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Afterwards, when Martin woke up, he couldn't remember his dreams. He surfaced from unchanging darkness without so much of a scrap of it clinging to him. And if his head was foggy, it was down to the ale he’d drunk the night before (more than had been wise, not quite enough to be dangerous). Nothing to do with the influence of dreams-that-seemed-more-than-dreams, the blight of something akin to prophecy that had followed him through his adolescence and beyond.
There was a body in the bed beside him.
Another man, and both of them naked, and the ache in Martin’s body not just the result of the long ride through the West Weald.
He tensed, then relaxed again. Hardly pious priestly behaviour, but he’d never claimed to be a saint.
When the man beside him stirred, Martin took the opportunity to turn his head to the side to study him, feeling only a slight pang of guilt that he couldn’t seem to remember the man’s name.
Older than Martin by perhaps a decade or two, with steel-grey stubble darkening his jaw and close-cropped hair streaked with threads of silver. Broad shoulders, his chest lean and scarred and wiry with muscle. Martin seemed to remember he’d had the upright bearing that suggested Legion training at some point in his life. A former scout, most likely.
He'd had a knack of fading into the shadows, of observing without being observed unless he chose to be. And his eyes had seemed strange. Wrong somehow, although in the comforting gloom of the inn it had been easy to pretend that it was nothing more than the firelight glinting in their depths.
Aye, Martin thought wryly. Just as the red glow he’d glimpsed in the sky above Kvatch had been nothing more than the sun setting.
Then the man opened his eyes. He did it in a way that suggested he'd never really been asleep at all.
At least they looked normal enough, which made Martin wonder if the ale hadn’t been stronger than he’d realised. Hazel, possibly, or a muddy blue. Entirely human. Which meant he had no reason to think this man was anything other than what he appeared to be: a fellow traveller stopping in at a perfectly serviceable inn along the Gold Road.
Martin ought to have been more afraid than he was.
(Then again, he'd never been afraid with Sanguine either, had he? Not at first, nor during, nor after. Despair was not the same as fear.)
"I know who you are, my Lord," Martin said, his voice very soft and grim. At his words the man raised an eyebrow.
"Ah. So you think you've figured it out, have you?"
Martin sighed and rolled onto his back. He ought to have been afraid. Why in the name of all the gods wasn't he afraid?
"You're not my first Daedric prince," he told the ceiling wearily.
Kvatch had been burning.
Martin had smelled it on the air, the breeze carrying the smell of charred wood and stone. Real enough and vivid enough to make him rein in his horse, his heart slamming against his ribs in dread as one single thought echoed through his mind: It's finally happened.
It had finally come to pass, that terrible, nameless event he’d been hurtling towards all his life, foretold in dreams that should never have belonged to him.
He’d known it was coming, right from the first moment he'd set foot in Kvatch, stepping over the threshold of the gate in its fortified walls (perhaps for even longer than that). There were more travellers filing through behind him, so the gate had stayed open, but he’d sensed it slam shut behind him anyway. Only it hadn’t been solid Heartland oak, but of some older darker substance, no wood that he could identify, and the nails piercing the rusting bands were red-hot, trickling tears of molten iron over the splintered wood. Something had stirred in his blood, unfolding to press at the inside of his skin, something with the half-sensed shape of a forgotten dream.
The horse danced sideways, unnerved by his terror. Then the clop of another horse's hooves sounded, the shine of a lantern approaching like a wisp through the night. The concerned but wary voice of one of the Legion soldiers who patrolled the roads hailed him, asking him if all was well.
Can't you see? Martin wanted to yell back. The city is burning.
And then he saw, an instant after he’d opened his mouth, that it wasn’t. Nothing but a sunset, the sky a glorious scarlet, mottled with wisps of cloud. No fire. No destruction. No smoke.
All's well.
And still the guard eyed him in concern, as though he was looking at a madman. Perhaps he was. Perhaps Martin had lost his mind long, long ago.
Or, more likely, he’d simply pushed himself too hard, riding too far, too fast. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately.
Skingrad was at his back, and it was closer than Kvatch. If he turned back now, he could be there within the hour. He could find a comfortable inn selling excellent wine, send a note ahead to tell the Primate of the Chapel of Akatosh that he'd be delayed a day or two more. They'd be able to spare him. No one would so much as blink.
He'd known Skingrad well once. Its cobbled streets, its excellent vintages. And the hidden ways and tracks that led to the north-west. No reason to assume the Shrine of Sanguine was even still there, but he knew instinctively that it was. He'd felt it as he passed the city. That was the reason why he hadn't stopped, because even now, after all these years the visceral tug of longing as he’d passed the city had stirred up an old wild voice inside him. He might have been able to keep it muzzled for a little while, but he’d never be able to silence it completely.
