IX
From my strange and disquieting dreams, I suddenly woke to a knock at the door of the Hall of Countenance, surprisingly early in the morning. It was about two hours short of sunrise and dizzy from sleep deprivation, being so aggressively robbed of my well-earned rest, I hazily collected my thoughts and pressed against the bed railing, still weakened from yesterday's events, pushing myself upward, feebly standing on my two feet. I looked around me and found the living quarters curiously vacant while rubbing my eyes to finally get a grip on the situation. Apparently I took so long as to warrant more impatient rapping from the nightly visitor.
I hastened to put on my fresh robe and stumbled thither whence the nervous banging originated. I grabbed the doorknob, turning it slowly with an audible metallic creaking, unable to contain a shocked gasp. Before me stood Marcus, no doubt being still awake since the morning prior, all drenched in sweat and stained with mud, dirt and some blood. I gave him an inquisitive gaze as I surveyed his ghastly, battered and madly exhausted appearance to which he replied that there was no time to explain, at least not in the College halls.
From what I could observe, it was only logical for me to infer he had been digging out graves this night but, as soon laid out to me, it was much more iniquitous.
Strengthening my doubts in respect to the virtuousness of his deeds hitherto unspoken, he beckoned me to meet him in the Midden, right now, for a matter of utmost importance that could not wait.
I hesitatingly agreed, already filled with a quaint sense of dread pertaining to what it is I might witness, telling him to give me a moment to get my bearings before I would go. He nodded, striding forth into that ever darker abyss he called his laboratory, me following him shortly afterwards. At this point, I often have descended that frightful ladder into the dank depths we called our new home for delvings into the dark arts, but this time was different.
Whereas I had grown wont to the strange, dead silence and the pestilential smell of the place, coming closer to the base I now heard voices from below unheard of from previous delvings.
Stopping for a brief period of time, I strained my ears and fancied to make out three distinct voices.
One female in a fit of crying in utter sadness and despondence, begging to spare her life, hitting something partly solid but soft in nature, repeatedly, seemingly in despair beyond hope. Another, male, arguing and frantically shouting curses and swears, agitated to a rather heated state demanding to be set free lest he would resort to violence of grave proportions. The third voice I could barely make out amidst the commotion going on down there, silently chanting something in a language I didn't recognize, who I later identified to be Marcus.
I thought to myself, albeit only briefly: "What have you done, Marcus?"
Climbing down further, a strong sense of nausea and a heretofore unprecedented queasiness struck me as my nostrils were ambushed by a hideous odor of burnt flesh and freshly spilled blood with hints of partly digested food among the overall fetidness of the location, in part owing to the incredible humidity of the air coming from the wet stone and moist floor.
What, by the Nine Divines, has he done? Slightly panicked, I fled down the ladder, hastened to quickly make my way to the central chamber wherein Marcus set up his sophisticated laboratory previously, in my haste almost slipping on the wet stone floor, instead sliding along the final corridor, crashing into the door to his inner sanctum.
The portal flung open with great force originating from my built-up kinetic energy causing me to trip on a loose brick in the ground and fall flat on my face. Evidently, I had been too tired for proper muscular coordination but was now wide awake. My mode of ingress a token of the general fatigue that had been seeping into my body upon being forcibly bereaved of any convalescence.
I was fast to get up, greeted by an inhumanely horrendous scenery defying all that I've ever learned about condolence. Before my eyes unfolded a scene of rather tragic extent, two people being imprisoned in small cells fashioned from old iron bars and rusty cell doors Marcus no doubt retrieved from within here somewhere, placing them adjacent to the entrance door which was perfectly aligned with his makeshift altar. The cell to the left contained the angry man who I didn't bother listening to as he yelled curses at me in rapid succession, only his red robe being somewhat recognizable until I realized that this man was one of the scholars of the College. To our chagrin a proficient destructionist at that. Next to him lay a partly rotten body of a person Marcus must've been digging out from somewhere that night, I was certain.
