Chapter 56

Astrid quickly spoke up. “Before you make any hasty decisions that you will regret for a very short time, I think Delvin should tell all of you who I am.”

Delvin looked very uncomfortable being put on the spot. “Um, sure. That’s Astrid.” He shut up. She and I both turned and gave him a look. Even more uncomfortable, he said, “She’s the, um, head of the little band of people we never, ever want to cross. The, um, Dark Brotherhood.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “What this big galoot who has tried to charm the pants off me many a time ... and failed every time, too ... is trying to say is he and I have known each other for several years now. We’ve had a working relationship when there were things I needed to fulfill contracts that only people with your skill set could acquire.”

Nazir interrupted. “We’re very, very good at the business of killing people. Not so good at the whole stealing thing. So it’s not like we’ve never worked with you before.”

“You’re Nazir, aren’t you?” The pawnbroker that usually sat outside, Tonilia, spoke up. Nazir gave a small bow. “I’ve heard of you. There’s not that many who are from our home who are as skilled with a sword as you.”

“It matters not what homeland you claim, there’s not many in all Tamriel, if any, who can match the skill with a sword of the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood. Keep in mind that I’m not referring to Astrid with that title. I’m talking about our Queen. She’s the one who fulfilled the contract to kill Titus Mede. She’s the one who leads the Dark Brotherhood.”

“Thank you for adding that title to me, Nazir. I know, I know, I earned it. Yes, I am the Listener. Delvin, you might close your mouth before a bug flies in there. So, now I’ll tell all of you what I told Brynjolf and the others out in the Flagon. Things in Riften are about to get very, very bad for the Thieves Guild. Maven Black-Briar is no longer Jarl, she’s been put in prison. It’s one thing to commission thefts, arson, and forgeries when you’re in private business.”

My voice turned cold. “It’s treason to the crown when you’re the Jarl and do that.” I then smiled a wry smile. “So, there is a job vacancy in Riften, for a new Jarl. I already have someone in mind to appoint to that position. But that will also mean a crackdown on the Guild, which would basically put you all out of work. Sometimes when you have a problem, the answer to it comes from another problem you have. Delphine?”

“I am Delphine, the Grandmaster of the Blades. For those of you who don’t know, the Blades as an organization have a history that stretches back to the days of the Akaviri. We weren’t called that then, we took that name when we started serving the Septim Emperors of Tamriel, starting with the first one, Tiber Septim. For nearly five centuries we were the bodyguards, the eyes, the ears, of the Emperors.”

“With the Oblivion crisis, and the death of the last Septim Emperor, Martin, we continued trying to serve the Empire, biding our time for a new Dragonborn, a new Septim to lead the Empire. We have one now. But with the White-Gold Concordat, the Thalmor have decimated our ranks. We have warriors a plenty to be the bodyguards for Her Majesty. We have ... enforcers ... to slip behind the lines, kill officers in vital moments or take out key officials. What we don’t have are people trained to slip behind those lines and gather the information we need in the first place.”

I nodded, and took it from there. “That’s where you come in. The Thieves Guild in its current incarnation is done, as dead as ... well, Titus Mede or Hemming Black-Briar. So, I’m offering you jobs. I won’t lie to you, there will be danger in them. It’s possible that you could get killed. But how is that different from now? There will be steady pay, and you’ll find that the Empire has rather deep pockets to pay bonuses for jobs well done. You won’t get to live in Castle Dour, but I think even the auxiliaries rooms at Sky Haven Temple will be a step up from this.”

Brynjolf said, “I told the lass outside that I’m not the Guildmaster here, to make that call. That’s Mercer. So we need to find him, I suppose. Sapphire, you said he went out the back door?”

“Yes, I’ll go and...”

“Stop!” I yelled. She jumped, but did so. “Lydia, I think it’s time you let General Rikke know that her services will probably no longer be required. I’d suggest opening the door and yelling something out, first.”

“No, I enjoy being used as a moving target for twenty of the finest archers in the army.” She rolled her eyes. “Be right back.” She waved her hands like she was brushing them away. “Boys, put those bows up before you shoot yourselves in the foot. All but you, Bosmer. You actually look like you know what you’re doing with a bow. You can come with me.”

She went to the ladder at the end of the hallway. The elf showed her how the doorway opened up. When it did, she yelled out, “Friendly coming out. No shooting me unless you want to just piss me off, Rikke!”

In the distance I could tell there was a reply, but couldn’t make it out. Lydia could and yelled back, “I’ll have someone with me, then, who can identify the body.” In her normal tone, she said, “Come on, Bosmer. You’re with me.”

