Chapter 79: I see you with MY EYE!

"Dagoth Ur is risen - he is HERE, always HERE! You cannot deny your LORD!" The Dunmer woman was obviously quite mad, but her choice of words were unnerving... "Edward Frost! You will not deny the LORD!"

I started at the use of my name. I had never met the raving woman before, at least as far as I could remember; and I was not especially well-known around Maar Gan.

"Why have you denied your Lord, Edward Frost? He is the Lord and our Father of the Mountain. He sleeps, but when he wakes, we shall rise from our dreams and sweep the land clean of the n'wah. Listen close, outlander; for when he wakes, this will be no place for you. As Lord Dagoth has said, 'all shall greet him as flesh, or as dust'. Why do you deny your LORD?"

I looked about me for some other person - someone who might know the disturbed woman - but the streets were deserted in the encroaching ash-storm. In any case, I thought I knew already what was happening to her. She was one of the people Folms had told me of: a Dreamer...

"Risen we are! The Sixth House is risen, and Dagoth is its Lord!"

That gave me pause, and set my mind racing. Did she just say 'Sixth House'? The same Sixth House Caius had me investigating?

"Wait, Sera!" I finally found my voice; "The Sixth House? What do you know of them?"

She answered, after a fashion, but it was as if she could not hear me:

"The Sixth House, the Sleeping House, House DAGOTH, the House of the Lord DAGOTH! The true house, the one house to welcome all Dunmer, and drive the n'wah from the land."

I was struck dumb, unable to form a plan of action. The Sixth House, Dagoth Ur, the insane, naked Dunmer (or 'Dreamers') I had fought: were they all connected? A gust of wind sighed past us, bringing with it the dry, bitter scent of ash. I felt I was running out of time... Folms had told me that Dreamers disappeared in ash-storms, slipping away from the lives and the people they knew, to never be seen again.

The woman and I both glanced at the approaching storm, rushing across the open, blasted plains towards Maar Gan. When we turned back to one another, the disturbed woman's eyes, which had taken on a wild aspect up until that point, now seemed to harbour a silent plea for help. Without another word, she turned and ran; heading for the edge of town.

In a great booming rush, the billowing clouds of ash swept in behind me, blanketing the village in a choking, ashen gloom in an instant, and obscuring the woman from view. I gave chase, but without luck: I could find no trace of her in the storm. I stood for the longest time, squinting into the blinding storm for some glimpse of her, but there was nothing. At one point I thought I heard the faint words "You shall not DENY!" whip past my ears, but I could not tell their source in the blowing gale.

"Wait! Come back!" I shouted into the storm, my mouth filling with ash, my words lost in the roaring winds.


Back in the village, I remained hunched over a public water-pump for a time, letting the drifting sheets of ash pour over my back as I rinsed the ash from my mouth, nose and eyes. I felt I had failed: I had failed Caius; since the woman might have told us about the Sixth House. I had failed the woman's family and friends. Most of all though, I had failed her. I could have stopped her - kept her from escaping to a life of naked, bestial squalor in the filth and horror of a place like Telasero or Falasmaryon.

After a while I carried on with my original reason for being in Maar Gan: paying a visit to Tashpi Ashibael, the woman Steward Ranis accused of necromancy. A bonemold-clad guardsman held the door open for me as I entered the local tavern. He was supposed to be on duty out on the streets, but was taking shelter just inside the front entrance until the worst of the ash-storm blew over. He had some illuminating things to say about Tashpi:

"A necromancer?" He snorted. "Who told you such muck? She's a healer! Here, look at this." The Dunmer guard unstrapped one of his bonemold bracers, and showed me his bared forearm. "A thrice-cursed wild kagouti - mad as a marsh rat with disease it was - once almost took my arm right off. Mangled it real bad. D'you see the mark?"

I studied his silver-skinned arm. It appeared perfectly smooth and unblemished to me; I wasn't quite sure what he wanted me to see.

"I'm... afraid I can't actually see anything, sorry." I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Yes, exactly!" He exclaimed. "Exactly right! Not even a mark left now: Tashpi healed it just like that. She's a gift from the gods to the Maar Gan guards - I'll tell you right now! And I won't have anyone saying she's some kind of depraved dark artist!"

He was becoming quite suspicious of my intentions, so in the end I explained my position regarding Ranis' orders (not using her name or mentioning the Mages Guild directly). The guardsman, who obviously felt quite strongly for Tashpi, appeared quite alarmed at the notion that someone wanted the healer dead. He asked me to go warn her. Actually, to tell the truth he was about to go warn her himself, but through use of my Charm spell I persuaded him that that wouldn't be necessary.

I had to satisfy myself that Tashpi Ashibael really posed no threat - and at the same time attempt to satisfy my burning curiosity as to why Ranis wanted her dead.


"A - a necromancer?" Tashpi, a young-looking Dunmer woman, looked confused and worried. "But - who said this? I'm not a necromancer!"

Upon hearing my explanation, the healer remained silent for a moment, staring into the middle distance. Eventually she sighed, and said:

"She's hated me since I refused to join the Mages Guild, and stayed to be a healer for my people. If she's held a grudge this long, and feels so strongly to send you to... to... Then... I'll have to leave - go to the mainland. Some town there will need a healer." She paused, looking around at her sparsely-furnished home. "Since I'm Velothi - descended from Ashlanders," she added by way of explanation - "and not well-born like Ranis, there's not much else I can do."

She gave me a beseeching look.

"You'll tell her you killed me, won't you? So she'll leave me alone?"



As I made to teleport back home, leaving Tashpi to arrange for her departure, I realised that my jaw was beginning to ache from clenching my teeth. I was furious.

That was it - I was through with Ranis and her vicious, self-serving games. No more.