clothes and return her to her rooms.”
“And this one?” the guard said, indicating Slyr.
“She’s shown initiative,” he said, “misguided, but there it is. Clean her up and bring her to my quarters.”
Slyr’s eyes registered disbelief, but then her lips curled in triumph.
Molag Bal take them all, Annaig thought. I’m getting off this damned rock.
NINE
Annaig was still weak from the effects of the poison, but she insisted on sleeping in her own quarters that night, and Toel’s servants allowed her her wish. Slyr did not return—a fact for which she was extremely grateful.
That night she wrote Glim a note, in the same argot he’d written hers in. It was very simple.
The next day, still pale and tending to tremble, she went early to the pantry. She found a skraw—not the same one—a woman this time.
“What do you have here?” she asked her.
“Thendow frills,” the skraw wheezed. “Sheartooth loin. Glands from duster stalks …”
After a few moments, the pantry workers stopped their curious stares and went back to their business. They probably figured if one of the chefs wanted to come down and do their jobs, who were they to argue?
When she was pretty sure no one was looking, she slipped the skraw the note. “I want the pearl-colored ones next time,” she said. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, lady,” the skraw replied.
“Good,” she said, and left the dock.
She returned to the kitchens, did her portion of the dinner—Lord Irrel only ate one meal a day—and then went back to the tree-wine vats. With no hesitation at all she made eight vials of tonic. She put four in her pocket and the rest in the cabinet, and it was all very much like moving in a dream, detached, without fear, as if the poisoning had somehow made her invulnerable.
It had certainly made her less visible. Toel didn’t speak to her at all, and Slyr kept her distance, although she did occasionally catch the other woman looking at her with what was probably disdain.
But it didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter.
She slept alone again that night, and the next morning she had a reply from Glim.
Something struck his feet, and Treb’s knees buckled, taking him straight down on his face in a bed of yellow wildflowers that smelled like skunk. He and Sul were on a hillside covered in various colorful blossoms and odd, twisting trees with caps like mushrooms.
They were on a jagged island in a furious sea beneath a sky half-filled with a jade moon.
They were on an island of ash and shattered stone, still surrounded by water, but this water appeared to be boiling. The steaming air stank of hard minerals, and the sky was bleak and gray.
Sul just stood there, studying the ground, kicking at what looked like a shallow excavation, but he didn’t appear surprised.
“Are we trapped again?” Attrebus asked.
“No,” Sul grated. “We’ve arrived. Welcome to Vivec City.” He spat into the ash.
“I thought we were still in Oblivion.”
“This doesn’t look homey to you?”
“I—” He took in the scene again.
The island stood in the center of a bay that was close to perfectly circular, with a rim standing somewhat higher than the island except in one place where it opened into a sea or larger lake. It reminded him of the volcanic crater he’d once seen on a trip to Hammerfell.
To the left, beyond the rim, the land rose up in rugged mountains.
“Don’t you see the how beautiful she is, this city?” Sul snapped. “Can’t you see the canals, the gondoliers?” He stabbed his finger out across the bay. “Don’t you see the great cantons, each building a city in itself? And here, right here—the High Fane, the palace, the Ministry of Truth—all for you to gaze upon that you might wonder.”
Attrebus bowed his head a bit. “I’m sorry, Sul. I meant no disrespect. I’m sorry for what happened here.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for as regards to this place,” Sul said. “But there are those who must account.”
His voice sounded harsher than usual.
“You might have warned me about the fall, back in Hircine’s realm,” Attrebus said, hoping to lighten the mood.
To his surprise, it seemed to work. A hint of a grin pulled at Sul’s lips.
“I told you it was harder to get to,” the Dunmer reminded him.
“Just a tiny bit harder, I guess.”
“It’s done now.”
“I wish Lesspa—” He stopped, realizing he didn’t want to talk about that. Not long ago he’d had his arms around her waist, felt the breath in her, heard the savage joy of her cry. To think of her, torn and cold, her eyes staring at nothing …
“We’d be dead now if it weren’t for her,” Sul said. “The Khajiit didn’t hold them for long, but it was long enough. We could have died with her, but then what about Umbriel, Annaig, your father’s empire? You’re a prince, Attrebus. People die for princes. Get used to it.”
“It wasn’t even her fight.”
“She thought it was. You made her believe it was.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better.”
Sul’s softer mood broke as quickly as it had formed. “Why in the world would any of this be about making you feel better? A leader doesn’t do things to make himself ‘feel better.’ You do what you should, what you must.”
Attrebus felt the rebuke almost like a physical blow. It left him speechless for a moment. Then he nodded.
“How do we find this sword?” he asked. He waved his hands about. “I mean, in all of this ruin …”
Sul studied him angrily for a moment, then looked away.
“I was a servant of Prince Azura,” he said. “Insomuch as I serve anyone, I suppose I still serve her. I wandered for years through Oblivion until she gave me haven in her realm, and there I slowly went mad. For a daedra prince, she is kind, especially to those she takes a liking to. She knew I wanted vengeance, and she gave me visions to help me achieve it. I did her services in the other realms. I settled problems for her, and in the end she promised to let me go, to act on what knowledge she had given me. She didn’t. She decided to keep me, one of her favorite playthings.”
“And so you escaped her, as you escaped Vile’s realm.”
“Yes. And yet, even though I am no longer in her realm or direct service, she still sends me the visions. Sometimes to aid, sometimes to taunt, never enough to be fully helpful. But she has no love for our enemy, and because of that I trust her more often than not.”
“And she showed you where the sword is?”
“Yes.”
Attrebus frowned. “You were here before, when you escaped Oblivion. Why didn’t you find the sword then?”
“This is all controlled by Argonians now,” he said, “although they obviously don’t live here. But they do have some ritual associated with this crater, what is now called the Scathing Bay. I arrived here during the ritual, so after running through half the realms of Oblivion, I had to keep running until they gave up, somewhere in the Valus Mountains. After that I … delayed coming back here. It’s not easy to see this.”
“I can understand that,” Treb said.
“You can’t, really,” Sul replied. “Wait here. I need to do something. Alone.”
“Even if you find the sword, how do we get across this boiling water?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Sul said. “I’ve been here before, remember?
