Elder Scroll series 1. Dead Man's Drink

I.

"There exists," the old man was saying, "an iron door, built into the rock on the edge of Eastmarch, that covers the entrance to a large rock-cut cave."

"A cave?" Valens asked with a smile, his hand cradling a tankard of mead. The fire behind them hissed and crackled and cast wavering shadows on the wooden walls of the inn. The sign outside called it Dead Man's Drink, and he couldn't help but think that the name seemed quite appropriate in the case of the old man and that it wouldn't be too long before he was lowered into a grave in the large cemetery on the other side of Falkreath. Valens absently pulled apart the loaf of bread on the wooden plate before him as the old man nodded and took a deep swallow from his goblet of wine.

"Like the ancient Nord tombs, yes," he affirmed. "But this one wasn't full of crypts and dust. Lore maintains that it was filled with something else."

"So what's inside, then?"

"I haven't been inside—I don't think anybody ever has—but there are stories. They say that it was used to store the wealth of one of the ancient holds. One of the smallest and poorest, mind you, but still, the wealth of an entire region all stored in one place."

"So how do you know about it?"

"When I was younger," the old man said, turning over the empty goblet and looking at it wistfully, "I was part of a group of bandits."

Valens laughed. "You? A marauder? You're not fooling me, old man. I know a brigand when I see one."

The old man said solemnly, "This was many a year ago, even before the Great War. We were once well-known—and feared!—throughout the Rift, but now nobody even remembers our name." He sighed as if he had conjured up some supremely sad memory and then added bitterly, "The Greenwater Bandits."

Valens nodded slowly and indicated for the innkeeper to bring him another bottle of mead. "So how did you come across this iron door?"

"I was always the bright one," the old man recalled. "I read every book we came across when the others would have used them for kindling. I found a dusty old volume after one raid called 'Ancient Sights of Skyrim' and after that our leader had us digging through Nord ruins looking for any treasure they left behind."

"Did you find any?"

"Plenty. But it was when we were excavating an ancient barrow in Eastmarch that we stumbled across the door. After we found it I went back to 'Ancient Sights' and there it was, one mention tucked away in the shortest chapter in the book."

"And you didn't investigate it? A Nord treasure chamber must have been hard to pass up."

"There were stories. Whispers of dark things behind the door. But most of all our leader didn't think it worth our time; every day we were pulling more gold and jewels out of the barrow and none of us wanted to start over somewhere new."

"So you never went inside? Did anybody?"

"I don't believe so. It was hard to find in any case, and it seemed as though nobody had ever heard of it. Are you interested?"

The innkeeper came back with the bottle of mead. Valens let three septims roll across the rough wooden surface of the table and watched as the innkeeper snatched them up and walked away.

"I might be," Valens said in a hushed voice once the innkeeper had left. "I used to be like you, stomping around with a crew of bandits. But I'm on my own now, and a man's got to make a living. Where can I find this door?"

"The treasure hunter's life is not one that should be envied," the old man chided. "What happened to your gang? Why did you leave?"

"We fell on hard times and disbanded," Valens replied, pouring the mead into his tankard. What he was saying was true, he reflected as he closed his eyes and drank deeply. The gang had fallen on hard times but it was when their leader had gotten drunk, stumbled off of the top of his tower and fallen on a hard surface that their group dissolved.

"Ah, the uncertainties of life when everything you've known comes to an end," the old man said, his thin lips curling into a crooked smile. "Liberating, wasn't it?"

"Sure." Valens set the tankard down and wiped his lips with the back of one hand "Where's the door?"

The old man chuckled. "Persistent one, aren't you? Show me your map."

Valens pulled out his faded map of Skyrim and flattened it out on the table. The old man held a wedge of charcoal in between the bent fingers of one who spent most of their life drawing a bow and carefully drew a spot on the border between Eastmarch and the Rift. Valens turned the map towards himself and studied it.

"Right there?" he asked, tapping the map with his index finger. "And you're sure?"