Shifting my gaze to the rightmost containment, I bore witness to a crying woman and a burnt male corpse, her clenched fist repeatedly coming down onto the chest of the deceased in mourning of her loss, I presumed. That was, until I realized that, to my terror, the orange robe of the dark skinned woman seemed oddly familiar and upon lifting her face, eyes swollen with tears, her red nose dripping, I looked into the lost eyes of Shelivah. My heart stopped for a moment at this jaw dropping revelation.
My lover I've forgotten - incarcerated. Stricken with grief, she was mute, unable to utter even a single word. Only her shining orbs visibly begging me for help. I averted my eyes in fear and morbid ambiguity, turning to face Marcus, glaring at him in disbelief.
I relayed to him that at no point we agreed to such detestable actions. He explained to me, then, what he did and what his intentions were, his gaze mad with tiredness and frenzied overworking. I wondered if it was just the lack of a good night's rest or if there was something else entirely at work here that caused his appearance to be so ragged and beaten. And indeed, he looked absolutely terrible. His garments stained with three kinds of nightmarish soot, partly ripped to tatters, partly wet and soaked in whatever unsavoury fluids he brought with him from his nightly trip. His skin a sicklish grey, cold with winter's frozen embrace and utter lifelessness, his beard coarse and dirty. In his eyes, nothing reflected back at me, as if he was a reanimated puppet himself. As he explained further, I reasoned his condition to be hailing from his lack of crucial recuperation and shrugged it off as best I could, though his voice trembled with madness and exhaustion as he related to me the rest of his story.
Apparently, he planned to spend the night digging up cadavers from some cemetery but after the first corpse he brought thither, quickly realized that he'd never be done by dawn if he wanted to acquire four fresh specimens, taking into account the prodigious amount of digging it would take to find carcasses in good enough condition. So he did what any good necromancer would do and settled on the next best thing: abducting people. Now, that he'd go as far as to carry off mages from the College, I did not foresee and I pressed my hand firmly against my forehead in dubitation and feverish imagination as to the repercussions of such an act.
He further explained, he snuck into the College, paralyzed his victims with a stunning spell he caught wind of during his intense studies, and brought the limp bodies here. Marcus originally intended to perform a first test of his ritual on a novice mage he kidnapped and imprisoned before and let him out of the cage at which point the novice ferociously attacked, trying with all his might to avert impending doom, hence Marcus dispatched him in brutal fashion by burning him to a charred piece of lifeless flesh, throwing the corpse back into the prison.
So, he calmly stated, he had to devise a change of plans. I could scarcely believe what I've just been told but relaxed myself by breathing in deeply a few times, thereby inhaling the scorched stench of the roasted, still crackling flesh nearby, in an effort to remain in working order albeit gagging slightly at the sight of the still glimmering meat that used to be man or mer.
After the initial shock wore off, Marcus continued to detail the plans that he had for the night. We were to experiment on these subjects of course. First, we had to reanimate the body Marcus burnt beforehand, using it as a puppet to aid in the second stage of our current, tenebrous project. Marcus would then proceed to produce a peculiar item from his pouch that hit me with baffling conversance when I gazed at it, swallowing in surprise. It appeared that the person who introduced himself as Marcus, whom I met such a long time ago at Nightgate Inn and came to know as a friendly fellow to be easily excited at the simple art of restoration, carrying a very special soul gem with curious properties to be delivered to the Magistrate, never brought hither the artifact to its intended recipient. Instead, he would hand them a regular black soul gem, keeping the queer one to himself.
It dawned on me that what we were doing here has been planned long ago, I only getting involved by coincidence when I encountered my now ever more dubious and shady companion all those many nights ago. He went into great detail about the gem, explaining that, according to his research, and rather horrid field testing, it could, for one, house not only both white AND black souls but was also capable of collecting and retaining a near infinite amount of such. I didn't inquire further about his alleged 'field testing' he mentioned in fear of what terrible deeds I might uncover but I was sure they were of quite unsavoury nature.