She climbed the ladder first, the thief coming after her. After a moment, he came back down. “It’s Mercer. He’s dead. And there’s a good thirty or more Imperial soldiers lined up around our escape route, and I’d say that half of them look ready to come down here and break some heads if we don’t see sense. So if it’s all the same to you, Your Majesty, my name is Niruin and I’ll take your job offer.”

I yelled out, “Lydia, bring the body back down here, and tell Rikke her troops will no longer be needed up there.” I then lowered my voice and looked around me.

“Well, Brynjolf, seems there is no Guildmaster to discuss things. Sorry about that, it wasn’t my intention to have any of your people hurt if it could be avoided. Tell you what, it sounds like everyone is going to have to make that decision on their own. So ... how about I make the pot a little sweeter? I know you have a treasury room, with most of the money and loot actually allocated to the Guildmaster. I don’t need the money, the Blades don’t need the money. Consider it a ... signing bonus, if you will. Let’s go see that room, and you all can divide up what’s in there fairly and equitably.”

“Um, how do you know we have a treasury room?”

“Brynjolf, what did Maul tell you in the Flagon? My mother was the Gray Fox. You don’t think she didn’t teach me all her tricks when I was growing up in the Isles? Come on, let’s go see.”

Vex said, “It takes at least two of the three of us to open the door. It’s over here. Come on, Delvin, get your key out and quit muttering under your breath. We may be thieves, but she’s a master at our craft, no doubt about it.”

They opened the door to the vault. Everyone walked in to a room full of chests that were all sitting empty. “What’s going on here? How ... what have you done?” Brynjolf looked at me accusingly.

“Okay, for once you have me stumped. I know about how a Guild operates, obviously, but today is the first time I’ve been in this room. You say the three of you are the only ones who have a key?”

“Well, the four of us. Mercer has a key as well, but it always takes two different keys to open this door.”

I thought for a moment. “Let us go examine his body, then.”

It was almost amusing, the number of people that were following me, like a flock of birds in the sky following the lead bird. “Okay, this is the key that looks a bit like the ones you all have, so this is his key for the treasure vaults.” I rummaged through his pouches. “Here now, what do we have here?” I held it up for a closer look.

“What’s that?” Brynjolf asked.

“Etienne! You said that the guild has had some rough times lately, so much that you thought there was a curse upon you all? Well, you’re right, there was. When did this bad luck seem to strike the Guild?”

“It’s been since before I joined. So I don’t know the particulars in person.”

Delvin interrupted him. “I do. It was twenty five years ago. Gallus was our leader then. Only he was murdered by his lover, Karliah. She fled and Mercer took over the Guild then. Things started going downhill after that. In all that time, Mercer never found Karliah, to make things right.”

I snorted. “Of course not. Why would he, when he was looting all of the treasures of the Thieves Guild for himself? I have a ... well, rather unique knowledge of Daedric artifacts. So I doubt that any of you know what this is.” Everyone shook their heads.

“To a thief, this is the most valuable lockpick in all Tamriel. This is the Skeleton Key of Nocturnal, a completely unbreakable lockpick that also has the ability to pick, well, nearly any mortal lock. That includes many of the dragon locks. Nocturnal actually gave it to my mother ... a long time ago. After a few years, though, mother gave it back to her, with an apology note for keeping it so long. Which if you knew who my mother was, you’d understand why that’s so important.”

Vex said, “I don’t think any of us do, so how about an explanation.”

“Ah, Vex, never change. Always be irascible, even when you find that you’re not going to like the answer. My mother was the heroine of the Oblivion Crisis, and she is the Daedric Lady Sheogorath. This lockpick has a second ability, one that’s not commonly known. Just as the Dark Brotherhood prays to Sithis for luck, so does the Guild pray for Nocturnal’s luck. That luck flows from the Evergloam, through the portal Ebonmere, but only if that portal is held open, with this key. Without it, the only luck that comes through, well, it goes to the holder of the key itself.”

“Which begs the question, how did Mercer Frey get the Skeleton Key in the first place?”

“A good question, Brynjolf. I know how it’s normally guarded, by the Nightingales. So either Mercer managed to sneak passed into the Twilight Sepulcher and steal it from literally under Nocturnal’s nose, or he was a Nightingale himself. Which means that all that loot you had gathered here...”

“Damn. That might help explain some things, how he was able to afford such a fine home on the surface while the rest of us suffered down here. And as Guildmaster, he had access to ... everything.”

“Sapphire, didn’t you say you saw him tear off a journal page?”

She started when I called upon her. “Um, yes, your royal, I did.”

“I bet this is it, then.” I scanned the page. “Well, nothing to be done with that, then.” I handed it to Delphine. “Seize the funds from these accounts. At first glance, I’d say there’s at least a hundred thousand gold in them. That’s a tidy sum for one person, a nice bonus when split amongst several.”