"Absolutely, friend," the old man said, turning his attention back to his drink. "If you find anything in there, be sure to let me know. I always have been curious."

"But never enough to go exploring yourself?"

The old man gave a wizened smile. "You live dangerously for long enough and you start avoiding danger whenever you can. And an old underground chamber like the one behind the iron door? It's best to avoid those entirely. A place that old and that deep—you never know who or what may have made its home there. And I assume you are determined to go there?"

"That seems to be the plan."

"Do be careful, then. From one former outlaw to another, always keep your wits about you." The old man paused for a second and then added almost as an afterthought, "And a blade, too."

"I'll keep that in mind." Valens stood and drained his tankard, setting it down onto the table once it was empty. The old man was suddenly preoccupied with his supper, brought to him steaming on a wooden plate carried by a buxom young woman who had been tending to the inn's patrons all afternoon. Valens walked over to the wooden bar and rented a room for the night, handing over the ten septims and signing the register as the innkeeper commanded. When he was done the innkeeper turned the heavy leather-bound book around and scrutinized his signature.

"Valens Lovidicus?" she read disapprovingly. "Now _there's_ an Imperial name, for you."

"You'll get used to it," Valens said, twisting his face into a smile that held little apparent joy. "I'll be back later."

"Room will still be here when you get back."

Something in the innkeeper's tone made Valens doubt that, but he ignored it and stepped out into the late afternoon chill.


	2. Sibylla

II.

It was the third of Frostfall, and it wouldn't be long before the snow blew off of the mountains and into the Falkreath valley. Valens shivered and stepped off of the wooden porch of the Dead Man's Drink and onto the main thoroughfare that ran through the center of town. The air rang with the clanging of the blacksmith's hammering down the road and the faint sounds of an invocation to Arkay as the local priest made his rounds in the cemetery. Valens nodded at the Jarl's men standing sentry at the door of the blacksmith's house and hurried past. It had been three years since he had been a proper outlaw, but the forces of law still made him anxious, and for good reason: another member of his gang had moved to Windhelm after they disbanded and set himself up as a merchant, a completely legitimate one, too, but when the guards learned that he was a former brigand they rewarded him for his new law-abiding life with an appointment with the city's headsman.

Valens continued walking until he reached the end of town and then stopped and leaned against the rough stone wall of a dwelling across from the Jarl's longhouse. The road gradually sloped down to the east, leading to the rectangular building that locals told him was the city's Hall of the Day. On the side of road, idly picking flowers, stood a woman wearing supple leather armor that was faded in color to a dull brown from years of wear. Valens smiled when he saw her, as he always did. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, "Sibylla!"

Sibylla, called the Sly by her former comrades, looked up and squinted against the harsh light that still insisted on passing through the gray sky overheard. She saw Valens standing further up the road, and eagerly hiked up the path and stood alongside him. She was a tall Imperial woman, and—in a way deemed peculiar by some disapproving Nord women—stood eye-to-eye with the man she traveled with, an inch taller if he wasn't wearing boots. Valens wrapped his arms around her in greeting and pulled her close until the sweet smell of her perfume reached his nostrils.

"Did you find out anything?" she asked immediately.

"Plenty. What have you been up to?"

"Picking flowers like a farm girl," she replied disdainfully, pushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear. Sibylla was beautiful and was well aware of the fact; she had fine, aristocratic features and honey-colored hair that Valens, to her amusement, described as luxurious, and she quickly realized that a sweet face and an exposed breast or two worked wonders to keep a mark distracted while another member of the gang she and Valens used to raid with lined up a shot and made ready to send the hapless, groping male victim to Aetherius.

She extricated herself from Valens' arms and leaned against the side of the house, the stone walls cool against her skin. "I also visited the blacksmith, Lod. I sold him the garnets and the silver ingot, and he fixed your…ah…_tool_." Sibylla glanced over her shoulder nervously as a farmer passed them on the way to the town. She waited until he was gone before she handed Valens his Elven war axe, gleaming and freshly polished since Lod.

