The Woman in the Garden

Prologue

The night was cool and gray. The moons shone their light on the mountain forests, guiding her away from the sleeping gardens. She had taken her sword, and the necklace that had been a gift from her mother, a red ruby on a golden chain. She hadn't taken any gold; she wouldn't be needing it where she was going.

Up here the paths were twisting and treacherous by night. The starry Hammerfell sky dominated the south, encompassing the manse and her gardens far behind, and to the north loomed the crags and cliffs, a great wall of impenetrable shadow. Little fires burned in sconces on the walls of the place she had called home, and now she ventured far from their light, into that imposing darkness where naught that was human could survive. But she would, for soon she would be more than any man or mer.

But for now, she was only human, and the unwary human might end up food for roaming packs of welwa. She kept a hand on her sword, watchful for any sign of the furry little beasts, or whatever else lurked in the dark. The night was loud with its typical revelry of owls and insects, a song that filled her with nostalgia for warm summer evenings and nights by the fireside. Torchbugs dotted the spaces beneath the trees, and as their leafy awnings closed in overhead to block out the firmament, she found herself under a new nighttime sky filled with yellow-green stars that faded in and out of existence.

She went out to where the trees ended in a brief clearing, just before the riverbank, and followed the sound of its slowly-flowing waters. Upstream towards the falls she went, back into the wood, and further up the sloping ground, feeling for roots with her sword as she went. She had taken no torch. Not much longer now and she wouldn't need one.

The cave's mouth was inconspicuous even by daylight, and with only the moons to guide her, she had to look long and hard for the shadow that was not cast by an overhang of rock in the great curtain wall. She found the opening; it was wide but low, and she had to duck on her way inside. There was no sound but that of her breath, and nothing to see but the absolute black. The silence continued unbroken for seconds, and minutes, the world outside as if it had never existed, and she feared she had been deceived, sent out here in search of something that would never be granted.

"Are you ready?" It was a woman's voice, supple like velvet, and vivid as it had been when she heard it in the dreams. It was only then that she smelled the scents that filled the cave, the wet musk of elk hide, the iron of blood.

"Yes," she answered, calm where others might have been terrified.

"Good. We look forward to you gaining your new sight. We have made lovely preparations here. A shrine, all for this." The voice ebbed as it went, tone and pitch shifting like the crevices in the walls, and seeming to echo off them like this were some massive cavern. "Can you imagine it?"

"Yes," she said once more. She pictured an elk's skull, stripped of flesh, its antlers stretching like long fingers over a pool of blood.

"What a blessing it would be, to see through your eyes. Mortal minds are a wonderful thing."

"I know what I will lose. I am not afraid."

"Excellent. Come closer, dear. Let us see you."

She obeyed the voices, laying her sword against the wall, and stepped forward. The ceiling was higher in here than at the cave's entrance. The air of the cave made her skin tingle as she straightened up, but she knew she would not be cold for longer.

The voices remained silent, and she heard no sound of approach, but soon hands were on her, cold as the grave. The lips that touched hers were warm, however, and she bent under their embrace, closing her eyes even though it made no difference. She was blind either way. When the kiss ended, she leaned her head back. The bite felt like two thorns piercing her neck, pain and ecstasy dripping from them and into her. Hands were all over her, caressing her, claiming her, welcoming her into the dark. She felt them lead her forward, and her foot entered a warm puddle in the dirt. The puddle went deeper, and soon it was up to her knees, and the hands lowered her onto her back. She took one last breath before she sank beneath the surface. She tasted the blood, felt it flowing through the openings in her neck to meld with her own. She floated in the pool, felt nothing of the bottom.

Something surged from below, something that couldn't be touched, but felt all the same, and her eyes opened stinging. A reaction seized her, an impulse, a need to survive. This wasn't right. She fought to right herself, but the hands held tight, pulling her deeper down into the black depths. Blood raced into her mouth, drowning her scream.

"Relax, dear," said the voice. "You will never need to breathe again."