“What sword?” The air seemed to thicken, and all the hairs on Attrebus’s arms stood out like quills.
“There is a sword named Umbra-” Attrebus began.
“I know it,” Malacath said. “A tool of Prince Clavicus Vile, a stealer of souls.”
“More than that,” Attrebus replied. “The sword was prison to a creature that also calls itself Umbra. This creature escaped the blade and stole much power from Clavicus Vile, and it is that power that motivates Umbriel, the city Sul and I seek to destroy. We believe that if we can find the sword, we can use it to reimprison this creature and defeat Umbriel.”
Malacath just stared at him for a moment, and then the great head leaned toward one vast shoulder a bit. There was something oddly childlike about the motion.
“I have heard that Vile is weak, and that he searches for something. I have no love for him. Or any of the others.” He glanced back at Sul, his vast brows caving into a frown. “How I laughed when you betrayed them, turned your homeland into no less an ash pit than my realm. The proud issue of the Velothi, humbled at last. By one of their own. And still there is the curse you made, unfulfilled.”
“You can help him fulfill it,” Attrebus blurted. He was shaking uncontrollably, but he tried to keep his voice steady.
“You knew who Sul was the minute you saw him,” he went on. “You remember his curse after all these years. You healed us and interviewed me. In disguise. To see what we’re up to. To assure yourself that the curse Sul made all those years ago is still walking with him. That he still craves vengeance.”
Malacath’s head shifted again, and behind him vines collapsed and formed into a cloud of black moths that swarmed about them.
“There are a few things I have a sort of love for,” the daedra said. “What Sul carries with him is one of those things. So yes, I will help you further. The sword, Umbra-do you know where it is?”
Sul’s mouth set in reluctant lines.
“How else will you go there if I do not send you?”
“Somewhere in Solstheim, I believe,” Sul finally replied. “In the hands of someone who wears a signet ring with a draugr upon it.”
Malacath nodded; to Attrebus it seemed a mountain was falling toward him.
“I can take you to Solstheim,” the prince said. “Do not disappoint me.”
Then both gigantic eyes focused on Attrebus. “And you-if I ever have use for you, you will know it.”
“Yes, Prince,” Attrebus replied.
The god grinned a mouthful of sharp teeth. Then he slapped his palms together.
“It’s real,” Mazgar gra Yagash breathed, staring, fighting the urge to draw her sword.
It wasn’t often you saw a mountain fly.
She doffed her helmet for a better look. As it passed beyond the tallest birches, she saw how it hung in the sky-an inverted mountain, with the peak stabbing toward the land below.
Next, her gaze picked out the strange spires and glistening structures atop the thing, structures that could only have been made by some sort of hands. A forest clung to the upper rim as well, its boughs and branches dropping out and away from it.
“Why would you doubt it?” Brennus asked, his hands working fast with pen and paper, sketching the thing. “It’s what we came to see.”
“Because it’s ridiculous,” she said.
“I’ve never heard an orc use that word,” he murmured. “I guess I thought you people believed in everything.”
“I don’t believe your nose would stand up to my fist,” she replied.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I don’t believe that either. But since I outrank you, I also don’t think you’ll hit me.” He pushed rusty bangs from his face and looked off at the thing. “Anyway-ridiculous or not, there it is. Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”
“Guarding you,” she replied.
“I feel so safe.”
She rolled her eyes. He was technically her superior, which galled, because he wasn’t a soldier-or even a battlemage. Like most of the wizards in the expedition, his expertise was in learning things from a distance. His rank had been awarded by the Emperor, days before they’d left the Imperial City.
But he was probably right-as hard as it was not to stare at the thing, it was their immediate surroundings she ought to be taking in.
They were on a high, bare ridge, about thirty feet from the tree line in any direction. The air was clear and visibility good. Up ahead of her, four of Brennus’s fellow sorcerers were doing their mysterious business: chanting, aiming odd devices at the upside-down flying mountain, conjuring invisible winged things she noticed only because they passed through smoke and were briefly outlined. Two others were surrounding their position with little candles that burnt with purple-black flames. They set those up every time they stopped; the candles were somehow supposed to keep all of this conjuring from being noticed by anyone-or anything.
Mazgar put her hand on the ivory grip of Sister-her sword-squinted, and licked her tusks. “I make it about six miles away. What do you reckon?”
“A little more than eight, according to Yaur’s ranging charm,” Brennus said.
“Bigger than I thought.”
“Yah.” He put the notebook down and unpacked something that looked like a spyglass but Mazgar figured wasn’t. He peered through it, mumbled gobbledygook, turned a dial on the device, and looked again. He scratched his red hair, and his sallow Nibenese features fell in a frown.
“What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“It’s not there,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she said. “I’m looking right at it.”
“Right,” he said. “Bit of a contradiction, I know. And I’m sure it is there, somehow. But all my glass sees is a bubble of Oblivion.”
“A bubble of Oblivion?”
“Yah. You know, the nasty place where the daedra live? Beyond the world?”
“I know what Oblivion is,” she gruffed. “My grandfather closed one of the gates Dagon opened between here and there, back when.”
“Well, this is like a gate, but wrapped around itself. Pretty odd.”
“Does that tell us how to fight it?”
He shrugged. “I can’t think how it would,” he said. “Anyway, the plan is to not fight it. We’re just here to find out what we can and report back to the Emperor. It’s still moving north into Morrowind. It may never threaten the Empire at all.”
Mazgar looked at the island again. “How can that not be a threat?” she muttered. She felt the coarse hairs on the back of her neck standing and her heart quicken. Brennus was looking at her in apprehension, and she realized she’d been growling in the pit of her throat.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
“It sees us,” she said.
“I doubt that,” he replied.
“No,” she snapped. “I can feel it, feel its eyes…”
“Is this supposed to be some sort of orcish sixth sense? The kind you get from not bathing?”
“I’m not joking, Brennus, something isn’t right. I feel-”
But then the wind shifted, and she got the smell.
“Dead things,” she snarled, clearing Sister from her sheath. Then she raised her voice. “Alarum!” she howled. She grabbed Brennus by the arm and hustled him toward the other sorcerers, where her fellow warriors were hastily trying to form a phalanx.
She wasn’t quite there when they came out of the trees.
“So that’s true, too,” she said.
“Divines,” Brennus breathed.
They looked as dead as they smelled. Many had been Argonians, obvious by their rotting snouts, decayed tails, sharp teeth set in worm-festered gums. Others looked to have been men or mer, and a few were just-things. They moved twitchily, as if uncertain how to use their limbs, but they came at a fast march.
And they were marching, organized, falling into ranks as the landscape permitted. They were unevenly armed-some had swords, maces, or spears, but more than half had crude clubs or no weapons at all-but there were a lot of them, many times more than their thirty.