Valens took it quickly and slid it into its holder against his thigh, its weight reassuring, like the presence of an old friend. It was, like Sibylla, his constant companion, but this one he found strapped to a dead Thalmor soldier hanging from a tree like a macabre beehive alongside of two of his comrades-in-arms, a crude depiction of the symbol of Talos carved into their foreheads.

"Thanks," he said. "How much was the repair?"  
"Six septims," Sibylla replied. "The garnets and the silver netted us 190, so not a bad trade."

"Not bad at all," Valens said, leading her up the road. "And the emerald?"

"Holding on to it. For a rainy day, Valens," she assured him. "What did you find out?"

"I'll tell you at the inn. I rented the room? You do anything else while I was gone?"

"I had a chat with the old man who runs the shrine of Arkay. And then I spoke with Lod, the blacksmith, as he fixed up your axe."  
"He tell you anything good?"

"No. But to his credit, he leaves the strongbox underneath his workbench unlocked during the day." She held up a fat leather pouch, and Valens could hear the septims clinking delightfully against each other inside. He grinned broadly and kissed Sibylla firmly on the mouth.

"I love you, you thieving bitch, you know that?"

Sibylla pushed him away with a playful nudge. "Only when this thieving bitch brings in the coin, is that right?"

"_Especially _when you bring in the coin." They stepped onto the wooden porch of Dead Man's Drink, the wooden board underfoot making their every footstep reverberate dully through the timber. Valens dropped the copious coin purse into his knapsack and let his hand slide delicately down the small of Sibylla's back and beyond. "And let me show you something a lot harder than stealing a bag of gold from an unlocked strongbox," he whispered, taking her hand in his and guiding it to below his waist. She rebuffed him, pressing his hand against the door.

"None of that until you tell me what you found out," she said, her green eyes hard and alert. "We can't stay here long and need another haul to keep us going. Can you give me that?"

Valens smiled. "All of that and more, milady." He pushed open the door. "After you. It's the room on the left closest to the bar."

Sibylla stepped inside of the inn and exhaled in relief as she felt the radiating waves of heat from the enormous fire roaring in the center of the room. Valens followed and closed the door behind him. They walked to their room in silence, Sibylla ignoring the lascivious, greedy looks she received from more than one drunk seated at the bar or at the long tables arranged along the wall. Valens looked around and did not see the old man; he must have gone to sleep or gone out while he was with Sibylla. The two strode into their room and closed the door behind them. The sounds of the tavern receded to a faint hum.

Sibylla took in the room and was pleased. The bed looked clean and comfortable; there was a chest against the foot of the bed, a dresser against one wall and a small, round table and chair flush against the other. Valens said appreciatively, "Nice place!" and plunked himself down on the bed. Sibylla sat in the chair, kicked off her boots, and rested her feet on the straw bedding.

"So what have you got for us?" she asked. "Is it worth our time?"

"It should be," Valens replied. He leaned in closer to her. "So, Sibylla—do you like caves?"

. .. . .. .

The guard looked at the couple curiously as they stepped inside of Dead Man's Drink. There was something off about them, he was sure. They could have been just a traveling pair of young lovers, but the leather she wore had clearly seen use and the man's scale armor was scarred in places with the marks of battle. He couldn't quite figure who he thought they were. Mercenaries, perhaps, or adventurers; the types who passed through Falkreath every so often and stayed in the inn on the way to their next venture. The woman was easy to look at; her legs were thin but the parts that mattered were shapely enough, and her golden hair framed her lightly-tanned face in a pleasant way. She was Imperial, to be sure, and even though the guard favored Nord women, just looking at her for an extended period of time excited him in a way he tactfully obscured with his shield. The man, too, was handsome—not very tall, but with dark, short-cropped hair and squarely-defined, attractive features that identified him as a native of Cyrodiil, too. He had a wrestler's build: strong arms, enormous leg muscles; all signs of a good and experienced fighter. He would keep an eye on them, the guard decided once the two had gone inside the inn. Something about them made him suspicious.


