Chapter Text
“I hope you come to me with good news. Is it talking yet?”
“Well—not talking, per say—”
“And? Spit it out, fool! What’s it doing if not talking?”
“Screaming, my lord.”
Andurzar, renowned scholar of the Dwemer, looked up from his paperwork. The hapless assistant scientist quailed under that withering stare. Andurzar, though well past his middle years, was still a force to be reckoned with among his younger colleagues. His quick mind accompanied by a razor tongue was enough to instill terror in any unfortunate enough to draw his ire.
“I ask so little of you,” said Andurzar, his face the picture of immense long-suffering. “You bring me a wonder, a creature the likes of which the Dwemer have never seen, and you cannot even make it talk.”
“A—a thousand pardons, honorable scholar.” the assistant scientist bowed and scraped such that his embroidered velvet cap nearly fell off his head. “We have gleaned much from it nonetheless, and Kagrenac even now compiles our findings for your convenience—“
“Kagrenac, hah!” Andurzar barked a humorless laugh, startling the nervous mer before him. “That young upstart will destroy any chance at innovation for a moment of glory.”
The Dwemer scholar stood from his desk then with a sweep of ornate robes. “Go on ahead and tell Kagrenac to cease his experiments for the time being. It is time I laid eyes on this creature myself.”
The assistant bowed again and nearly tripped over himself in his haste to exit the office.
Andurzar grumbled curses against bull-headed youths as he puttered about the room digging out manuscripts and scrolls. Then he too departed the office, and a white shape followed after him on noiseless feet.
The scholar descended the tower and emerged into the city proper. The Blackest Kingdom Reaches sprawled away into the depths, towers of carven stone reaching up in elegant spires above brass rooftops. Lanterns dotted the gilded streets like fireflies, though no light could reach miles above where lay a ceiling of stone and earth. This was Fal’Zhardum Din, a brilliant jewel in the crown of Dwemer creations.
As he traversed the streets, Andurzar’s eyes were drawn to the great sphere-gong which hung suspended above the city center. A future home for the secret fire, whose workings countless scientists slaved after night and day, yet still seemed elusively far off. But should it be uncovered, the Deep Folk would have at last their Magnus. Then all Tamriel would tremble before them.
The laboratory was as silent as death. Andurzar crossed the threshold and was met by a small gaggle of idling animunculi spheres parked haphazardly in the foyer. It was evident they had been pulled from their duties mere moments ago, for smoke still curled from bronze servos, and the stench of burning was thick in the air.
Kagrenac emerged from a side chamber then. The young Dwemer smith was strong and powerfully built from working his forge, his eyes as black as coal in a face framed by high cheekbones and equally dark hair. Any Dwemer maid would have blushed a pretty shade had he looked her way, but Andurzar saw only endless arrogance in that intelligent, dagger-sharp gaze.
“Ah, greetings, honorable Andurzar,” the smith said, bowing, though not too low, before his elder. As he rose, Andurzar’s eyes did not miss how his gaze hung on the one standing behind him, and he shifted to obscure the younger mer’s vision. “We were not expecting you.”
His tone was amicable, if perhaps rushed, as though Andurzar’s presence was neither honorable nor hoped for. Andurzar for his part merely smiled, the picture of placating pleasantry.
“I wish to see your new experiment,” he said. “Your assistant tells me it cannot talk.”
“Cannot is perhaps too strong a word,” Kagrenac replied, stroking the intricate braids of his beard. “Will not is better suited, I think. It has a voice. But if it speaks words, there is no language of mer, men, or the planes of Oblivion for which we have matched them.”
He led Andurzar into the vast hall, and the scholar beheld the dragon.
The creature hung suspended in chains like a carcass awaiting dissection, gnarled wings outstretched to either side of it. Smoke still hung around an armored hide the color of burnished copper. Black spines like needles ran down the length of its back. A head crowned with kingly horns now drooped low, as though too heavy for its serpentine neck to lift. It was beautiful. It was terrible.