Well, it whispered, what harm would it do?
Dear gods, what harm? He knew too damned well what harm it could do.
And then, out of nowhere, the inn.
Set a little way off the road, with a faded sign to announce its presence swinging gently in the breeze. Had it always been there? He thought so, but he couldn't seem to recall. But he was clearly too tired to press on to Kvatch and returning to Skingrad certainly wasn't an option since he knew he’d never make it there.
And still he'd hesitated on its threshold, as though he’d sensed that to pass over would be to step into Oblivion itself.
He turned down the steps and into a half-sunken room. The inn was busy, thronged with patrons and filled with smoke from the fire. Nothing unusual about that, and nor was there anything unusual in the fragments of conversation Martin caught as he passed through. He'd heard much the same sort of thing in the Imperial City, and everywhere else he'd stopped along his journey.
Everyone was uneasy these days, everyone on edge, whether they were anxious about the rumoured disappearance of the Nerevarine, or increased bandit activity along the Valenwood Line, or political unrest in the Summerset Isles, or the continuing whispers about the Emperor’s ill-health.
Martin had worries of his own – he had family close to Valenwood – but all of it faded into a background hum of meaningless chatter the moment he saw the stranger sitting by the fire as though he'd been waiting for Martin all along.
Martin had never seen him before in all his life. He also knew they’d been meant to meet, even if this hadn’t quite been how it was supposed to happen. That they’d been meant for each other in some indefinable, inescapable way.
And he knew that once the man had beckoned him forwards with a twitch of his tankard that there was nothing else Martin could have done but join him.
Leave, he'd thought, even so. Turn your back and walk out of this inn and never look back.
But if he did that, he knew exactly in which direction he'd turn, and it wouldn't be towards Kvatch. So he stayed and he took his seat at the man's table.
There had, he seemed to recall, been other places to sit. Plenty of them. But at the time, there had only been that table and that chair, and not a single other chair free, and the entire inn empty except for themselves.
"Forgive me," he'd said. "You seem familiar."
"Perhaps we’ve met before."
"I'm certain we haven't. I'd remember," Martin said, although there was a good chance he wouldn't.
"It’s possible," the man agreed. "We will have had met, but then again, if we haven’t got to the point of having had met yet, there’s no reason why you should remember." He fixed Martin with an earnest scowl as Martin laughed, unable to stop himself. "You'll be sure to tell me," he added, "if I'm getting ahead of myself. I’m a little out of sorts, you might say, when it comes to temporality."
There had been nothing particularly notable about him. Well… nothing much.
His clothes were well-made but simple in the Colovian manner, the wool plain-dyed and sturdily woven. Nothing fancy or elaborate. And yet something about the way the firelight fell on the fabric lent it depth and lustre, made it glisten with a sheen like iridescent silk. And there were his eyes, of course, which seemed every now and then to catch the light in a way that made them gleam unnaturally yellow.
Martin only caught one clear look at them, and they’d left him with the impression of goat's eyes, the rectangular pupils vertical rather than horizontal. The glimpse had been clear enough, but so fleeting a motivated man could convince himself he’d seen nothing at all. A man, for instance, who had strong suspicions that despite the common idiom the devil you knew could very often be a far worse option than the one you didn’t.
They had talked deep into the night, rambling from subject to subject: from the breeds of sheep that produced the finest quality wool, to the best inns and taverns in the Imperial City, to the stimulating effects of Felldew, and all of it trivial and all of it of great consequence, and when the man finally swallowed back the last of his ale and stood, it was just as inevitable that Martin should go with him without a second’s hesitation.
He probably should have run instead. But if he did, he’d have turned east rather than west, and Skingrad wouldn’t have been where he’d wind up. He’d have turned off the road, and the darkness wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. He could have been blindfolded, and he’d still have found his way: one step after another, and Sanguine waiting with grim and gleeful anticipation to welcome him back.
There’d always he a welcome at the hearth of the Prince of Debauchery. Always a welcome and always a bed, one filled with bodies and arms readied to grab at him and claw him down.
He’d been a fool to think he’d ever be free of his past.
"I'm no daedra," the man said. "I'm as human as you are. At least... I hope so."
"You don't seem quite sure."
"I am sure. In fact, if there’s anything I can be sure of, I’m sure that it’s this: I'm not what you think I am." His brow creased, and he cast Martin a sardonic look that left Martin wondering which of them was truly humouring the other. "Come to think of it, I'm not sure I'm what I think I am."