	3. In the Woods

III.

Sibylla ran her fingers through Valens' hair idly, her face turned up towards the ceiling. She adjusted the thin woolen blanket that covered both of them and asked, "What if the cave is empty?"

"Hmm?" Valens replied, his face buried in Sibylla's breasts.

"What if the cave is empty?" she repeated. She pushed herself into a seated position and pulled on a shirt to ward off the chill of the room. "What if someone already looted the place?"

"Then we move on," Valens replied. He propped himself up on one arm. "Just like before. We have enough to keep us floating for a while."

"But when that runs out…" Sibylla trailed off with a sigh. "We need to form our own gang, Valens. There are nobles on horseback crossing between the hold capitals every day with only one bodyguard. They'll be easy to hit. And don't even get me started on the merchant caravans! All that gold out there, Valens, and all we need a few more people like us to get it."

"And what do you suppose we'll pay them with?" Valens countered. "The promise of good haul will only keep them in line for so long. We'll need to give them coin between jobs to keep them in mead and whores. And that's exactly what we don't have, and what this treasure chamber might give us."

Sibylla smiled. "Neither of us knows a gods-damned thing about excavating. You think all we'll have to do is swing a pick and the gold and jewels will come flowing out?"

"Who in Oblivion knows?" Valens said. "We'll find out soon enough. And if the haul is good, we'll hire some bandits and set ourselves up somewhere in the woods. And if it's _really_ good we can fuck that plan and settle down for once."

"Not having to move around all the time? Gods, that'd be good," Sibylla groaned.

"And we are _this _close to getting there," Valens replied. "I bought a couple of pickaxes and shovels from the blacksmith earlier today. We can set off at first light tomorrow and get to this iron door in just a couple of days." His hand slipped up Sibylla's shirt.

"Wake me when it's morning," Sibylla teased, pushing his hand away. Valens replied by pressing his mouth roughly against hers. He grabbed her shirt with both hands and pulled it down to her belly, her breasts spilling out over the neckline. Valens groaned slightly and ran his hands under her thighs, gently spreading her legs apart as Sibylla put her hands on his shoulders and helped ease him into position as he slid inside of her.

She lay on her back, her breath warm and moist against his throat. Her fingers traced designs on the thick muscles of his calves as he straddled her and wrapped his arms around her back. "You're beautiful," Valens whispered hoarsely as he began thrusting inside of her, gently at first but with growing urgency with every motion. Her back arched up like a drawn bow, and Valens removed his hands from behind her and brushed her nipples with his fingers. He felt them stiffen beneath his touch as his thrusting became almost a frenzy; Sibylla's hands gripping the small of his back as he pushed himself deeper and deeper into her. She moaned his name as her lips brushed against his throat, then with Valens still in her grip she rolled over so that she was on top of him just as his whole body shuddered and he gasped as he spent himself inside of her.

Valens panted and stroked her legs as she straddled him from above. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on her pale body and shimmered in the flickering light of the candles in the small room. She smiled at him as she slid off of him and lay down on the bed. "And that," Sibylla said breathlessly, "Is what we will do every night once this damn dig is over."

. .. . .. .

They left Falkreath with the rise of the sun, and the faint light of early morning was long banished when they made their first camp in the woods above the three standing stones overlooking the river that ran out from Lake Ilinalta.

"I want to go back to Cyrodiil," Sibylla announced as Valens fried salmon meat they had borrowed off of a sleeping hunter outside of Falkreath. "Too fucking cold in Skyrim, and it's been so long since I've seen the Imperial City I can't even remember what the damn place looks like."

"White," Valens replied laconically. "And round. Big tower in the center, stabbing up into the sky." The salmon sizzled and popped over their small fire. He anointed both steaks with a sauce of his own creation, tasted a piece of one of them and pronounced it good. "Bloody expensive to live in, too," he added.