It was as silent as the stone beneath and above.
“Marvelous,” Andurzar breathed out, in awe despite himself. “Such divine power could fuel Dwemer civilization for a thousand generations.”
“Our research is progressing well,” Kagrenac swept on proudly. “The matter of speech is one of many hurdles we have yet to clear. A dragon is a creature one could spend a hundred lifetimes studying, and still find more to learn.”
Andurzar nodded agreement, still taking in the fell beauty of the dragon. “I am sure your colleagues in Vvardenfell will be most intrigued...what’s this then?”
Kagrenac recoiled as though stung as a white shape brushed past him. Andurzar’s shadow, a Falmer as tall and slender as a young willow, stared with wide, sightless eyes toward the place where the dragon’s breathing was emanating from. Then she collapsed to the ground, bowing her face to the stone and murmuring words of reverence in her own tongue.
“What on earth is the blind fool doing?” Kagrenac drew away from the white figure in disgust, and perhaps a little fear. “Andurzar, is your slave quite daft?”
“On the contrary,” a new voice spoke, “the maiden reacts in a manner most logical indeed.”
Kagrenac paled. All his bravado seemed to wither away as a tall, black shape stepped from the shadows. Black, save for the false face engraved in bronze, with boar’s tusks jutting forth.
“Andurzar.” Kagrenac said, his voice noticeably thinner than it had been, “allow me to introduce the financier of this operation. Konahrik, dragon priest of the over-world.”
For it was the dragon priest whose name was Warlord that glided toward the three mer. He stood well past head and shoulders above the Dwemer, and even an Altmer would have only just stood at eye level with him. Black robed from head to toe, he moved with a silence that belied his size, like some phantom loosed from the netherworld.
Andurzar at once did not like him, and thought to himself that only one as disdainful as Kagrenac could keep such company. His manners alone prevented him from spitting at the priest’s feet.
“I see the Dwemer are much alike in their embrace of the material,” Konahrik said, his voice laced with mockery emanating from behind his mask. “Were you not, you too would be on your face before the beast.”
“Good sir,” Andurzar drew himself up with great dignity, though he felt as small as a mouse before the towering man, “We Dwemer are people of science. The Falmer are not, and so I will beseech you not to compare us to their low thinking. My slave worships, but it is a foolish worship.”
Konahrik’s hood swiveled toward the scholar, and Andurzar could almost feel the scorn radiating off him. He was liking this dragon priest less and less by the second. The Falmer, for her part, remained on the floor, still murmuring indistinguishably.
“Kriist.”
Mer and man alike froze. The booming sound rebounded in the huge space, and the animunculi hummed beneath the vibrations. It was old, like wind, like fire, like Time rolling ever onward. As deep and powerful as the sky.
“Kriist, vahdin,” it came again. “Dreh ni werid.”
All eyes turned toward the source of the sound.
The dragon had lifted its head, and now stared directly at the small group of mortals before it. Or at least, it would have stared, had not sunken pits been all that remained of its eyes.
“Blind!” Andurzar gasped, swinging on Kagrenac, the wonder of the dragon’s speech forgotten in sudden fury. “You fool! You took its eyes? Both of them? Have you any idea what we hold in our grasp? We have now a wonder from before Time itself was set in order, and here you pick it apart like a child pulling the wings off a butterfly! You—you near-sighted halfwit, you dog’s son!”
Kagrenac bristled with indignation, stepping forward and drawing breath to explode in kind, but Konahrik spoke first.
“Now, now, honorable scholar,” intervened the dark priest, his shadow falling over the two mer, “I did not advise against such an act. A dragon does not need his eyes, after all. And Kagrenac has left intact the most vital feature—the Voice.”
Here the robed man turned and went to the Falmer. Stooping beside her prone form, he took her by the shoulders, his gloved hands like talons on her pale skin.
