image [https://i.imgur.com/pMZm76y.png]

If you truly wish to know a country you must wander its wilderness, far from the beaten paths and designated resting stations. There is a universal commonality to the stopover town, caravan camp, and port city wherever they may happen to appear in the world, as if they grew by some garden variety mushroom spore carried by the stamping feet of commerce which flattens all geography and culture into a sloping plane by which all interest and attention pours towards our lowest common necessities—best embodied by the multitude of outhouses which dot the highways of our fair empire, appearing with frequency across the breadth of Tamriel yet indistinguishable clones from one another if set side by side, or sat on in one after the other, as I have done.

Such were the thoughts on my mind—bitter consolation for my poor circumstances no doubt—as I set to rambling up the thicketed hills and valleys of the West Weald with no particular path in mind. I knew Dune lay across the mountains, in the parched wastes of Elsweyr where it was rumored that I already resided in the service of the false Mane. I kept my eyes out for any sign of civilization or border guards, but found neither as the days passed in a cleansing silence.

A clear sapphire horizon had reigned over Spinner and I since the clouds parted on our first morning after a night spent trudging through pine crowded hills. I had thought that first night would last forever; I'd led Spinner on by a faint amber magelight cast from my palm as we were struck again and again by unseen branches whose prickly brushstrokes painted us with icy dew and sap residue that by morning's light hardened into a second skin.

Spinner and I woke at first light each day and departed without so much as a piss on the thorn bushes, as I carried an abiding unease. I feared Abbard, chevalier Rokash, Benezia or some unknown agent of Lucca or the southern Mane pursued me, and I worried greatly over my dwindling food stores; but there was also something deeper in the unfamiliar country which weighed on me while navigating the pine copses which reclined more and more under steady winds as we scaled the mountain. Clearings of yellow grass grew progressively larger, and the wind now carried a dry summer heat that fell into a cool gale as the sun fell and the world shrank into a starlit campsite the size of a life raft.

Pillows of gray stone marked the distance like the fallen bricks of a clouded ruin, and the many gullies and low stretches of terrain were so overgrown with dense thickets of thorny bushes that we spent half of our days navigating around them as if we were mariners swerving about coral reefs.

In the evenings I would surrender to the fatigue with a stiff back and burning sore calves. I'd not even bother to set up the tent or fire: instead I just managed to tie Spinner to a tree before kicking a few pine cones aside and throwing myself down to sleep on a fragrant bed of dead grass or bristling pine needles which I would go on to shed like ticks throughout the following day.

By necessity my meals became an irregular affair. My food stuffs had been nearly depleted through my own careless consumption prior to my arrival at Ayagozi Pass, so that even my theft from Benezia had hardly bolstered my supplies beyond a few pulls of jerky and a pack of hard tack biscuits—enough to fully feed a grown man for perhaps two days under normal circumstances, yet I knew I had at least another week of travel assuming I did not become hopelessly lost. As a result I ignored my hunger, allowing it to fade into a dull background noise after some initial pangs. Only when its gnawing grew into a headache and hand tremors did I eat, lest I otherwise injure myself while navigating mountain passes by horseback. Worse still, I hadn’t a drop of liquor to drink.

After one such flare up on the third day of my solitary journey I took lunch on a hilltop vista. We were midway up some mountain or another with a horizon of treetops to the north like a sea of moss broken only by the cleared islands of distant farm. My inner craven weighed the worth of making the descent to visit and resupply. But it was a matter of personal principle: I have always possessed a superb ability to vanish from the sight of my troubles, a skill I fear has become almost reflexive at this point, but taking just one step back may have broken my own will. I gritted my teeth and swore again to cross the gates of Dune to discover what my connection to the northern Mane truly was.

Sighing, I reclined back on a gray boulder and jawed a jerky strip with the methodical care of a bovine, savoring every speck of flavor my saliva could soak from the withered meat.

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My dining companion, Spinner, occasionally barked out a snort between rips at the yellowed grass. The mountain air blew light with evergreen past me, clean as when the world was new.

