PROLOGUE

Attrebus never saw the thing that cut open his belly and sent his guts spilling out into his arms. It happened in the dark, and the only things he remembered other than the agony was the stink of his bowels and something like rotting ginger—and Sul dragging him along, cursing in a language Attrebus didn’t understand.

Now the pain—for so long the only thing real to him—was fading as his body finally understood it was done.

It was possible he was dead already—he wasn’t sure what death was supposed to be like. He hadn’t paid that much attention to such things when he should have.

He started, as from a dream of falling, and for a moment he thought he was falling, because all of his weight had vanished. With an effort he opened his eyes, but there wasn’t much to see; the air was full of ash, a gray cloud that extended in every direction. He saw his companion Sul a few yards from him but steadily drifting off. Presently the dust would make him a shadow, and then nothing at all.

It was hard to breathe; the gray powder cloyed in his nostrils and mouth. After a few more breaths he realized that soon enough his lungs would fill up with the stuff and that would be that.

It was so hard to care. He was weak, tired, and even if he lived, the things he still had to do seemed impossible. No one could blame him if he quit, could they? Not now.

No one would even know.

And so he drifted, the ash caking his blood-soaked gambeson and hands, enclosing him like a shroud, preparing him almost gently for the moment his heart finally stopped.

In the darkness behind his eyes little sparks appeared and died, each dimmer than the last, until only one remained, fading. In it he saw the face of a young woman, tiny as with distance, and from somewhere heard a vast chorale of despair and terror that seemed to fill the universe. He saw his father on a burning throne, his face blank, as if he didn’t realize what was happening to him. The wavering colors expanded, pushing the murk away, and the woman appeared again as his father faded. He knew her features, her curling black hair, but he couldn’t remember her name. He noticed she was holding something up for him to see; a little doll that looked like him, but couldn’t be him, because it was stronger, smarter, better than he was, made in the image of a man incapable of giving in or giving up.

She kissed the doll lightly on the head and then looked at him expectantly.

And so, beginning to weep, he cracked his dust-caked lips and summoned the air that remained in his lungs.

“Sul,” he croaked.

The other man was hardly visible, a darker patch in the ash.

“Sul!” This time he managed to shout it, and pain lanced through him again.

“Sul!” Now it seemed to thunder in his ears, and everything spun. He thought he saw a sort of orange flash out in the gray, a sphere that appeared, expanded, passed through him, and then went on beyond his sight.

But it might have been the agony, taking him away.

Yet the light remained, the images continued. He saw the doll again, lying near this time, on a little gray bed. Its head was porcelain, and not unlike a hundred such likenesses of himself he’d seen over the years. The cloth of the torso was torn open, and the stuffing was coming out. As he watched, huge hands took up the doll and poked the stuffing back in, but there wasn’t enough to fill it, so one of the hands vanished and returned with a wad of gray and shoved that in, too, before sewing up the doll with a needle and thread. When all the stitches were made and pulled tight, a knife came down to cut it.

He screamed, as air sucked into his lungs and a thousand pins seemed to sink into every inch of his flesh. He tried to vomit, but nothing came up, and he lay there sobbing, knowing nothing could ever be the same, that nothing would ever seem as bright or clean as it might have once. He cried like a baby, without coherent thought, without shame. A long time he did that, but in the end there remained something so hard and insoluble that it could never be made into tears and drained away. But he could feel the bitterness of it and make it anger, and in that he found at least a shadow of resolve, something he could nurse and make stronger in time.

He opened his eyes.

He lay inside a room like a gray box, with no discernable entrance or exit. Light seemed to filter through the walls themselves—he cast no shadow. The air had a stale, burnt taste, but he was no longer choking, and his chest rose and fell.

He sat up and his hands went reflexively to his belly. He realized then that he was naked, and he saw that a thick white scar ran from his crotch up to the base of his sternum.

“Divines,” he gasped.

“I wouldn’t invoke them here,” a feminine voice warned.

He swung his head around and saw her. She was as naked as he, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her hair was rosy gold, her skin alabaster white, her eyes twin emeralds. She had the slender, pointed ears of an elf.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“In Oblivion,” she said. “In the realm of Malacath.”

“Malacath,” he murmured, touching his scar. It was still tender.

“That is what he calls himself,” the woman said.

“My name is Attrebus,” he said. “Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

“You may call me Silhansa,” she replied.

“How long have you been here, Silhansa?” he asked.

“Not much longer than you,” she said. “At least I think not. It’s hard to tell, with no sun or moon, only the endless gray.”

“How did you end up here?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

He paused, to give her a chance to ask something of him if she wished, but when she showed no sign of doing so, he pressed on.