"We could always live in Weye," Sibylla said. "It's just outside of the capital; across of Lake Rumare. Close enough for us to visit any time we want, and far enough away for the Imperial Watch to not catch on if things go…missing…around there."

Valens scowled. "To Oblivion with the Imperial Watch. Ever since the Oblivion Crisis no amount of gold can get them to forget their bloody oaths and honor for even one minute." He spat onto the grass beside him. "'The most incorruptible guards in Tamriel.' I hate them."

Sibylla sat next to Valens and took his hand in his. "The Imperial Legion guards Weye," she assured him. "And they have a lot more to worry about than a few crimes here and there, so long as we keep things quiet."

Valens slid the cooked salmon onto two wooden plates he pulled out of his knapsack. He handed one to Sibylla and balanced the other on his knees. "If we make enough from this dig to settle down," he said pensively, "Where would you want to live? Solitude? Or somewhere in Cyrodiil?"

"This is fantastic," Sibylla said distractedly as she swallowed a bite of salmon, grease running down her fingers. "And my family used to be in Chorral, so I'd live there. Beautiful little town. And you?"

Valens finished his salmon steak and looked at the ground. "Nothing will ever, _ever_, get me back to Bravil," he said in a hard voice.

"You grew up there, right?" Sibylla asked carefully. Valens said nothing but only nodded slowly, his face rigid and frowning. Finally he said, "Someone like you deserves better than that sewer drain. I'd take you to Chorral. Or to Kvatch or any other place you want. And—"

He was interrupted by the sound, faint at first but increasingly loud, of hoofs pounding the ground and heading their way. Instinctively he wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his war axe. Sibylla darted nimbly into the trees behind him.

Valens stood, pressed his back against the trunk of a tree, and waited.

He did not have to wait for long. The horse was gray-and-white and was brought to an abrupt halt by its rider as it reached the edge of Valens and Sibylla's campsite. The rider rapidly drew a sword. After a moment of thought Valens recognized him as one of the guards from Falkreath.

"You!" the guard snapped. "Lod the blacksmith is missing a bag of gold, and guess who was at his place just before it vanished?" He looked from side to side and then back at Valens. "Where's the bitch?" he demanded. "You're as guilty as she is, and I'm going to bring you both back to Falkreath to face the jarl's justice. Now tell me where she is!"

"Right here," Sibylla said, stepping out from the trees. She drew a dagger and took a step forward. The guard raised his sword and swung down heavily. Sibylla dodged to one side and grabbed the reins of the horse with both hands and tugged with all of her body weight behind her. The horse whinnied and reared, and the guard tumbled off of the saddle with the cry and crashed to the ground heavily. Before he could get to his feet, Valens ran up, raised his axe and brought it down on the guard's shoulder with all his might.

The guard shrieked, his chainmail buckling under the force of the attack. Valens repeated the motion, the second strike culminating in a spray of blood and a loud groan from the guard, whose head lolled back onto the ground. Valens stood and panted as Sibylla sent the horse running with a smack. The guard's eyes stared lifelessly up at the sky as his blood pooled on the ground beneath him.

Sibylla deftly searched the dead man's pockets and stripped him of his weapons and valuables. Valens hastily packed up the camp and slung his equipment over his shoulder.

"When that horse gets back to Falkreath, they'll know what happened," Sibylla said. "They'll send more guards."

"Then why'd you send it back to them?" Valens hissed. "We could have ridden the damn thing all the way to the iron door."

"And have every guard from here to Riften thinking we're horse thieves," Sibylla snapped. "Forget about it. We're just an hour's walk from Whiterun Hold. The Falkreath guards can't chase us there, and by the time they figure out what happened and send out reinforcements we'll be long gone."

Valens nodded and took Sibylla by the hand.

"Move fast and don't look back, Sibylla," he said. "We're leaving."


End file.

Elder Scroll series, Horror, Suspense