"And what would that be?"
"The last thing I ever thought I'd be. I can't be sure which of us I am. Or where I belong. Or whether I’ll ever be able to find my way home again. Or if that home ever really existed. Are you sure of anything, Martin?"
"I’m sure of at least one thing," Martin said. He yawned, stretching out his aching muscles and his body until his spine clicked into place. "Which is that you’re not helping my headache one bit."
The man laughed and leaned in. Martin let himself be drawn into a kiss, long and slow and lazy.
"I take it back," Martin said when they were done, his eyes half-closed. "That did help."
"Does it ever let you go?" the man wondered aloud after a while, his expression grave, his voice enquiring. "Oblivion."
"If you're looking for answers, I'm the wrong man to ask," Martin said warily. He wasn’t going to say any more, but the man was still staring at him, and there was something hollow and haunted about his eyes, and Martin couldn't leave it at that. "In my experience, though... no. Never completely. Not once you've seen it first hand."
The man made a soft indecisive noise in the back of his throat, the sound faintly unhappy. "There's a school of thought," he murmured, "that says we're already there. That this is Oblivion."
"This inn?" Martin said, laughing. "Or just this room?"
"This world."
And then Martin wasn't laughing any more. The man's eyes focused on him, suddenly alert and filled with hungry intensity.
"Have you heard such a thing?"
"No," Martin said unwillingly, although he wasn’t certain that was entirely true. It had stirred something inside of him, reawakening some thread of a memory. As though he had stumbled across the idea before, even if as nothing more than a scribbled note in the margins of a book. "It's the philosophy of a madman."
"Oh, madmen." The man's lips twisted into a grimace and he pushed himself up. "None that I've ever had the pleasure of knowing."
Have you known many? Martin wanted to enquire, but, well… it was probably politer not to ask. Besides he suspected he knew the answer.
"I'm afraid I can't seem to recall your name," he said apologetically as he watched the man dress.
"Don’t take it to heart. I don't remember what it is either," the man admitted regretfully as he pulled on his shirt and tugged the laces tighter. Then he brightened, and sank back down onto the bed. "Maybe it'll come back to me. Or else the next time you see me, you can remind me what it is."
"But how will I even know?"
"I assume because I'll have told you," the man said gravely, and Martin couldn't help laughing again. It died away as the man set his hand on Martin’s arm. "We will see each other again, Martin. Soon. I expect you’ll know it when it happens."
Martin nodded, feeling another stirring of dread. "Something's coming, isn't it?"
"Or going. Depends how you look at it."
"For you or for me?"
"For both of us. I've evaded my duty for too long now, and I’m expected back home. You know how it is. Places to be, things to do. Other versions of myself to slaughter. Or to be slaughtered by."
"But we will see each other again?"
"Oh, you can depend on that." The man gave a regretful little twitch of his head. "Of course, when you do see me again, what you should probably do is run."
"Is that what you would advise me to do?"
"It'd be my recommendation. If I believed for a second you'd take one whit of notice. But I know you won't."
"And how would you know that?" Martin wondered aloud.
The man grinned and picked up his walking stick, and it seemed to Martin that there was something familiar about that too. An itch in the back of his mind telling him that he wasn’t seeing what his eyes were telling him he was seeing. "Maybe," the man said archly, his tone deeply ironic. "because I know that you're every bit as mad as I am."
The man was long gone when Martin left the inn, a solid breakfast of bread, eggs and porridge inside him. He’d been half-hoping he’d see the man one last time, even if it was nothing more than a glimpse of his figure vanishing east on the Gold Road. Or west, he thought, remembering that he’d never asked the man which way he was heading.
He had his suspicions it was neither.
He searched for some trace of regret inside himself and found nothing. That wasn’t necessarily a good sign. There should have been something, even if that something was little more than a trace of alarm at the near miss he’d had.
But then again, maybe this was exactly what he'd needed. He'd been too wary of indulgence, abstained for too long.
A bit of a stretch to call this encounter an act of worship, but perhaps this had been more about Dibella than Sanguine. He liked to think of it that way, although, he thought wryly, wouldn't it just be godsdamned typical if he'd only gone and replaced one Daedric Prince with another?
At least that old wild hunger had been quenched for the time being. It’d rise up again, no doubt, but for the moment he felt at peace, and if he still felt a tug in his heart it pulled in one direction only.
Towards Kvatch. Towards the city he had made his home. And towards a certain belief that whoever the stranger was, they would see each other again.