Echoes of the Lost Voice

The Voice

It had to be said: when it came to settling one's nerves, there was simply no equivalent to auspiciously vintaged ethyl alcohol. The intolerably suffocating gloom of the ancient escape route of Pelagius the Bat-shit Kook-a-Nut, Potema the Wolf Cunt, Wulfharth the Blunderking, or whoever the hell it had been in whose honor this god-buggering extrication tunnel had been built, was presently no match for Quintus' newfound surge of bravado. Not even the presence of the Queen of Dankness walking ahead of him was having much of an effect this time around. A ghostly blue ball of light hovered above her right shoulder: the magelight she used in place of a torch to illuminate the way.

"I truly hope this is the last time I have to take this route," Quintus said.

"Most only have to come this way once," replied Stentor.

Despite his liquid safeguard, Quintus felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up at the frozen tone of the Court Wizard's voice. Refusing to be unsettled, he shook it off. "One way out, then" he muttered, for lack of anything more apposite.

"Or in," Stentor said, almost as an afterthought. She came to a stop and turned to tug the candleholder-lever.

The panel door rumbled open. Without waiting for an invitation, Quintus brushed past the vile witch and strode down the stairs. A wave of nausea swept through him as the repugnant odor again rushed to greet him. At the bottom of the stairs, another wave nearly knocked him off his feet: this one beyond simple queasiness, feeling rather like some inimical force trying to dislocate his brain. His vision swam and sparkling spots danced in front of his eyes. He had to bow his head down and draw some deep, settling breaths.

Quintus had more to drink than he'd realized. And certainly more than he'd intended to.

Once he felt more or less regular again, he picked up his head to find Sybille standing beside him, the feigned concern sitting poorly on a face so utterly dominated by amusement. "Are you alright?" she asked, in her voice the faint quiver of glee.

"What's it to you," snapped Quintus. Collecting himself to the best of his ability, he straightened his back and marched down the passage between the columns of cells.

At the furthermost cell, the failed liberator of Skyrim, Ulfric Stormcloak, was just as they'd left him. The tatty, withered shade of a man shackled on the wall was the fleshly counterpart of an ugly repressed memory, reduced to a mere skeleton of amorphous anguish after long years of subduing. The wraith's sunken chest rose and fell only minimally, and he showed no sign of taking notice of their arrival. Sybille unlocked the barred door and stepped in first.

"Are you worried he will escape?" Quintus asked wryly as he followed the woman.

Stentor replied with nothing but a quick glance seeming to say, "You know nothing, fool".

Insolent bitch!

"Ulfric," said Sybille as she switched her attention to the man sagging inert. "We have returned. This is it, now. Here's your chance to impress us." In her voice, the imperious gentleness of a mother interweaved with the subtle condescension of a teacher who despised her student.

It was a good long while before Ulfric responded. Then his whole body spasmed, and suddenly his strangely alert, if entirely mad, eyes studied the two people in front of him. Same as earlier, Quintus was struck with the impression of a proud king in receipt of uninvited supplicants.

"That's it," Stentor said. "Join us here in the real world for a while."

The Stormcloak's blue eyes slowly lid to the Court Wizard. An odd spasm jerked his body, and only after a second did it occur to Quintus that it might have been a scornful grunt. When the eyes moved back to him, the shrunken features surrounding them became strangely animated. Ulfric's cracked, wilted lips twitched at first, then parted in the most unsightly of grins. Most of his teeth were missing, and those left were black as soot.