Chapitre 438: Her Brother
The Citadel of Ebonarm, a sect of warriors hidden within the Alik'r Desert. Many come to visit and trade despite the dangers of the Alik'r.
The Dome in the middle of the desert on a rock was just a simple Mirage of a small town on a wide plateau with magnificent buildings around. The funny thing about it is that one has to cross all the desert to get to it, meaning that by the other side of the Citadel is the other edge of the desert. From there, the Capital of Hammerfell, Sentinel, is not that far.
[A/n: There is no mention to the location of the Citadel of Ebonarm but it was said that the Fighters Guild Halls in the Alik'r Desert are sacred lands to the Citadel of Ebonarm. Making the Fighters Guild Halls close to Sentinel is only my assumption.]
On the span of the plateau, the scene of many Domes and Minaret made together the Citadel of Ebonarm, under each dome was a school of martial arts led by a certain Battlelord different than the other schools. The largest four domes belonged to the most prestigious four schools, the School of the Sword, the School of the Saber, the School of the Spear and the School of the Staff.
Despite the different schools and factions, the Citadel was one single order similar to an Order of Knights and their duty would be fending off the land from all manners of threats such as Vampires, Undead, Necromancers and Daedra.
The Fighters Guild also operates on their ground as Allies while the relationship between the Citadel of Ebonarm and the Temple of Stendarr is said to be Chaotic.
Through the eyes of many, Jon and his odd-looking party followed Isha who in turn followed her sister-in-law, Zahra.
Isha didn't talk much about her people and Jon didn't ask as he expected things would be awkward. Still, Isha is a Comrade in Arms and there is a lot of honor to this bond. Whatever Isha needed or faced then the team that followed her here will always be there for her.
Still, things weren't as awkward as Jon expected later on. Once they came across more warriors from the Citadel, they all looked at Isha as if they saw some big idol and whispered words about her. Something about being an apprentice to the Head Spear Battlelord.
"Zahra, I want to see my brother."
At long last, Isha spoke to Zahra after she noticed that her sister-in-law is leading her to the innermost Central Dome of the largest mosque.
Zahra only stopped and looked back at Isha with an expressionless face.
"Zain can wait. The Masters put an order for you to report to them once you arrive." Zahra said in a stern voice.
"What? I came all this way for Zain… the Masters can…" Isha complained and went her way.
"Stop bring a brat, will you?" Zahra scolded.
Isha halted her steps and looked at Zahra with a frown. It looked like a sister-in-laws drama at first but the two women seemed pretty nervous around each other.
Mirren walked behind Isha.
"Isha, let's just play by the rules."
It was obvious that tension between the two ladies had a source but keeping Isha away from trouble was the only thing they can do right now. The Masters wanted to see her, the Masters get what they want.
Isha was reluctant to act but soon she followed Zahra silently.
In the streets of the citadel, Jon found many familiar goods and rarities he completely forgot about. Maybe he can compensate himself for the tour of the Imperial City he couldn't have in this wonderful town.
Soon after, they were at the entrance of the innermost central dome. Zahra stopped and turned to Isha's companions rather than Isha.
"Only those who are worthy may enter, that's just for your own good." She said.
Jon tilted his head but it seemed that Mirren and Miranda were familiar with the situation.
"Apprentice Mirren, a Journeyman from the Desert Wind School of Elsweyr. Here for exchange by the order of my masters."
"Apprentice Miranda, the same."
The two professionally identified themselves.
Jon didn't know what kind of a situation is this or what title to use.
"I vouch for Krilon as a powerful Sorcerer and a Comrade." Isha said.
"Very well."
They were all allowed in. Beyond the door, steps was a powerful pressure of energy that was probably the reason why Zahra stopped them at the door. Everyone felt hard to master up power under the pressure but Jon brushed it off easily.
They entered a large courtyard under the dome, those who carried a left it at the doorway as the customary respect to holy ground and proceeded in.
Under a cloth shed sat a number of men and women, they looked relatively aged but strong in both body and spirit. A gathering of Redguard masters of arms but it looked more like a gathering of dervishes and mystics.
Isha took a deep breath before approaching the Masters, they saw her and some carried hints of surprise while others looked indifferent.
Zahra pointed for Jon and the rest to sit on the edge of the shed and a servant presented Redguard coffee and date fruits.
"So, my long lost apprentice has returned." A Redguard woman among the gathering spoke.
"Teacher." Isha replied.
"Two years of drifting have led you back here… to whom do we owe the pleasure?" Isha's teacher asked.
"... I have returned after fulfilling what I left for."
"And… you fulfilled it?"
"Yes, I am free from the Daedra."
"And?"