Delphine took the paper from me. “Of course, Your Majesty. But ... I have a problem.”

I could see the twinkle in her eye. “Oh, what’s that?”

“This type of operation, well, I apparently only have two people with any of the needed skills. The one you recommended, Etienne, and a volunteer, a Niruin. I could use more operatives for a mission this large, this important.”

Sapphire laughed then. “So you’re telling us that if we volunteer to join you, the first job we have is recovering our own hiring bonus from where ever that bastard hid it?”

“Look at the bright side. Because of his actions, the properties that belonged to Mercer Frey are forfeit. One thing all of you forget is that I’ve been to Riften in the past. So I know about Riftenwald Manor. Sky Haven Temple is near Markarth. I think having a secondary headquarters on this side of Skyrim is not ... unreasonable. I’m sure there’s some ... trinkets there that are worth something as well. But keep in mind it’s now share and share alike on such things.”

One of the thieves, an Imperial, spoke up. “I’m called Rune, Your Majesty, because I truly don’t know my birth name. I was raised by some farmers near Solitude, I was the sole survivor of a shipwreck, I was found with a stone with some rune on it. No one knows what that rune was, even the folks at the College. So if you can tolerate that I don’t have a name, then I’ll be your man.”

“Do you have that stone with you, Rune?”

“Of course. It’s been my good luck charm.” He pulled it from his pocket, held it out for me to take. “No one has had any clue what this says.”

I looked at it, then turned it over. “That’s because it’s not a rune stone. The only people other than myself that I know who could read this easily live on High Hrothgar, the Greybeards. It reads Veysun Spaan Kul. Directly translated, that means Ship Shield Son in the tongue of the Dovah, the dragons. It may not be your name, or even your family name. That doesn’t sound like a family name, or even the name of a dragon. I’d guess you were on a guard ship, a vessel that escorted merchant vessels.”

“By Nocturnal! I’ve spent years, hundreds of gold in trying to find out what that says. You simply glance at it and read it!”

Astrid smiled. “She is the Dragonborn, dear Rune. There’s not much she can’t do if she puts her mind to it. And I can attest that includes going before Sithis to bring someone back from the dead that was tricked into killing herself.”

I sighed. “You were simply a pawn of Mephala. I don’t want everyone here to think that if they get killed in the line of duty that I’ll just be able to go to Sithis and bring them back to life. It doesn’t work that way. In our terms, Mephala pissed off Sithis with her plot. Sithis simply ... allowed a wrong to be righted, that’s all.”

“Ah, that explains it. Why you look like Astrid, but not quite. There was a scar on your ear. It’s missing now.” Delvin seemed to look satisfied.

“Oh, that’s not why the scar is gone. As the Dragonborn, well, let’s just say that people I care about ... a great deal ... may find themselves healed of all sorts of infirmities. Not just something simple like a healed scar. My bringing Astrid back to life after I killed Titus Mede had nothing to do with that.”

“Your Majesty, I’m Thrynn, he’s Vipir the Fleet. We’re both with you.”

I nodded. “That leaves only you, Sapphire.”

Brynjolf jumped. “What do you mean, that leaves only Sapphire. I haven’t heard Vex or any of us say we’d be part of your crazy scheme.”

“That’s because you’re not a part of it. You can’t be, not in the way I need these people. All of you, Delvin, Vex, even those two big hunks of flesh Dirge and Maul, are already in the public eye and known to have connections to the Guild. Vekel will still run the Flagon, only it’ll be an honest tavern now. Maybe he can even convince some others to set up merchant shops down there after cleaning the place up a little, there’s certainly room. Delvin and Vex will still do some of what they do now, only most of it’ll be coordinating jobs for the Blades. And you’ll run your merchant stand, just like you do now. Only one minor detail will change. Your public home will be Riftenwald Manor here in Riften. But since you’re also going to be acting as the factor for certain seized properties that are forfeit to the crown, you’ll also be busy.”

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“It’s really quite simple. Someone will need to manage the Black-Briar Meadery and Black-Briar Lodge now. If you think I’m going to let that alchemical homicidal maniac Ingun have control of those properties and the funds they produce, you’re mistaken. I need someone I can trust. And of course, I can trust you, can’t I, Brynjolf?

“Wait! You said Black-Briar Lodge, not the Manor? You do realize what you’re talking about, don’t you?”

“Big house, east of town? Stables, many nice rooms inside for all sorts of people to stay that need to be out of sight. Not that far from Fort Dawnguard. Perfect spot to send people to Morrowind and to Cyrodiil. The manor here in town is going to be the home of the new Jarl once I appoint her.”