Chapter IV

Bastian entered the hall and was greeted by the smell of cooking food and the warmth of the magical fire glowing in a well in the center of the room.

“Lielle?” He called.

“Bas?”

She appeared from around the corner. She had changed into her robes and her long dark red hair fell around her shoulders in cascading curls. She quickly threw her arms around Bastian and embraced him.

“I was so worried! You said you were only going to be gone a couple of days! What happened? Did you find the heart?”

“I’m fine Lielle and yes. I found it. It’s hooked up to the archway as we speak.”

“So we can leave then?” She asked.

“No. Net yet but it should be ready in a few days.”

“That’s fantastic! I knew you could do it!” She smiled at him. “Come sit down I know you have to be hungry. You only had enough supplies for a few days between the lot of you and without Bartleby there to hunt-“

“I don’t need him to catch my food for me,” Bastian grumbled.

“No of course not but living off of nuts and berries, or basically anything that can’t run away from you can’t make a very filling meal.” She said.

Bastian sighed and leaned his staff against the wall before sitting down in a chair. There was a cooking pot sat up over a fire and the remains of a slaughtered chicken were sitting in a bag on the windowsill.

“Chicken stew will do you some good,” Lielle said passing Bastian a bottle of mead.

“Thank you,” Bastian said taking the bottle and pulling the cork out.

“So why were you gone so long?” Lielle asked. “Where was the heart and if I’m counting right you’re down one staff.”

Bastian’s eyes flickered over to the Wabbajack he had leaned against the wall beside his chair. When he left the college he had the Staff of Magnus as well as a certain Daedric artifact that he had acquired in his travels several years ago.

“The heart was not on Nirn as I originally thought,” Bastian said. “I had to seek council with one of the Daedric Princes.”

“You what?!” Lielle exclaimed dropping a bowl. “Bastian!" She hissed, her disapproving tone falling to a whisper. "You said that those days were behind you!”

“I didn't have much choice Lielle.” Bastian shot back. “This is our only hope and I couldn't come back and face everyone empty handed, not after all we have lost!”

“Face us or face Heciri?” Lielle asked angrily.

“That slackwit has nothing to do with it!” Bastian snapped.

“Of course not.” Lielle sighed. “You two have been at each other’s throat since you stepped in the doorway, always trying out do the other one. You don’t have to prove that you’re better than him Bas. I would think that the past three years would be proof enough of that.”

Bastian muttered a curse under his breath and took a pull from his bottle of warmed mead.

“So who was it?” Lielle asked. “Whose council did you seek?”

“Hermaeus Mora,” Bastian muttered.

“The Daedric Prince of knowledge?” Lielle asked appalled.

“When you are looking for a lost artifact of immense magical power, who else would one turn to?” Bastian asked.

“Gods.” Lielle whispered. “And he- it showed you how to find the heart?”

“Yes. In fact, it was he who had the heart in his possession. He was willing to trade for the Staff of Magnus.”

“And you agreed?” Lielle asked.

“Like I said, there aren't a lot of options for us at this point,” Bastian said.

Lielle quietly spooned some stew into a bowl and handed it to Bastian along with a hunk of dry bread. He muttered a word of thanks and began to eat. The “stew” contained the meat of a thin malnourished chicken that had died from cold the day before along with a few vegetables and berries Lielle had been growing in a small garden. It wasn't much but Bastian was grateful for it.

“What would a Daedric Prince like Hermaeus Mora want with the staff anyway?” Lielle asked sitting across from him.

“I think he wanted to study it,” Bastian said. “Try and understand the magic behind it.”

“Why didn’t you offer him the Wabbajack?” Lielle asked.

“I tried. He said that the toys of his deranged brother were of little interest in him.” Bastian said.

“Well, personally I always preferred the Wabbajack." She said cracking a small smile. "Remember when we were attacked by bandits on the road to Whiterun and you used it to turn that archer into a hunk of cheese?” Lielle asked.

“Yes, but it wasn’t on purpose.” Bastian chuckled. “Slipped it into Heciri’s bag when he wasn't looking and he ate it that night at camp. Said that the best cheese is supposed to smell like a bandit’s backside.”

Lielle laughed.

“Gods! I’m sure you made the mad god happy with that one.”

“Couldn't have happened to a nicer knife ear,” Bastian muttered.

“That sounds like your brother talking,” Lielle said darkly. “Besides we’re both Bretons. Well, you are more or less." She said looking at Bastian's arched eyebrow. Though the mage's father had been a pure blooded Nord, he strongly favored his mother's Breton heritage. "We're about half an elf ourselves and just as bad depending on who you’re talking to.”

