The New Faces of Skyrim

Chapter Nine - Mynil

It was early morning when the world changed on Mynil again.

It started as a subtle twitch of his left eye, and then a blind spot that slid across his vision, settling just to the top right of his peripherals and stuck there. When he mounted Felsaad and looked back toward the door, the world seemed to fall away. Azaril, who had been lounging against the cliff face with his eyes half closed, was a silhouette in a halo of blinding white light. Shielding his eyes, Mynil squinted, gripping the pommel in front of him. The voice resounded in his head, echoing like a voice in a cave.

Aryon. Where is he?

Again.

Aryon. Where is he?

And again.

Aryon. Where is he?

And one last parting farewell as the world returned.

We want him, not you.

And like that, it was gone, leaving behind nothing but a dull thud thud behind his eyelids and a tickle in the back of his mind.

The Dragonborn was gone. Aryon Grulan had disappeared years ago. Yet...

When Mynil woke up and guiltily wiped drool away from the table, he had peered around with blurry eyes for Azaril. The Listener had been absent from the room, leaving Mynil alone with a bowl of cold stew -- ash yams, to his confused happiness -- and the strange assortment of items in the room, including stacks of books.

Mynil loved books. As a child he had been obsessed with them. They were a way to escape the world around him and to teach himself. His mother encouraged his habit, using connections in Morrowind to get him only the best and his father picked up copies of rare books on the road. Mynil's particular fondness was for books that taught him something -- history, legends, magic, he didn't care. It was fascinating.

And it was Mynil's delight when he shamelessly began to search through Azaril's stacks of books that he found many books of the historical variety. And it was his shock that he found several flimsy journals hidden behind the stacks detailing the life of Aryon Grulan.

He had looked over his shoulders and flipped through one rather quickly, staring in wonder at the flowing script of the Dragonborn himself. Reaching for the second, he paused, wondering why Azaril even had these journals.

Did Azaril kill Aryon?

He mulled that thought for an hour only to abandoned it when that voice came back to him, whispering its needs. If Aryon was dead, then why would whoever was behind the voice want him?

He still had one of those journals tucked into his robes, settled against his hip. Volume One, weighing his mind down like a brick. He shouldn't have grabbed it, but a flick of the thoughts and the sound of someone outside the door had him squirreling it away.

"Where are you going?" Qa'shan shouted at him, then only a little quieter, added, "Why does Qa'shan get stuck with stupid elves?"

Mynil looked up, realizing that Felsaad was carrying him towards a lone, straggling bush poking from the snow. Qa'shan was behind him, Shadowmere watching with significantly more interest than his rider.

"Sorry," Mynil apologized, pulling Felsaad's head up and back towards the Khajiit. Qa'shan lashed her tail a few times and turned without saying a word.

They traveled the day in quiet. If Qa'shan noticed his silence, she said nothing about it. Mynil would have tried breaking through to the strange Khajiit again, but his mind was occupied. Occupied by the voice and the journal and the strange, glowing light that surrounded Azaril.