“Up, maiden,” he commanded her. “The dragon speaks truly—such magnificent creatures are worshipful indeed, but not like this. Not so humiliated.”
The Falmer stood, trembling, though whether it was from the priest’s presence, or the dragon before her, was impossible to tell. She said not a word, but drew back from Konahrik’s touch and stood with hands folded before her.
“Konahrik,” Andurzar spoke up, a frown creasing his features, “you are a guest in our city. Thus I will thank you not to lay hands on my property without my leave.”
“My deepest apologies,” Konahrik replied as smooth as a serpent, placing a remorseful hand to his breast. “My priestly convictions overtook me. I did not intend to frighten the maiden.”
“Never mind that,” Kagrenac interjected with an impatient wave of his hand. “The dragon talks! This is a monumental leap forward!”
Konahrik regarded the scientist as though sizing up an ant before his boot was to come down on it. But he said nothing, withdrawing as silently as the Falmer and allowing the fertile minds of the Dwemer to spin their webs.
The little group retreated from the dragon’s presence back into the laboratory proper. Andurzar at once set to dictating notes to the lab assistant, the gears of his mind spinning with the fervor of discovery. Kagrenac, however, moved quietly to the nearest sphere, his black eyes never leaving the Falmer standing behind Andurzar with head bowed.
“Take her back in there,” he murmured to the brass animunculus. “Then leave her. That dragon was a mute until the moment she stood before it. I want to know why.”
The automaton warbled an affirmative in its own mechanical tongue, then made a beeline for its target.
The Snow Elf lifted her head at the sound of the sphere’s approach. She drew back from it with a startled glance toward her master, but he was in the midst of lecturing the hapless scribe for inquiring the correct spelling of thaumaturgy, and took no notice of the automaton. Without a contradicting order from her master, the Falmer dared not utter protest as the sphere led her away.
The Snow Elf knew where she was being taken as soon as the mechanical sounds of the sphere began to echo in a huge space. With a cry she tried to pull herself free, but her escort hummed dangerously and drew her on with an unbreakable grip on her arm. The wild beating of her heart soon threatened to drown out all other sounds, including that of the abyssal breathing growing nearer and nearer.
Then she was released. The sphere withdrew, its sounds receding and making the blood roaring in the Falmer’s ears all the louder. Her legs shook, and she thought she might faint.
A hot rush of breath washed over her and stirred a few gossamer hairs wafting about her face.
“Dahmaan, vahdin,” the dragon said, its voice the crushing weight of mountains mere inches in front of her. “Dreh ni werid.”
The Falmer fell on her face.
Back in the laboratory proper, Andurzar finished his dictations and snatched the scroll from the scribe, rolling it up in irate twists. He would have done better to write his notes himself for all this fool was worth.
Turning, he made to hand the scroll to his slave, only to find she had disappeared. With a frown, the aging scholar looked around the room, his gaze finally settling on Kagrenac standing at the window into the theater.
“Kagrenac,” he called, “have you seen—“
He saw through the window then, and the white figure framed against the face of the dragon.
“Kagrenac!” bellowed Andurzar, his age being the only thing keeping him from flying at the younger smith. “What have you done?”
Kagrenac turned to his elder, his eyes as cold as a brass automaton’s. “That dragon uttered not a word even under torment until the moment your slave stood before it, honorable scholar. Add to that the actions of our guest Konahrik, and it does not take a fool to see a correlation. I am merely testing my hypothesis.”
Andurzar looked as though he were a hair’s breadth away from throttling the younger mer. “And you send her into such danger without my leave? I could take you before the tribunal for this!”
“Only if harm comes to her.” Kagrenac replied coolly. “I did not know you were to attached to your slave, honored scholar.”
Andurzar saw the unspoken barbs in those black eyes. He drew himself up, gathering all the dignity and authority of his many years before this arrogant whelp.