Marcus then told me that, according to his hypotheses, the gem should in theory be capable of transferring a person's soul from one body to another, possibly prolonging life indefinitely. If that was true, he added, it must be possible to transfer one's soul to any vessel. I flinched at the sickening implications of this remark, but I agreed to carry on regardless, still under the impression of pursuing science to, in the end, create practices to save lives.
Furthermore, I had become a man of empirical study and my thirst for knowledge had to be satiated, albeit I had some qualms about the whole ordeal.
Witnessing Shelivah in such pain and agony ignited yet again the flame of doubt that agitatedly flickered in my heart, threatening to consume the numbness I've developed. Her tears choked my desire to continue this madness. The revivification of what should not be permitted to live.
I turned, looking at Marcus with disdain. In a courageous moment of resolute anger I withdrew the dagger I always kept on my person from its scabbard, ready to slice this dæmon's throat. Because Marcus apparently lacked any sort of remorse, for I was certain he knew of my affection towards this particular Dunmer. Even if I had neglected her for my growing interest in the occult, I could not let him abuse her for our pursuits.
Blade in hand I stepped up to him, pressing its sharp edge against his larynx. And I spoke:
"Never have I agreed to such distasteful acts. Corpses, maybe. Not, though, the living. You shall release her at once, lest I will end you and report your ill cravings to the Magistrate. I will not allow you to harm Shelivah or the other captive."
Marcus, with his crazed, delirious countenance, heinously laughed it off and replied:
"Is that so? What, then, will happen, you suppose, should you decide to commit murder upon my person? Will they not punish you all the same? Worse still, those you intend to release from their incarceration. They are witnesses now. What fate will befall you in the event of their honest testimony? Both you and I, we know they are going to tell their tale. And when they iterate upon your involvement, will you not be exiled or executed?
"Think of this before you commit to your chosen path. You can still alter the destination it leads to. You have been such a loyal companion up to this moment. Do you truly wish to abandon this and your freedom, possibly your life, in exchange for their souls?"
He paused. I seized the opportunity of his momentary inadvertence and slid my weapon across his cheek, pushing him back. In an instant he furiously retaliated, sending a wave of staggering force my way. This assault lifted me up my feet and threw me against the door of one of the nearby cages. My back ached considerably and only with difficulty was it that I could regain a proper foothold.
With this smothering display of combat superiority he grinned at me in an astonishingly menacing way before he resumed his speech, his soliloquy infesting my better judgement.
"Did you truly believe me to just hand it to you like that? If you so choose, I will reduce your corporeal vessel to a pile of smouldering ashes. And should you decide to flee and tell of our joint venture, not only will you find utmost scorn in the individuals thusly notified. The two you seek to protect from harm will have expired by then."
Intimidated, I sheathed my dagger. I had no way of turning this situation in my favor. If I killed Marcus, provided I was strong enough, I'd have to explain myself which would lead to peril. If I went to consult the magistrate, Shelivah would soon be beyond saving.
"Only if you cooperate" Marcus announced, "can you keep her from death's icy grip. Only if you submit will you be able to save both yourself and her. Choose otherwise and all will be buried beneath the calamity you hail down upon us. Think, Rhodulf, of the consequences."
I had no choice. I realized that I had to consent to whatever it was he was going to do. Out of options, I threw Shelivah a look of utmost despair, telling of my plea for exculpation. My innermost apocalypse now reigned supreme. The dilemma conceived bringing tears to my eyes that gently streamed down my cheeks and into my beard. My stance shifted and I went into a disarmed stupor. In taciturnity did I walk over to Marcus, thereby showing him a corroborating nod.
Having understood my gesture, he smiled.
As if the contention that just unfolded did never take place, Marcus continued to further his account of the experiment's details that were at hand.