“How do you know this is Malacath’s realm? Have you seen him?”

“I heard a voice, and he said his name. That’s all I know. But I’m frightened.” She paused, and she looked as if she had forgotten something. “What about you? How did you get here?”

“It’s a long story,” he said.

“Please,” Silhansa said. “Your voice calms me. What brought you to this terrible place?”

“I had a companion,” Attrebus said. “A Dark Elf—a Dunmer—named Sul. Have you seen him?”

“Yours is the only face I have seen since coming here,” she said. “Tell me your story, please.”

Attrebus sighed. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Balfiera,” she replied.

He nodded. “So we’re both from Tamriel—that helps. I’m from Cyrodiil, myself.” He scratched his chin and found a beard. How much time had passed?

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to explain. Not long ago, a thing entered our world from Oblivion, an island that floats through the air, with a city upon it. Wherever the island flies, all those beneath it die and rise up again, undead. My companion and I were pursuing this island.”

“Why?”

“To stop it, of course,” he said, understanding how arrogant he sounded, how stupid. “Stop it before it destroyed all of Tamriel.”

“You’re a hero, then. A warrior.”

“Not a very good one,” he said. “But we tried as best we could. Before I met him, my companion Sul was trapped in Oblivion for many years, and knows its ways. Umbriel—that’s the name of the island—was too far away for us to reach in time—”

“In time for what?”

“I’ll get to that in a moment,” Attrebus said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt, but this is a strange tale.”

“No stranger than being imprisoned by a daedra prince.”

“You have a point there,” she allowed.

“To make it brief,” he said, “Sul took us on a shortcut through Oblivion to get ahead of Umbriel.”

“Did you stop it, then?”

“No,” he said. “We didn’t have a chance. The lord of Umbriel was too strong for us. He captured us and would have killed us, but Sul managed to escape into Oblivion, and brought me with him. But we were lost, far away from the paths Sul knew. We wandered through nightmare places. Just before coming here, we were in the realm of Prince Namira, or at least that’s what Sul thought. Something there did this.” He indicated the scar.

“I’ve been wondering how anyone could survive such a wound,” Silhansa said.

“Me, too,” Attrebus replied. “Sul must have gotten us out of Namira’s realm. I remember floating in gray ash, choking to death. Then I woke here.” He didn’t want to think about his dream, much less talk about it.

“And so your quest is ended. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not ended,” he insisted. “I’ll find Sul, and we’ll get out of here somehow.”

“What makes you so determined?”

“It’s my people at stake, my world. And there is—someone counting on me, waiting for me. She might be safe, but if she isn’t—”

“Ah,” Silhansa said knowingly. “A woman. A lover.”

“A woman, yes, but she isn’t my lover—she’s a friend, someone who depends on me.”

“But you want her to be your lover.”

“I … I haven’t thought about it, and it’s neither here nor there.”

“And your friend Sul? He’s driven by love as well?”

“Sul? He’s driven by vengeance. He hates Vuhon, the master of Umbriel. I think he hates him more than I can imagine hating anything, and I’ve been expanding my capabilities in that sort of thing lately.”

He found himself touching his scar again. Silhansa noticed.

“Do you think Malacath healed you?” she asked.

“Maybe—if this is his realm I suppose it is possible—but I’ve no idea why. Malacath isn’t exactly known for his kindness.”

“You know something about him?”

Attrebus nodded. “A little. My nurse used to tell me a story about him. It was one of my favorites.”

“Really? Could you tell it? I know little about the daedra.”

“I don’t tell it as well as she did,” he admitted, “but I remember the tale.” He paused for a moment, remembering Helna’s singsong voice. He closed his eyes and pictured his bed, and her sitting there, hands folded. For just an instant he felt the shadow of the comfort he’d known then, the innocence that had protected him from the world.

“In the bygone-by,” he began, “there was a hero named Trinimac, the greatest knight of the Ehlnofey, champion of the Dragon of Time. One fine day he betook himself to seek out Boethiah, the daedra prince, and chastise him for his misdeeds.

“But Boethiah knew Trinimac was coming, and he put on the appearance of an old woman and stood beside the trail.

“ ‘Good day, old woman,’ Trinimac said when he came along. ‘I’m in search of Prince Boethiah, to chastise him. Can you tell me where I might find the scoundrel?’

“ ‘I know not,’ the old woman told him, ‘but down the road is my younger brother, and he might know. I’ll gladly tell you where he is, if you will but scratch my back.’

“Trinimac agreed, but when he saw her back, it was covered in loathsome boils. Nevertheless, having said he would, he scratched the noisome sores.

“ ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ll find my brother on the road to your left at the next crossroads.’

“Trinimac went on his way. Boethiah scurried ahead by a shortcut and put on the appearance of an old man.

“ ‘Good day, old man,’ Trinimac said, on meeting him. ‘I saw your elder sister, and she said you might know the path to Prince Boethiah’s house.’

“ ‘I do not,’ the old man told him. ‘But my little sister knows. I’ll tell you where to find her if you will only wash my feet.’

“Trinimac agreed, but found the old man’s feet even more disgusting and smelly than the old woman’s back. Still, he had made a bargain. The old man told him where to find the younger sister, and again Trinimac went on—and again Boethiah went ahead, and put on the guise of a beautiful young woman.

“Now, Trinimac was dreading the meeting with the younger sister, fearing he would have to wash or scratch something even worse than he already had, but when he saw the beautiful girl, he felt better.

“ ‘I met your elder brother,’ he said, ‘and he told me you would know the way to the house of Prince Boethiah.’

“ ‘Indeed, I do,’ she declared. ‘And I will gladly tell you if you will but give me a kiss.’

“ ‘That I can do,’ Trinimac said, but as he leaned forward to kiss her, her mouth opened wide—so wide that his whole head went in, and Boethiah swallowed him in a single gulp.

“Then Boethiah took on Trinimac’s form, and made him burp and fart and say foolish things, until finally he squeezed out a great pile of dung, and that was what was left of Trinimac. The dung got up and slunk away in shame, a proud knight no longer. He became Prince Malacath, and all of those who loved him changed as well and became the orcs.”

The woman’s eyes had a peculiar look in them.

“That was your favorite story?” she said.

“When I was seven, yes.”

She shook her head. “You people are always so literal-minded.”

“What do you mean?” A thought occurred. “You’re Altmer, yes? A High Elf? How is it you’ve never heard of Trinimac?”

“I have, of course, heard of Trinimac,” Silhansa said, placing her right hand on the floor, palm up. It seemed to melt and flow into the surface.

“What are you—”

But Silhansa—still crouching—began to grow, and quickly. And as she grew, she changed; the colors of her eyes and hair faded to gray, her face broadened, became piglike, and tusks emerged. All signs of womanhood vanished, and as she stood, he felt the floor lurch beneath him, realizing that she held him in her palm and was lifting him. The walls of the prison dissolved, and the thing that had called itself Silhansa was now a hundred feet tall. The hand holding him brought him up to the monstrous face, and the other hand came up, too, presenting Sul, as naked as he and just as captive.

“Malacath,” Attrebus gasped.

“So you call me,” Malacath said, his voice like beams of wood rending, his breath a foul wind. His eyes seemed empty, but when Attrebus looked into them, crooked things shimmered into his mind and ate his thoughts.

Their surroundings had changed, too. Around them rose a garden of slender trees, and wound about the trunks were vines festooned with lilylike flowers. A multitude of spheres moved, deep in the colorless sky, as distant and pale as moons. He heard birds chirping, but it was a doleful sound, as if something with a vague memory of having been a bird was trying to reproduce sounds it no longer felt.

“Prince,” Attrebus said, starting to shiver. “I did not mean to insult you. It was only a story I heard as a little boy. I don’t presume—”

“Hush,” Malacath said, and Attrebus choked as his mouth filled once again with ash. “I’ve heard enough from you. You don’t interest me. But you, Sul … I remember you. You swore an oath by me once, against your own gods. You’ve slipped through my realm before, without visiting. I am offended.”

“My apologies, Prince,” Sul said. “I was in a hurry.”

“And yet this time you demand my attention. In my own house.”

“Yes, Prince.”

The massive lids of Malacath’s eyes lowered over his eldritch gaze. His nostrils widened.

“It’s still there,” the prince’s voice ground out, almost below the level of hearing. “This place, this shadow of a garden, this echo of something that once was—you know such phantoms, Sul?”

“Yes,” Sul husked.

“You loved a woman, and for her you destroyed your city, your nation, and your people.”

“I did not mean to,” Sul said. “I only meant to save her life. It was Vuhon—”

“Do not diminish yourself. Do not seek to lessen the beauty of the deed.” Malacath opened his eyes and stared at them, and now Attrebus felt as if hot brass was being poured into his skull.

“I have healed your broken body, and that of your companion,” he said. “What should I do with you now?”

“Release us,” Sul said.

“To do what?”

“Destroy Umbriel.”

“You tried. You failed.”

“Because we did not have the sword,” Attrebus managed to gasp through the cloying dust.