"The curse on my Brother is no more… I came home." Isha said as if it is an obvious thing.
The Masters and Apprentices around the courtyard frowned.
"The curse is no more and you came home? Of what use can that be?" Isha's teacher spoke out loud.
"What are you talking about, my brother…"
"You disappeared for two years with nothing but a note. You said you are leaving to look for a way to dispel the curse cast by the Daedra. We know nothing about you for months and then hear news about you following Daedric Cultists and doing errands for them."
"Not errands. It was trials to settle the grudge the Daedra have. My brother should be free from his torture by now." Isha explained.
"So you're saying you left the order to seek salvation for your brother? What use can salvation do him?" Isha's teacher replied with anger.
"What are you talking about? He is my brother!"
"Enough!" Zahra shouted from the side.
Rude as it was, she was the wife of Isha's brother which meant the matter is related to her.
"Zain… he would want nothing of this fight. Master Nagla, Isha, there is no point arguing about this anymore." Zahra said.
"Zahra is right. As long as everything is okay for my brother, I am willing to receive any punishment… I swear to redeem myself."
"Redeem? For what? Isha, listen. You don't need to go through this any longer, it won't fix anything." Zahra said.
"Won't fix?" Isha expressions became grim, "I have been fixing this since the day I left for my brother's sake. How dare you say it won't fix anything?"
The situation escalated for the worse.
None was able to make heads and tails of what's going on anymore.
Jon watched silently from the side as Isha, her teacher and Zahra were shouting at each other.
Isha was having a strange obsession with the word 'Brother', Jon, Mirren and Miranda knew that Isha was close to her brother but something was wrong.
On the other hand, her Master was angry at her for leaving on an honorable quest to find a way to dispel curse on her blood kin.
Zahra, who is the wife of the said brother, was acting all defeated. It seemed that her relationship with Isha was not good judging by their encounter but they were not hating each other.
"This doesn't feel right. It is like… it is as if they all are arguing about different things." Jon murmured.
"What?" Mirren and Miranda took note of Jon's remark.
The argument between the three women reached its climax and Isha was about to lash out at the two.
"Stop her, Mirren. Now!" Jon realized something terrible.
"What?"
"Just do it, hold her still."
Knowing Jon has a reason, Mirren and Miranda moved in a spec of a second and held Isha from two sides.
"What are you doing? Let go of me! LET GO!"
Losing her patience, Isha was resisting like a wild heart but Jon was already in front of her.
"You need to calm down." He said while casting a close-range spell on her.
Jon normally does not use illusions but this spell was very useful to put down a raging ally. It is not [Calm] but a stronger variant called [Deactivation].
Once the spell came in contact, Isha lost all the power in her body as if going unconscious.
The argument halted and the mood frozen, next thing Jon knew was weapons flying from all over the place to the hands of those Masters and aiming at him, Mirren and Miranda.
The Auras of those Masters was so strong and domineering. Jon himself wasn't a match in a direct flight.
"That may have been a bad idea after all." Mirren commented.
"Take distance from her, strangers." Isha's teacher spoke.
"Okay but at first… hey, my name is Krilon… not my real one but the one I go around with. Anyway, we are Isha's friends, nice to meet you, Isha's very angry aunts and uncles. We are sorry to interrupt like that but in case you were so busy arguing, you didn't notice that there was some sort of misunderstanding going on?" Jon said.
"What have you done to her?" Zahra asked while aiming her scimitar at Jon.
"I put her to a higher calmness state. She can hear and see but she can't fully act or react. It will wear off once she is calm enough." Jon said, "More importantly, Isha and I have been friends for almost a year now and this is my first time seeing her lose it like that even though the Shivering Isles. Now, I think something is unnatural about this situation and as warriors, you must have felt it, right?"
For a Mage's intuition to be stronger than a warrior! Even those who felt nothing nodded.
Jon looked at Isha in Mirren's arms.
"I am sorry but let me handle things."
After apologizing to her, Jon turned to Zahra.
"Madam, can you please take us to your husband." Jon asked.
The Masters put away their weapons and Isha's teacher, Spearmaster Nagla, went ahead.
"Follow me."
Jon followed Nagla and Zahra as Mirren and Miranda supported Isha. Other Masters and Apprentices joined until the small group reached a house at the edge of the plateau with a view to a large oasis beside.
Zahra didn't enter the house but walked until the shore of the oasis where a single palm tree stood. And all stopped, there was no need to see or understand more at this moment.
"Can you… wake her now?" Zahra asked Jon.
Jon nodded and merely snapped his fingers for Isha to return back to full consciousness at once.
She could feel the heaviness of the mood around her. Jon sighed and cleared the way for Isha.