He needed two sets of test subjects. The first stage consisted of one living person and one corpse, while the second stage would use two living, soul-inhabited bodies and by glancing in direction of the rusted, makeshift cages, this has been prepared mere moments ago judging by the malodorous quality of it all. Marcus then instructed me to prepare myself for the oncoming ritual by grabbing my staff, keeping a soul trapping spell at the ready that he taught me way back when we started working together and stand aside, the rest, he went on, to become clear during the actual act.
I obliged in his request and braced myself for what was about to happen. I somehow knew that, whatever was to transpire, would surely be detestable. I was permitted no objection however.
Retelling the events that transpired thusly causes me great peril to this very day. These minutes of madness strike fear into my heart and soul and remembering even a second proves a test to my sanity. But I must tell of this terrible night in every minute detail for I seek absolution from the unspeakable things I am to be held responsible for.
At that fateful point in time, I was ambiguous no longer. Due to the most recent conflict, something stirred within me, reanimated my once dead conscience. Even more so if taken into account my complete and utter helplessness at the hands of Marcus. Once a friend, now an enemy. Even so, I had to comply.
In preparation of the act, I grabbed my iron staff, fastening my grip, thereby channeling the energy I held within, getting ready to cast the most potent soul trap I was capable of. Marcus, in the meantime, proceeded to raise the charred corpse in the cell containing also Shelivah, who fell into silence upon witnessing this, keeping control of the puppet as to not assault her. He then instructed me to cast the spell on her. With growing apprehension and jittery hands did I cast the spell. The regretful tinge of purple radiance filled out the entire room, the light being reflected off the moisture present on the surrounding anthracite walls, rushing into her quickly.
Her eyes widened in shock and fear, not knowing what would happen next. Marcus went on to hold up the peculiar black soul gem forebodingly, firing upon Shelivah the forbidden Soul Siphon, creating a beam of violet luminescence stretching across the room, making the air vibrate with dark energy, striking her heart. In an instant she died, not even able to produce a deathly scream, much less draw any last breath. I bore witness to the soul leaving her body in form of a blueish-purple swirl of dancing lights, being successfully trapped by that abominable gem. I secretly cursed my ever meeting this man while a lump formed in my throat, threatening to choke me. I grew faint for a moment, gasping for air through my clogged nose.
He then started an incantation of curious origin for he spoke in a language I knew not. But I will do my best to reproduce what he chanted from memory, as what I heard is still vividly present in my mind remembering the terrible deeds of that night:
"MAGICKA AV LORIAE
MAGICKA AV AT ADA YLORENE
AURANVOY AN ANGUA
AUTARACU AV CEYSELIE VEY
BIS ANYAMMIS DELLEVOY DARRE VEY GE NE NAGAIA NI RACUVAR NE ANYAMMIS NI EPE
O AT ADA YLORENE MAGICKA"
After these mind shattering words, something happened which pains me greatly to recall, as I witnessed the utmost horror I could hitherto fathom and still shakes me unto my innermost feelings deep down where my conscience lies. For I observed the just trapped soul being sent to the still standing, reanimated burnt body, striking it with awesome intensity.
Then came the screams.
Mad with terror and inconceivable agony, the now animate, charred person, still crackling slightly with burnt flesh, sprung to life, screaming for help, wailing in interminable suffering at the still smoking burns, exhaling dark grey fumes with every plea for mercy, in shock of Shelivah now being imprisoned in the immolated, hellishly disfigured novice's body.
I, too, was paralyzed in utter anguish this event precipitating my utmost sickness at all of it. I reeled, groping for a nearby stool to keep me on my feet whilst I steadied my fragile, shaky footing using my staff. No amount of comforting, warm restoration magic could account for the abysmal nausea I felt. And the wailing wouldn't stop. I closed my eyes, inhaling deep to yet again set my mind at ease as I heard the frantic shouting of the mad living corpse only a few meters away.
I threw a bewildered look at Marcus, who, notwithstanding the gruesomeness of this tragic scenery, clapped his hands in excitement for how well the experiment went down as the still screaming and crying Sheliva, trapped in flesh, gazed in defiance at her own dead body on the floor before emptying the remaining contents of the charred body's stomach onto it with vile retching and splashing, echoing throughout the halls.