Bastian shrugged and scraped the last bit of stew from his bowl.

“Thank you Lielle.” He said. “I’m going to speak with Esmeralda. We’ll probably need her later on to help with the archway. You as well.”

“Okay. I’ll be here if you need me. I’m glad you’re home Bas.”

She embraced him again and Bastian left the Hall of Attainment for Winterhold. What started out as a camp had become something of a shanty town and held hundreds of refugees from Holds all over Skyrim and other provinces of the empire, taking refuge in old buildings that had survived the Great Collapse, simple wooden huts that had been made from reclaimed wood and within the great stone wall that had originally protected Winterhold from the dangerous beasts that prowled Skyrim's wilds. Bastian approached the Inn and stepped inside.

“Shut the door!” A voice bellowed as soon as Bastian got the door open.

Bastian sighed and closed the door behind him which didn’t do much good to keep the cold out. The inn had been repurposed into a makeshift shrine to Kyne, the nordic goddess of the wilds, and healers were working around the clock to keep the sick and injured inside alive. The air reeked of gangrene and sick and Bastian wished he hadn’t eaten so much stew. A guard from Solitude moaned on the floor and clenched the stump that used to be his right arm. A farmer whimpered in agony as a healer changed the bandages on his face and Bastian saw the red scorched flesh underneath. Another healer did his best to make an old woman with severe rockjoint comfortable as she wasn’t much longer for this world.

“Bastian!” Esmeralda said approaching him.

She was a pretty Redguard woman with a round face and a shaved head. Her brown eyes were tired and her orange priest robes were stained with blood and filth.

“I heard you were back.” She said.

“I have some extra potions for you here, along with some more ingredients,” Bastian said handing her some bottles and pouches.

“Oh thank Kynareth!” She cried taking them from him. “Bless you Bastian Bellrend! Is it true? Did you really find it?”

“I think I’m going to start hanging a sign around my neck,” Bastian said. “Yes, I recovered it. We might actually get it working in a few more days.”

“I can’t believe it,” Esmeralda said. “We’ll actually be leaving Nirn soon.”

“That is the plan,” Bastian said. “Any word on Bartleby?”

“Not yet. You might want to go and pay a visit to Shahk though. He’s growing impatient. Talking about taking some of the other Blades to go and find Bartleby. If they go with them we’ll be defenseless.”

Bastian sighed in irritation.

“I’ll have words with him.” He said.

The priestess nodded and went back to tending the sick. Bastian left the Inn and made his way to the entrance to town. In lieu of a gate, several barriers had been made from sharpened sticks had been erected to serve as a line of defense against any would-be invaders but in reality, the barriers would do nothing against the true enemies of the free people. Behind the blockade stood a group of soldiers all wearing the traditional Akaviri style armor of the Blades, their shields made from dragon scales taken from slain Dovah and their swords of the sharpest steel.

“We need to go find Bartleby!” An Orc said. “What if his group was attacked on the road? We would have no way of knowing!”

“You might be right but what about the refugees?” A Knight Brother asked.

“They can handle themselves.” The Orc said dismissively. “They’ve made it this long and there are still a few guards around here. They don’t really need us!”

“Thinking of going somewhere Shahk?” Bastian asked approaching the group.

The Orc turned around and frowned. He was huge even for an Orc and towered above Bastian by a good foot and half. His armor was dented and nicked from the numerous battles he had been in and his face had three long jagged scars running down the right side of his face. On his back was an Orcish Warhammer and hanging from his belt was a pair of axes.

“Bas, surely you agree with me on this? It was foolish to break up the group. It’s been weeks and there is no sign of your brother! We need to find him!”

“It was foolish to leave for Whiterun especially after the Jarl already said he wouldn’t leave his hold but not nearly as foolish as leaving this camp undefended. At this point, dragons are the least of our problems. Most of the refugees here are injured or sick. All it would take is one good bandit raid and we would be finished. Your place is here Dragon Scourge Shahk or would you dishonor my brother by ignoring a direct order from your commanding officer?”

Shahk sighed.

“No. I’d rather fall on my own sword than dishonor the Blades, after all, that they have done for me,” Shahk said.

The soldiers behind him nodded in agreement. Most of the soldiers that stood here started out as nothing more than mere farmers and hunters until the dragons returned and took everything from them. With nothing left to their names, they joined in the fight against the dragons, putting down their hoes and pick axes in exchange for swords and longbows.