“What sword?” The air seemed to thicken, and all the hairs on Attrebus’s arms stood out like quills.

“There is a sword named Umbra—” Attrebus began.

“I know it,” Malacath said. “A tool of Prince Clavicus Vile, a stealer of souls.”

“More than that,” Attrebus replied. “The sword was prison to a creature that also calls itself Umbra. This creature escaped the blade and stole much power from Clavicus Vile, and it is that power that motivates Umbriel, the city Sul and I seek to destroy. We believe that if we can find the sword, we can use it to reimprison this creature and defeat Umbriel.”

Malacath just stared at him for a moment, and then the great head leaned toward one vast shoulder a bit. There was something oddly childlike about the motion.

“I have heard that Vile is weak, and that he searches for something. I have no love for him. Or any of the others.” He glanced back at Sul, his vast brows caving into a frown. “How I laughed when you betrayed them, turned your homeland into no less an ash pit than my realm. The proud issue of the Velothi, humbled at last. By one of their own. And still there is the curse you made, unfulfilled.”

“You can help him fulfill it,” Attrebus blurted. He was shaking uncontrollably, but he tried to keep his voice steady.

“You knew who Sul was the minute you saw him,” he went on. “You remember his curse after all these years. You healed us and interviewed me. In disguise. To see what we’re up to. To assure yourself that the curse Sul made all those years ago is still walking with him. That he still craves vengeance.”

Malacath’s head shifted again, and behind him vines collapsed and formed into a cloud of black moths that swarmed about them.

“There are a few things I have a sort of love for,” the daedra said. “What Sul carries with him is one of those things. So yes, I will help you further. The sword, Umbra—do you know where it is?”

Sul’s mouth set in reluctant lines.

“How else will you go there if I do not send you?”

“Somewhere in Solstheim, I believe,” Sul finally replied. “In the hands of someone who wears a signet ring with a draugr upon it.”

Malacath nodded; to Attrebus it seemed a mountain was falling toward him.

“I can take you to Solstheim,” the prince said. “Do not disappoint me.”

Then both gigantic eyes focused on Attrebus. “And you—if I ever have use for you, you will know it.”

“Yes, Prince,” Attrebus replied.

The god grinned a mouthful of sharp teeth. Then he slapped his palms together.

“It’s real,” Mazgar gra Yagash breathed, staring, fighting the urge to draw her sword.

It wasn’t often you saw a mountain fly.

She doffed her helmet for a better look. As it passed beyond the tallest birches, she saw how it hung in the sky—an inverted mountain, with the peak stabbing toward the land below.

Next, her gaze picked out the strange spires and glistening structures atop the thing, structures that could only have been made by some sort of hands. A forest clung to the upper rim as well, its boughs and branches dropping out and away from it.

“Why would you doubt it?” Brennus asked, his hands working fast with pen and paper, sketching the thing. “It’s what we came to see.”

“Because it’s ridiculous,” she said.

“I’ve never heard an orc use that word,” he murmured. “I guess I thought you people believed in everything.”

“I don’t believe your nose would stand up to my fist,” she replied.

“Fair enough,” he said. “I don’t believe that either. But since I outrank you, I also don’t think you’ll hit me.” He pushed rusty bangs from his face and looked off at the thing. “Anyway—ridiculous or not, there it is. Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”

“Guarding you,” she replied.

“I feel so safe.”

She rolled her eyes. He was technically her superior, which galled, because he wasn’t a soldier—or even a battlemage. Like most of the wizards in the expedition, his expertise was in learning things from a distance. His rank had been awarded by the Emperor, days before they’d left the Imperial City.

But he was probably right—as hard as it was not to stare at the thing, it was their immediate surroundings she ought to be taking in.

They were on a high, bare ridge, about thirty feet from the tree line in any direction. The air was clear and visibility good. Up ahead of her, four of Brennus’s fellow sorcerers were doing their mysterious business: chanting, aiming odd devices at the upside-down flying mountain, conjuring invisible winged things she noticed only because they passed through smoke and were briefly outlined. Two others were surrounding their position with little candles that burnt with purple-black flames. They set those up every time they stopped; the candles were somehow supposed to keep all of this conjuring from being noticed by anyone—or anything.

Mazgar put her hand on the ivory grip of Sister—her sword—squinted, and licked her tusks. “I make it about six miles away. What do you reckon?”

“A little more than eight, according to Yaur’s ranging charm,” Brennus said.

“Bigger than I thought.”