That's it, I resolved, I had to put it out of its misery. I grabbed my dagger, yielding it with a clearness unprecedented and rushed forth, only to be thrown back by a magical barrier Marcus erected around the cells in case something went terribly wrong. My hands were still shaking, as they are now while writing this down, and I sat on the cold stone floor with its quaint wet drippings while a tear or two ran down my pale face. I felt cold, as if in an icy grave myself, entombed amidst howling souls begging for redemption, as I was sure I was well beyond redemption myself.
Regardless of my utterly broken state, Marcus, after a brief silence, proclaimed the experiment wasn't over yet and that there were still deeds to be done. He grabbed me by my robe's hood and slapped me across the face five or six times to bring me back from the brink of obliviousness, and it worked. I was now there again, albeit I still felt ill. And in my mind I realized this would be my undoing if I were to continue this grueling research. But I was even more afraid of Marcus, now appearing increasingly crazed with queer eyes and deep shadows running about his face, fearing for my own life should I ever disobey his orders again.
I steadied myself, sanity still holding fast but with clearer head now, having gazed past the obfuscating and obscuring veil of forbidden black magic. But in fear more than voluntarily, I obeyed Marcus to see this through to its bitter end, hoping for the possible discontinuation or finalization of our delvings. Alas, it was not so.
Marcus asked if I was okay and in good enough shape again to let stage two of the heretofore 'successful' ritual commence. I replied positively, receiving instructions shortly after. The mage clad in red, the teacher I once observed teaching protection spells in the grand entrance hall of the College, fell to silence upon discovering the magical barrier that has been set up. He, too, shall be transferred into the dead body next to him.
I will spare you the gruesome details of this event, suffice it to say that in the end, we had two living corpses, one burnt and one rotten, infused with the souls of the living, crying and screaming in upsetting fear and anxiety. And like that, stage two could commence.
For the next stage, I have been asked, in unison with Marcus, to cast a soul trapping spell on the gory and hellish captives, both of them having been fallen into silent whimpering and despair some moments ago, possibly realizing it was the end of the line for them, terrorized by thoughts of utter darkness and whispers of the emptiness from beyond.
After we soul trapped them, it was crucial that we offed them at the exact same moment for Marcus to trap the souls in mid-air and change hosts using an antediluvian invocation he discovered during his research, thereby the souls switching bodies according to his studies.
I got myself ready, doing as I was told so many times before, reluctantly casting the deathly spell onto the rotting body which developed a violet glow around it upon impact, while Marcus took care of the charred mess that used to be Shelivah, doing the same to her.
Then we commenced unified execution by means of a strong life draining spell in an effort to keep the bodies in as pristine a condition as possible. While I sapped the mage's life force, I inadvertently looked away, disgusted by my own actions.
We managed to pull it off, and before the now limp bodies fell to the floor, their souls gliding towards the brooding black gem, Marcus spoke these words in an unknown language I remember thusly:
"NE ANYAMMIS NI EPE O AT ADA YLOREN"
Upon the words being uttered, the souls turned back, switching positions in a magically scintillating flurry of pale blue-purple radiance, flowing into the once lifeless, now very lively bodies with an alien glow. The two of them, kneeling from pre-death, stood up and looked at each other in horror. They expertly contained their screams but were ultimately unable to conceal their utter despair at this dire situation, not even able to cry, trapped in these foul bodies, sobbing nonetheless.
Meanwhile I was subject to a weird ambiguity, juxtaposed between killing them to spare them this horrid existence and letting them live as Marcus didn't intend for their permanent demise but rather to free them to see how long they'd last. And to my dismay, I complied, the two victims of our unmentionable science now roaming the lands somewhere throughout Skyrim. And I was left with a crushing sense of guilt. For I knew that, if I had sacrificed myself, I could have stopped this.
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