A broad avenue flanked by even more expansive waterways continued on to what was clearly the palace, an ancient-looking structure raised up on a high, tiered stone substructure. The tiers held some buildings, and apparently earth, because he could see trees growing there. Surmounting that was a cylindrical building with a large golden dome. Water cascaded down the sides of the palace, feeding the pool that encircled it.
Attrebus wondered where all of the water came from.
Off to the eastern side of the palace, he could see the odd curly-edged roof of what had to be the Akaviri temple Annaig had mentioned. The only place he’d ever seen with similar architecture was Cloud Ruler Temple, which he had viewed from a distance when he was ten, hunting with his father’s traveling court in the mountains north of Bruma. He remembered that trip with fondness—he’d killed his first bear.
Or maybe he hadn’t, now that he thought of it. It had been moving a little strangely when he saw it, hadn’t it? Had it already been wounded? Poisoned? Ensorcelled?
Why would his father have done that? Why all of this?
He pushed that down, trying to focus. He’d promised Annaig a description of Rimmen.
He was surprised that fewer than half of the people he saw were Khajiit, and many of those lolled about with wild or vacant eyes, skooma pipes clutched in their hands. It was a strange sight to see in an open, public square. He began to understand Lesspa and her people better.
They left the plaza, crossing a canal on a footbridge and thence down a narrow street where gently chiming bells were depended between the flat roofs of the buildings and viridian moths flittered in the shadows. The addicts were even thicker here, a few watching them and holding out their hands for money; but most were shivering, lost in their visions.
They arrived at their destination, a smaller square with a fortified building surrounded by guards in purple surcoats and red sashes. A sign proclaimed the place to be KINGDOM OF RIMMEN STATE STORE.
Once again they were searched, questioned, and then passed into a low-ceilinged room where twenty or so people stood on line at a counter. Only one person, an Altmer, seemed to be dealing with the customers, but others worked behind him, wrapping paper packages into even larger paper packages.
“This was your idea,” Sul pointed out. He handed him the bag of coins.
“What do I do?” Attrebus asked.
“You’ve never stood on line, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, embrace the experience. I’m going to sit down. When you get to the man at the counter, I’ll come back.”
As bored as the man at the counter seemed from a distance, he somehow seemed even less enthusiastic when Attrebus and Sul reached him an hour later.
He took the gold, looked it over, and then weighed it.
“What do you want? He asked.
“Moon-sugar.”
“Forty pounds, then,” he said.
“Sixty,” Attrebus challenged. He’d bargained before, for fun.
“There’s no negotiation,” the mer said wearily. “Outlanders! Look, the price is fixed by the office of the potentate. Take it or leave it, I really don’t care.”
“We’ll take it,” Sul said.
“It is my mandatory duty to warn you that if you sell or attempt to sell moon-sugar in the Kingdom of Rimmen,” the man said, “you will be subject to a fine of triple the worth of the sugar. If you sell or attempt to sell more than two pounds, you will be subject to execution. Do you understand these terms?”
“Yes,” Sul said. Attrebus just nodded, feeling his face warm.
“Very well. Your name here, please.” He shoved a ledger at Attrebus.
He hesitated, then signed it
The rest was easy. They packed the stuff on their horses, rode out of Rimmen, and headed west.
They reached Lesspa’s camp near sundown. She was there, along with the others, crouched around the fire. She watched them come, her expression odd but unreadable. Her mouth moved, though, as if she was trying to say something.
Sul stopped.
“This isn’t right,” he said. “Something isn’t right.”
“Dismount!” someone shouted. “This is Captain Evernal of the Kingdom of Rimmen regulators. Remove your weapons and make your beasts available for search.”
Beyond the fire, Attrebus could now make out figures, moving from cover.
A lot of them.
ONE
Mere-Glim swam through a forest of sessile crabs. Their squat, thorny bodies attached to the floor of the sump were barely noticeable, but their tiny, venomous claws were set on the ends of twenty-foot-long yellow and viridian tentacles that groped lazily after him.
The quick silver blades of nickfish whipped about him, dodging among the crabs. He saw one that didn’t dodge fast enough; it struggled only an instant before the toxin killed it and it was dragged slowly downward.
Glim missed Annaig. He missed Black Marsh, and hoped desperately that something was left of it.
But he liked the sump. It was strange and beautiful and mostly quiet. And since he did his jobs well—or at least they thought he did—he was mostly left alone. When he was with the other skraws, he took care not to show exactly how fast he could swim. That way—on days like this—he had a little time to explore.