“I paid good money for her,” he said, his tone deliberate and controlled. “She is my property. I did not come here with the intention of sacrificing her to one of your little science experiments. If she dies, or is harmed in any way, I will see to it that you never work in Vvardenfell again.”
The threat had the desired effect. Kagrenac’s eyes flashed with black fire for an instant before it was swiftly concealed. His lips set into a thin line, the smith averted his gaze and bowed, the picture of deference before his elder. “As you say, great Andurzar.”
The Falmer lay prostrate, every inch of her being trembling with the terror of the divine. Auri-El preserve her in the face of his lordly aspect!
The dragon stirred. It shifted with a rustle of scales, a deep gasp emitting from its jaws, as though every movement was agony. Then it spoke again.
“I command you rise, maiden,” it said in a voice little more than a whisper, but no less staggering. “Do not worship.”
Slowly, the Falmer comprehended its words now spoken in the tongue of mortals. Do not worship. That horrible man, the dragon priest, had translated the same earlier, but she had believed him a liar then.
Pushing herself up, she could not stand, but remained kneeling, striving to calm the frenzied beating of her heart. If the dragon had wanted to kill her, she reasoned with herself, it would have done so already.
“If you would speak, joor, do so softly,” the dragon said, “that those who bind us might not hear. What is your name?”
She told him. The dragon repeated it, and a shiver ran down her spine at the sound. How strange it was, to be known by name to an immortal dragon!
Her heart still hammered so loudly in her breast that the Falmer was sure the entire city could hear it. With an effort, she spoke, her voice a trembling whisper. “Are you...are you the aspect of Auri-El?” she asked.
“’Aspect?’” the dragon echoed, seeming puzzled at this. “No. Ni kogaan. The only one of us who might be worthy of such a description is the Elder Brother. Zu’u Vul-thur-yol, that is, Dark-Overlord-Fire in your tongue. Or I was. Now my name might well be called Forsaken.”
The sorrow in that mighty voice moved the Falmer’s heart. Though she could not fully know what he looked like, the strength of his presence suggested a lordly creature indeed, one made to soar the heights of the sky. Not be trapped miles beneath the earth, a plaything of the Dwemer.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “This disgrace should not have befallen one such as you.”
Without thinking, she reached out a hand. Her fingers brushed rough scale, and she gasped, nearly drawing back for fear the heat would burn her. But it did not. She rested her hand on the dragon’s face. The scales moved beneath her palm in minute rhythm with the dragon’s breathing.
“Do not console me, maiden,” Vulthuryol said, though there was no hostility in his voice. Only a deep despair. “There is no comfort to be had for me, for I have heard the Deep Folk in their counsel. Do you know what they will do to me, then to themselves?”
Suddenly afraid, the Falmer drew her hand back. She shook her head, then remembering the dragon could see her no more than she could him, said, “I do not know.”
A shudder passed through the dragon’s form, rattling the chains which held him suspended. “Their arrogance rivals that of the very daedra they so despise. They think that because they can bend metal to their will, it grants them leave to tread into places where no mortal is meant to delve.
“The Deep Folk are bound by no reverence for living things. Life to them is but a machine whose complexity they have not yet fully uncovered. They will take me apart piece by piece, and whether by intention or the gradual process of their increasing curiosity, I shall be replaced.”
Vulthuryol snarled at the horror of his own words, his breath rushing over the Falmer like an oven. “I ask you, maiden, would I still be Dark-Overlord-Fire if I was but a beating heart suspended in a dovah-shaped cage?”
The Falmer gasped at the mental image. The Dwemer had their automatons, to be sure, but to merge the animate and the inanimate? Such a thing had never been conceived before on the face of Nirn.
“I would be their first prototype,” Vulthuryol went on, hatred dripping like flame from his voice. “Their first immortal machine. But not the last, nor the greatest. Imagine, if it will be fitted to your mortal comprehension, a red star which fell from heaven, and which they would see walk the earth again.”