She saw the palm tree and looked down to its base where a single tombstone stood.
"What are you showing me? What is the meaning of this? Where is my brother?" Isha asked looking around to the one beside her.
Everyone looked down or averted their eyes.
"Isha, what are you saying? Zain is dead. He died to the curse two years." Nagla said.
Zahra looked at Isha and spoke.
"We buried him... together."
~~~~~~~~~~
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Chapitre 439: Answers Between the Sand (1)
A week has passed since Isha's descent to silence. No one understood what is going on in her head and only gave her space while watching her from a distance.
Mirren kept a close eye on her all the time, brought her meals and helped her sleep. Jon, Miranda and Zahra changed shifts with him but he was the one taking care of her the most.
To both Zahra and Isha, the story of Zain was a painful memory that they didn't speak of. To the other people around the Citadel, it was a tragedy of a fallen Hero.
The Citadel of Ebonarm can be said as the Redguard version of the Vigilants of Stendarr. While the Vigilants being zealous priests, the Citadel warriors and passionate martial artists. One of the reasons why the two order never mixed well at all.
Zain was a candidate to be the next Spear Battlelord, a brave warrior whose skills grew unmatched among his peers to the point where some envied him. He made enemies with some Apprentices and caused them to lose face, he exposed many wrongdoers and punished a lot of sinners. All of those who survived wished for his disappearance and thus some made a pact with a Daedra.
They led Zain to a trap using his little sister, Isha, as bait and cornered him in the place of their ritual.
"Curse Zain, turn him into what he hates the most."
And a Daedric Prince that answered turned Zain into what he couldn't bear to be.
What a warrior like Zain would hate the most should be something weak, insignificant and incredibly puny. Maybe a bug that they can step on, a mouse that they can carry around in a cage and show him how they kill his sister. They thought he would be something feeble as all warriors hate what is feeble.
But that wasn't the case at all.
It was obvious by that time that the Daedra who heard the prayers of the rogue apprentices was none other than the Father of the Manbeast, the Daedric Prince Hircine.
Zain became a Werewolf.
Those who cornered him and drove him and his sister to a trap faced something they were not ready for and we're hunted down in the matter of a few minutes by the raging Werewolf. No one of them has ever thought that what Zain would hate the most would be were-creatures.
This miscalculation led to the survival of both Zain and Isha, the young girl who witnessed it all.
As they returned to the Citadel, Zain begged for a merciful execution, a swift death by the spear of his master.
"Kill me! I beg of you. Have mercy on us all." He shouted.
But no… the Battlelords couldn't bear to do it, the brightest star of a generation, the genius of the spear, the idol of all his peers.
"Leave the Citadel, seek the sages, find a cure." They replied.
A cure for the Lycanthropy was not an easy thing. The heads of those who laid the curse were required, even though the corpses were fresh, it didn't work.
Why?
This was not a Common Lycanthropy disease, it was a Curse by a Daedric Prince, a being revered as a God and feared as a Devil.
Things became complicated and Zain grew desperate. His wife supported him to her best, his sister did what she could to look for a cure to what she always believed to be her fault.
Barely any progress was made.
Zain rejected what he became, hated it and despised it. A werewolf was what killed his Father, a werewolf is what he became, a werewolf is what he was fated to die as.
There is no 'Far Shores' for him as an afterlife, there is no way to the paradise lands of no hunger or thirst that Redguards yearn for. Instead, his fate was the Hunting Grounds, the realm of Hircine where all the were-creatures he abhors gather to hunt in their lord's name for eternity. A Fate worse than anything he can imagine.
For that, he came to hate what he became cursing the Daedra day in and day out as the Daedra cursing him back.
His hate grew to include himself, he was no longer what he once was and he headed out for one final attempt for a cure. If it wasn't possible, he would make someone kill him and trap his Soul in Black Soul Gem he managed to get his hands on, an end on his terms rather than an end on the Daedra's terms.
But that one last trip turned out to be a failure and he was injured fatally. He was carried home on the spears of his companions and delivered to his family and friends at death's door.
And the life of the man known as Zain ended in suffer and pain surrounded by the grief of his widow and the cries of his sister.
The sister who never accepted all of it, who shunned sanity aside and chased ghosts and Daedra that played tricks upon tricks upon a thousand trick on her.
She left her home shortly after the incident with a note saying that only a Daedra can revert what a Daedra did and sought out darkness.
"... And she returned empty-handed with nothing but forgetfulness and tricks played on her by the Daedra. You seem to be more aware of the other half of the tale so… are you satisfied now, outlander?"
The Spear Battlelord Nagla said as Jon listened.
