The Path Less Traveled, Part 5
Part 6 following shortly
I woke up a day later in the dungeons of Whiterun, in a jail cell in the back of the small prison. As I groaned and rolled off of the thin bedroll to sit up, the reminder of the fight came back to my mind. I groaned again and pushed my hands to my head, trying to shake away the visions of the rest of the gang falling, and dying. But they remained for a few more seconds, as if to remind me I was the last one left, and I wasn't getting out of the cell anytime soon.
The guards didn't speak to me. But they didn't have to, because I had nothing to say to them. They only opened my cell door to drop the occasional wedge of cheese and almost spoiled bottle of ale onto the floor. I ate whatever they threw at me, but sometimes would go two or so days without eating anything. If I didn't eat within the first minute or so, the guards would take the food and drink away. I had eaten worse food in the towers, and sometimes had gone day after day without a thing to drink.
My weapons, as well as my share of the gold I had been given from the years with the gang, was all gone. More than likely stashed in the Jarl's own bedroom, or stacking up to the ceiling in whatever store room the city kept the their taxed and confiscated gold. My armor was gone, as was my bandolier. But to my surprise, I found it on my fourth day in my cell, the small black and red ball that I had taken from the skeletons eye was left with me.
* * *
The days began to stretch long, and soon they became months. The seasons of Skyrim carried on, as did the day and night, but in the jail time only seemed to go on and on. I didn't bother keeping track of the months or season, because I didn't really matter. I wasn't expecting to leave the jail anytime soon. But during my time in the Dragonsreach dungeon, I kept myself occupied with the stone.
It was a curios thing, but I soon found it had an affect on my dreams. I would drift off to sleep amidst the rabbling of the other prisoners in the jail, and I would leave the stone underneath the bed I slept on.
At first the stone only showed me visions of my past. My early life as I boy on Solstheim, where I worked from my tenth winter to my eighteenth winter collecting crops on a farm that was just outside the settlement of Raven Rock. I had worked for a dark elf named Athus Rathus, a tall man with dark hair and watchful red eyes. He paid me well enough as I grew older and began to actually need coin to live a proper life.
When I went through my nineteenth winter, I learned about my mother. I had know my father was a part of the Morag Tong since I was twelve, and the occasional letter that was delivered to me from him always arrived at the farm that Athus owned. I lived there with him and two other farm hands, and the letters my father sent me gradually told me of his life, and who he really was, as I grew older. "Your life is a dangerous one, because if I am captured by the Morag Tong's enemies, they will surely come for you my son," my father often told me this. "One day you may follow in my footsteps in this life of darkness, but I hope that you will not. Your life will be better off if you do not let the bloodshed and the promise and allure of gold taunt you."
The bloodshed and promise of gold. I laughed now, letting my head rest against the cold stone of my cell. "If only you could see me now father," I said to myself. "What would you make of me?" another burst of laughter made me put a hand to my face, and I took a deep chuckling breath. I'm going mad _I thought to myself, _I have to be.
But the stone. It showed me the visions of my early life, and seemed to follow a timeline of what I had gone through after leaving Solstheim. I saw myself leaving the island and taking a ship to Skyrim, and coming into port at the city of Windhelm. From there I had gone down the road, carrying the little gold I had with me and the clothes on my back. Later that day I had run across Brekish and his gang. From there the stone showed me all of those years with the gang. How I had killed the khajiit and taken his place in the gang. I saw the first two years of life with the gang, and my first caravan raid. I saw my first fight, who I had with a nord named Braig. We had fought over the take from a noble, who had given us a diamond to avoid getting a sword through the gut. In the end I had fought and killed the nord with a sword to the head, taking the diamond and throwing his body over the waterfall of the White River.
I saw the later years with the gang, where Salin and I became close allies after we sat on the bridge one night, discussing our separate views on philosophy. The fact that he was a redguard and I was a dark elf did divide us both with how we viewed the world, but we found common ground after agreeing that there was life after death if a soul was good. This in turn lead to the believe that a soul captured with a soul gem would walk the planes of a place called the Soul Carin, but only if they were bad. "White Souls" as Salin called them would be given rest and solace in their plain of afterlife.
The stone didn't show me anything that would happen in my future. This was made clear as it continued to show me things from my past, but when it showed me the fight with the Jarl's guards, which had taken place almost eight months ago, the visions went black and the stone showed me a part of my past. Night after night the stone showed me visions and parts of my past, and I could only lay there in sleep, wondering what the stone was for. It didn't frighten me, and it truth it mystified me.
* * *
A year after my imprisonment at Dragonsreach, two guards came to my cell and opened the door. I was expecting the usual toss-of-the-plate and a bottle of sour ale, but this time a guard said,
"On your feet elf."
I starred at the guard as his words drifted in one of my ears and out of the others. "On my feet," I repeated his words in a distant-sounding tone.
"For the sake of the gods," the other guard came into my cell now, and pulled me to my feet.
I snapped awake somewhat now and stepped back from the guard, slapping his hand away. My hair had gotten long and my beard was longer. The guard pulled his sword from his belt and angled it at my throat before saying,
"Steady there grey-skin."
I scowled at the slang term he used to label me, and the second guard stepped into the room.
"Were taking you to Solitude elf," he told me, "So let us bind you and we'll have no trouble as long as you don't fight back."
"Solitude," I repeated. My wit was slowly starting to return now, and I felt bold enough to ask, "Why Solitude?"
"Because we bloody say so!" barked the guard with the binds in his hands. His half-face helm let me see his eyes, as opposed to the second guard who wore a full faced helm.
"Steady Hroknar," warned the first guard. He took the binds from the other guards hands and addressed me again.
"Were only taking you to Solitude and putting you at the gates. After that, it's in the Captain of the Wolves' problem then."
I scowled at both guards, but left the wall and very hesitantly held out my arms. The guard with the binds did as he'd said and bound me, pulling the chains around my wrists and clamping them tight. I'd managed to maintain some of my physical fitness while in prison, but even now I could see I was thin, and If I'd been able to look at my body I was more than sure I could count my ribs.
One guard took point and the other guard came behind me, and the pair lead me through the dungeon. Other prisoners shouted at us as we moved past their cells, and then up the stairs that lead back to the Jarl's main chambers in Dragonsreach.
In the chambers, the Jarl sat on his throne and watched me as we moved past, but stayed silent as our gazes locked. But neither he or I addressed the other as the guards lead me through his palace, and then to the front doors of the longhouse. The doors came open, and then, first the first time in almost a year, sunlight grazed my worn and sunken face.
I blinked in the sun as it ran over my face, and my body felt the warmth, and the cold. It was snowing heavily, and as the two guards lead me down the steps and into the city, a shabby clock was thrown over my shoulders. A part of my mind remembered when the White River Gang, that's what we called ourselves, had walked through the city a year ago. Then we had all been there, myself, Salin, Raylus, Brekish and Rokir, and then we had walked with money on our backs and confidence in our bones.
But now as the guards lead me through the town, I was given the same dirty looks and districting scowls from the citizens. Mothers pulled their children back as the guards and I passed, and one nord with a thick beard spit on me as I walked past us. I didn't speak as we moved thorough the city though, and only swallowed once or twice as we passed through the gates and into the courtyard. I didn't know what awaited me in Solitude, but as the guards lead me to the stables and the carriage that would take us to the great city, I knew that I would find out soon enough.