“Yah.” He put the notebook down and unpacked something that looked like a spyglass but Mazgar figured wasn’t. He peered through it, mumbled gobbledygook, turned a dial on the device, and looked again. He scratched his red hair, and his sallow Nibenese features fell in a frown.

“What’s the matter?” she asked him.

“It’s not there,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she said. “I’m looking right at it.”

“Right,” he said. “Bit of a contradiction, I know. And I’m sure it is there, somehow. But all my glass sees is a bubble of Oblivion.”

“A bubble of Oblivion?”

“Yah. You know, the nasty place where the daedra live? Beyond the world?”

“I know what Oblivion is,” she gruffed. “My grandfather closed one of the gates Dagon opened between here and there, back when.”

“Well, this is like a gate, but wrapped around itself. Pretty odd.”

“Does that tell us how to fight it?”

He shrugged. “I can’t think how it would,” he said. “Anyway, the plan is to not fight it. We’re just here to find out what we can and report back to the Emperor. It’s still moving north into Morrowind. It may never threaten the Empire at all.”

Mazgar looked at the island again. “How can that not be a threat?” she muttered. She felt the coarse hairs on the back of her neck standing and her heart quicken. Brennus was looking at her in apprehension, and she realized she’d been growling in the pit of her throat.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

“It sees us,” she said.

“I doubt that,” he replied.

“No,” she snapped. “I can feel it, feel its eyes …”

“Is this supposed to be some sort of orcish sixth sense? The kind you get from not bathing?”

“I’m not joking, Brennus, something isn’t right. I feel—”

But then the wind shifted, and she got the smell.

“Dead things,” she snarled, clearing Sister from her sheath. Then she raised her voice. “Alarum!” she howled. She grabbed Brennus by the arm and hustled him toward the other sorcerers, where her fellow warriors were hastily trying to form a phalanx.

She wasn’t quite there when they came out of the trees.

“So that’s true, too,” she said.

“Divines,” Brennus breathed.

They looked as dead as they smelled. Many had been Argonians, obvious by their rotting snouts, decayed tails, sharp teeth set in worm-festered gums. Others looked to have been men or mer, and a few were just—things. They moved twitchily, as if uncertain how to use their limbs, but they came at a fast march.

And they were marching, organized, falling into ranks as the landscape permitted. They were unevenly armed—some had swords, maces, or spears, but more than half had crude clubs or no weapons at all—but there were a lot of them, many times more than their thirty.

What surprised Mazgar most were their eyes. She had heard the rumors that an army of corpses walked beneath the flying city. She had imagined them as dumb, cattle-eyed beasts. What she saw as they drew near was something different, a glitter of malicious intelligence, a dark joy in the harm they promised.

“They’re coming up from the south, too,” someone shouted.

That was bad news. They’d left the horses and most of the supplies down there, not to mention their remaining six soldiers to guard them.

“Form up,” Captain Falcus hollered. “We’ve got fighting to do.”

“I thought they were supposed to be under the island,” Mazgar said. “These are a long way from it.”

“Well,” Brennus replied, “there’s the value of scouting, eh? Now we know something we didn’t before. They can send their troops out. Way out.”

“We can’t let them trap us up here,” Falcus said. “We’re going to have to pick a direction and cut through.”

“South takes us home, Captain,” Merthun the Wall shouted.

“South it is,” the captain said. “Re-form, now.”

Mazgar moved to the back of the formation, along with Jarrow, Merthun, and Coals. She pulled her shield off her back and got ready, watching the rotting things approach.

“And you thought this wasn’t going to be any fun,” Brennus said, at her back.

Falcus shouted, and the phalanx started moving behind her. Mazgar and her line walked backward, slowly. The dead sped up, and when they were six yards away, they charged.

She howled, and Sister swung at something that had once been a two-legged lizard. The sword smashed into its head and it split open, spilling maggots and putrescence all around her. The body came on, and so she slashed at it, still retreating.

Just up the line she heard Jarrow curse and gurgle.

“Jarrow’s down,” Merthun shouted. “Close the gap.”

They fell back, yard by yard, leaving a wake of rotting, twitching parts. She saw Jarrow’s body, facedown, receding.

Then she saw him start to rise, surrounded by the things.

“Jarrow’s still alive!” she bellowed.

“He’s not,” Merthun shouted back, his huge hammer rising and falling into the line of the enemy.

“But—” she began. Then she saw Jarrow’s wound and the dark gleam in his eye, and knew it wasn’t him anymore.

“Well, that’s no good,” Brennus opined.

“There’s the south line,” Falcus shouted. “Double time, soldiers. Rearguard, keep them off. We break through or die.”

“I’m not dying here,” Mazgar snarled, and let Sister do her work.