As I chewed my mind wandered back to Benezia, our meeting at Marius' estate, our arguments on the journey, and the way she had softened to me as we neared the pass. Did she know more than she let on about me? The way she looked at me sometimes, fear in those burning eyes the color of sweet merlot—flavored like the kisses she had inflicted on me before her inevitable betrayal. She sparked something in me still, a gentle boiling of the loins, a simmer really. I swore to myself that if I had the opportunity again I would seize her by the shoulders, tell her how I felt, and go for those pouty lips—damn the consequences!

My mind drifted to more forward displays of my affection when a wet snort from Spinner directly into my ear brought me crashing back to reality. I glared into her chocolate eyes and shoved her off me, only to have the unperturbed equine roll her head and return again, snorting over my shoulder until I submitted and gave her nose a good rub and a kiss.

"You're right, good girls deserve love too."

She snorted in exclamation.

By the fifth day we had crested the mountain range, unraveling a new world before me—Elsweyr—the northern scrublands to be specific. They looked as alien as a moon's surface as the mountainside fell below and ended in small rivulets of green which withered into a horizon or rolling clay hills marked by sparse black bushes and the occasional fat trunked tree with too few leaves.

While descending the southern mountain face I made a foolish error that could have easily cost me my life. Nestled by a stoney creek which eked by off a trickle of snowmelt from the peak, I found a wild hedge of bushes laden with powder blue berries. By then I had only a pair of biscuits remaining in my satchel and had become so painfully constipated from a spare diet of exclusively dried goods that sitting upright in the saddle brought on an unbearable aching in my gut as I lurched to and fro (before you amateur outdoorsmen ask, yes this is despite regular water consumption).

I was so desperate to taste something fresh that I succumbed without a second thought and devoured several fistfulls of the tart little things. Within the hour I realized my error as my colon's condition reversed from impacted to protracted; I quickly found myself squatting to wet the dry mountainside under Spinner's pitying eye's.

I was forced to rest for what I think was a full day, perhaps two, as I slept fitfully between alternating shifts of shitting and shaking in turn. I lay curled in a ball, desperate for some comfort. I’d half heartedly slung my tent cloth over a tree branch where it dangled limply before my face as a shield from the ceaseless wind.

As I slept, I lost myself again and again into the dreams which so often plague me when exposed to excessive sobriety. With no drink, and even less strength to stave off sleep, I found myself submerged beneath reality again and again like a soul cast into a heaving sea.

Each false waking found me in my narrow slate-walled dorm room in the Waycrest Guildhall. I was a teenager again and somehow had forgotten that I was to lecture the junior apprentices that afternoon (or was it morning?).

I ran through ash fogged halls that spiraled against gravity, past faceless students in their dark robes. In my haste I crashed into a few, shouting apologies which they seemed incapable of hearing. Eventually I reached the red painted door at the end of the hall.

Here the dreams would diverge, as whatever the lecture hall contained would be revealed anew each time. For brevity I shall recount only my first vision to you as all the others were derivative of it, often with less clarity.

The first time I opened the door to see my father standing alone in his office. Despite my age he still stood twice my height so that his hair brushed the vaulted ceiling. He waved me in with a smile, wordlessly guiding me past rows of gigantic crates spilling over with exotic glasses.

He led me on. I could feel our destination like a rope lead tugging at my heart. Sure enough, on a table by itself lay the Miser’s Mirror. It was wrapped neatly in brown cloth, but I knew what lay within.

My father melted away as I drew off its cover and leaned over the mirror to watch as constellations flashed across the night sky within. Unbidden, my hand took up the mirror (although I felt nothing in my grasp) and shook it so that the stars vanished and a new set of unfamiliar constellations appeared, ugly and crowded. And then suddenly the stars were covered and my reflection lay within. It sickened me.

It was still dark when I woke. The fever had broken and cold sweat soaked my clothes, but a hollow relief eased into my gut as if someone had popped an overfilled air bag within. Whatever evil I had ingested had been worked out and by dawn's golden light I filled water bags with cool stream water for the final time and led Spinner away by her bridle.

I continued onward again, relieved to be traveling downhill.

The going was easier downhill but damned dangerous in parts on account of the dry ridges that were prone to crumble to dust underfoot. My guard was already up as Spinner and I stepped shakily over a particularly stony ledge over a gulch, when my heart froze at the sight of a robed figure outlined against the sky atop a far cliff. The figure dropped from sight by the time I turned to look directly towards it but I saw a small scuff of pebbles raining from the ledge in its wake.

I was being followed.