"I don't know how to feel about this. As someone under a pact with a Daedra too, I am not even sure how can things get this messy." Jon said.
The two were meeting near the House of Isha and Zahra where Jon and the others were staying. It was hard to find a time to ask about the story of Zain as the whole past week was a bit of a struggle.
"If you want my advice, never involve yourself with Daedra." She said.
"My mother said the same. Funny… I am very involved with the Daedra at the moment, that's why I know about the Daedric Princes and their behaviors which makes me find it very strange. Why would Hircine and Boethiah trick Isha?" Jon said.
"They are Daedra."
"I know, Spearmaster, but is it that simple? Something is amiss."
Nagla sighed.
"I know what you are thinking. We also investigated and invited many Daedralogists to investigate the matter. They told us that Hircine is known to be vengeful Daedric Prince who would torture the enemies of his horde. And Boethiah, that is the Prince of Deceit for you. What was Boethiah promise to Isha?"
"To find her brother back home free of his suffering."
"And that's that… in a way." Nagla said, "But you look like a man who wants more answers."
"I do." Jon nodded, "But that's all I can ask you, Spearmaster. I am sorry for disturbing you."
"It is okay. This girl is very broken… she is my apprentice and a family in a way. I can't stand her being like this."
"Mirren is looking after her. She will go through this."
Jon and Nagla separated as he returned inside the house. Zahra was there as she seemed to have returned from her patrol.
"Sister Zahra."
"Brother Krilon."
"Please, call me Jon. You will find your food still warm and nice over there, I also drew some water earlier." Jon said while offering help for Isha who put her weapons away.
"Thank you. You really are doing too much, you buy and prepare the food, clean the place and take care of Isha."
"Well, I'm trying not to be a heavy guest."
"And now I feel like a terrible host."
"Please never mind it, Isha is a comrade… I was wondering if I can get a guide around the Alik'r Deserts, someone who can keep up with me in speed in power while knowing every nook and cranny in the desert." Jon asked.
"That's an easy demand. Many warriors fall under that description… just don't mind me if I am rude to ask, you look like a large warrior and all but how fast can a magic caster be?" Zahra said.
"Sister, I am the Grand Champion of the Imperial Arena."
"Oh! … Oh! That's… why never introduced yourself that way first?"
"Because my identity is troublesome. You will find out once news travels from the Imperial City to here. Now, I was asking for a guide."
"Hmmm… there is this man from the School of the Saber, his name is Illindar de'Sha. Bronze haired, silver-eyed, very popular among his peers. He is an excellent guide and an amazing tracker and hunter, he is also a friend of Isha so he will help you."
[A/n: Illindar de'Sha is a character sponsored by Orpheus.]
"That's excellent."
"What are you planning to do in the desert?"
"Nothing much, just looking for something that may help her."
"... You are going to follow some trail about Zain, won't you?" Zahra asked.
"I hope it doesn't come to that." Jon said, assuring her.
"Meaning?"
"I want to follow Isha's trail and see what happened to her when she left the Citadel for the first time. I know she won't speak and it is not my business but I am having a similar situation to hers as a Labourer. If knowing the missing part of the story would help me avoid such fate or if it helps us help her, I think it is worth the try."
"I see… I would say that what happened to Isha is only due to grief but I think something involving the Daedra can't be that simple. Maybe everything will be okay with time but… who knows? Be careful out there." Zahra said.
Jon could feel the sadness in her tone as he tried to assure her he is not investigating what happened to Zain but rather what happened to Isha. Yet that was a lie.
Being the key to his 7th Labour, Isha's predicament must mean something.
What was Jon too afraid to think of was that Isha's situation is his doing of someway or his Labour involving may be the reason behind all that.
If that's true, he may not be able to forgive himself or the Daedra who fucked up this whole thing. Something needs to be done.
By the next morning, Jon arrived at a coffee place in where young men gather and asked about Illindar de'Sha.
"And I heard a Nord Giant is looking for me. Turns out to be true."
The man in question appeared before him just as Zahra described. Bronze hair, silver eyes, fairly popular, if Jon had to guess the horoscope, then he looks like a Warrior (Leo equivalent). Illindar was carrying a scimitar and looking casual.
"Krilon."
"Saw you in the meeting of Masters. Thank you for standing up for Isha. Illindar de'Sha at your service."
"Heard from sister Zahra you are an excellent guide."
"Heard right, what is your destination?"
"Around the desert to some… 'unadvisable to approach' places." Jon said.
"Oh! That would double the expenses for you."
"Deal."
"You didn't even hear my price."
"Is it in gold."
"Yes."
"Then deal."
~~~~~~~~~~
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