His words birthed a vision in the Falmer’s mind: a tower of brass striding across the land, a walking blasphemy tall enough to sweep the moons from the sky. In its breast shone a blinding red light like the deepest flaming of Red Mountain itself. Wherever that light shone, the earth shattered as though the very stones of Mundus could not stand the sight of such fusing of the mortal and immortal.
“Stop!” the Falmer cried, covering her face in a vain attempt to shut out the vision projected into the depths of her very soul. “How can you know such horrible things?”
“Ah, but maiden, such knowing is what the Dwemer lust after the most,” Vulthuryol said, withdrawing his foresight from her and sinking heavier in his chains. “To be immortal is to see all of Time opened before you. But they do not see that a mortal mind cannot be lifted from the bounds of Time so easily. Just as the dov do not comprehend death, so the Dwemer would be unable to comprehend a deathless existence.”
Another shudder rippled down Vulthuryol’s body. “They do not know what they do not know. Joorre, you creatures of dust, with your small voices and decaying existence, your utter arrogance in the power of yourselves, you do not see that, for you, death—is a kindness!”
The dragon lifted his head, staring with empty eye sockets toward the sky hidden miles above. His voice grew in volume, the Falmer shrinking beneath the weight, covering her head as he cried out, “And now, to an immortal, death would be a kindness as well!”
His form convulsed. His fell cry, thundering in the pain of deathless torment brought to a head, echoed throughout all Fal’Zhardum Din, and the hearts of all who heard it quailed within them.
“Gut boaan shul, gut boaan lok?
Krosis fah ven su'um, krosis fah sahrot zeymahhe
Lovaas do Thu'um los boaan kotin vokun,
Mahlaan ko vul, med neh nahlaas!”
Konahrik turned to the two Dwemer standing as though hypnotized at the window. “If the maiden is to be spared,” he said, his voice as uncaring as the lifeless contours of his mask, “she must be withdrawn. Should the dragon becomes too agitated, he will Shout, and no creature standing before him will live.”
Andurzar looked at Kagrenac with a wrath that brooked no argument. The younger mer sighed and waved to the nearest sphere.
The Falmer gave a start at the sound of the automaton’s rapid approach. She did not resist its grasp this time however, the terror of the dragon ringing in her ears, eagerly fleeing the beast’s presence. What twisted at her heart however was the sound of other spheres approaching, and the dragon’s cries turning to screams of pain as servos laced with electricity were stabbed beneath his scales. Screams which withered and died beneath a tide of convulsions.
If the sightless eyes of Andurzar’s slave were wider than they had been upon her reentry to the laboratory, it would have been the only crack in a mask as fixed as that of the dragon priest’s, and it was he alone who took heed.
“I hope you are quite pleased with yourself, Kagrenac,” Andurzar huffed, still simmering as the Snow Elf returned to his side. “It seems fortune favors your endeavors this day.”
Smugness glittered in the black eyes of the Dwemer smith. He kept his expression measured however, bowing to his elder. “My apologies, honorable scholar. Rest assured, you would have been well compensated had any damage befallen your slave, particularly one of such fair form.”
He glanced at the Falmer standing statue-like behind Andurzar. “Were she Dwemer, I would almost offer to purchase her from you, for she is lovely indeed. Alas, no creature of lower mind shall ever set foot in my household.”
Andurzar sniffed, looking as though he would have rather swallowed hemlock than continue the exchange a moment longer. “Then there is mercy in this world after all.”
He spun on his heel, his ornate robes swirling about him, and with a word to the Falmer, marched from the laboratory. Kagrenac watched them go, his eyes lingering on the white figure of the Snow Elf. Only when they had disappeared did he turn again to the window.
The batlike shape of Vulthuryol hung as limp as a dead thing. Smoke still wreathed about the armored hide. But now the smith knew the dragon’s silence was a charade.
Without taking his gaze from the beast, Kagrenac addressed the waiting sphere.
“Make it talk again.”