“How goes it at the college?” One of them asked. “This experiment I heard of? What exactly are you trying to do?”

“Is it a weapon?” Another asked. “Something to kill off all of the dragons?”

“No. Not a weapon.” Bastian said. “There is nothing on this earth that can stop them now. The Dovahkiin was our only hope. After he fell the dragons won.”

“Truly there is no hope then?”

“No. Skyrim and all of Nirn will be destroyed,” Bastian said.

“Then what are we doing here sitting around on our asses? If we're going to die I want to go down fighting!” One of the soldiers declared.

“Don't be so quick to run to death,” Bastian said. “There's a glimmer of hope for us. Not for Nirn.”

“Damn mages always speaking in riddles.” A warrior muttered.

“We are constructing a gateway based off of Dwemer design.”

“The Dwarves?” One of the soldiers asked. "What do they have to do with this?"

"It's a gateway detailed in a book I discovered while exploring one of their ruins," Bastian explained.

The Dwemer, or Deep Elves, also known as Dwarves by the races of men, was a race of elves that lived underground in large cities. They were masters of alchemy and sciences and during the First Era they vanished all at once around the globe. Bastian had spent a great a deal of his academic career researching them and their technology, trying to unlock secrets that had been lost to time.

“The gateway is simply that; a gateway that allows those who pass through it to travel through space and time. The portals can send you anywhere.”

“So where are you sending us?” Shahk asked.

“I have no idea,” Bastian explained. “There's no way for me to tell. There was no real way for the Dwemer to know either. The whole idea was that they would walk through the portal and build another on the other side so that they could travel back and forth at will.”

“What do you mean by anywhere?” Shahk asked.

“Just that. Another planet, another reality, or even another dimension.” Bastian explained.

“I don't understand." A Shield Brother said. "So are you saying that you're sending us to a place without dragons?"

"That's the plan," Bastian said. "To go to a land where the forces of Alduin cannot find us."

“And you're sure it will work?” Shahk asked.

“No," Bastian said. "But we've come this far. We can't give up now."

“So is that the plan then?" A warrior asked hotly. "Flee from the dragons to another world? Leave our homes? Our entire world behind?”

“If you wish to stay behind and watch all that you love burn, I won't stop you,” Bastian replied coldly. “The war is over. We lost. All we can do now is escape with our lives and perhaps rebuild somewhere else.”

The warrior remained silent.

“Hail guardsmen!” A voice cried out.

Coming up the road was a large group of men on horseback and dozens of people on foot or in horse drawn carriages. Leading the group was a man clad in a lighter version of Akaviri armor and a traveling cloak lined with bear fur. Bartleby, Bastian’s older brother waved to his comrades. He slowed his horse's stride to a trot as two guards moved the blockades out of the way. He rode his horse into camp with the other soldiers behind him along with several new additions. The four guardsmen counted the riders wearing the armor of the Blades as they rode by. Shahk sighed and looked over to Bartleby as he rounded back over to them.

“Who did we lose?” Shahk asked.

“Samsine.” Bartleby replied. “We were ambushed on the path to Cyrodiil.”

“Bandits?” Shahk asked.

“Aye.” Bartleby nodded. “Samsine fought well and brought down many before we could come to his aid.”

Shahk sighed and nodded.

“What of Jarl Balgruuf?” The Orc asked.

“He stands by his decision. He said Whiterun was his city and he wasn't going to let the dragons take it so easily.” Bartleby said.

“Who are all of these other people?” Bastian asked.

“Neighbors from Riverwood and a few from Whiterun that decided to take their chances. We rode to all of the other holds as well and collected numbers from most. Made it into Cyrodiil and was pleased to see Bruma was still standing and its people were quick to accompany us.”

“So that makes…” Bastian asked.

“About two hundred new faces.” Bartleby said.

Bastian scowled at his brother.

“I’m glad to see you in one piece.” Bartleby said embracing Bastian. “Did you find the heart?”

“Yes and I managed to do so without bringing scores of new people to the mountain. Esmeralda with be thrilled. ” Bastian said sarcastically. “Everything will be ready in a matter of days.”

“Excellent.” Bartleby said ignoring his brother’s attitude. “If I ever see a dragon again it will be too soon. Now I don’t know about you gentlemen but I could do with a bracing drink!”

There were words of agreement when suddenly a scream echoed through the air as a guard wearing chainmail armor came running up the path. He reached the blockade and fell to his knees in a pant as a powerful roar echoed through the night.

“DRAGON!”