Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel Read Free Page A

“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