Read Lord of Souls: An Elder Scrolls Novel for Free Online

take time and resources, and he wouldn’t be able to work for weeks. He’ll serve me better this way.”
    She knew Kohnu. He was funny, always telling little self-effacing jokes and clowning about with the produce.
    “Chef—” she began.
    He rolled his eyes. “It’s not as if you have to kill him yourself,” he said. Then he left.
    She sat back down, trembling.
    “What am I doing?” she whispered. She needed Glim.

    “What
are
you doing?” Mere-Glim asked the next night, at their weekly meeting. It took place in an old slurry filter, empty and forgotten a few yards below the pantry. From it Annaïg could hear what was going on in the kitchens—which at night was usually nothing—and Glim was only feet away from the tube that would take him back down into the sump, if anyone approached.
    “I’m trying to figure out why we can’t leave,” she told him. “It’s got something to do with the way Umbriel uses souls, I’m pretty sure. At least it’s a place to start. But I can’t just experiment without producing anything, or Toel would start thinking I’m no longer useful. And if that happens, well—it’s over. Just ask poor Kohnu.”
    “You’re doing what you have to do,” Glim said. “You can’t feel bad because of what Toel does.”
    “He might have let Kohnu live if it wasn’t for me.”
    “Might-have and mud are fine places to wallow,” Glim said.
    “That’s easy for you to say,” Annaïg replied. “You haven’t gotten anyone killed.” She clenched her fists. “I’ve gotten a lot of people killed, Glim, not just Kohnu. Everyone in Qijne’s kitchen. And probably Attrebus.”
    “Still no word from him?”
    “No,” she said miserably. “I talked to him just before we tried to escape. He was in our path, Glim. I fear the worst.”
    “You don’t know, though,” Glim said. “He might have lost Coo, or maybe he’s somewhere the enchantment doesn’t work.”
    “Maybe.”
    “But even if something happened to him, it’s not your fault.”
    “If I knew more, had more to tell him—”
    “You’ve done more than he could have ever expected,” Glim replied. “More than I’ve ever done.”
    “Nonsense. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t understand half what I do about this horrible place. You found me, Glim. I couldn’t have found you. And all of those maps—I still don’t know why the skraws helped you with that.”
    “Well,” Glim said, sighing, “I sort of promised them something.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He was silent for a moment. “Do you remember, back when we tried to escape, you said something about having invented a way of breathing underwater?”
    “Sure. Why do you ask?”
    He wiggled his hands in clear agitation.
    “What?”
    “The skraws,” he said at last. “Those who work in the sump, like me—none of them can naturally breathe underwater. They inhale vapors that allow them to, but the vapors are really bad forthem. They live in agony and die young.” He looked up. “I was wondering if you could make them something else, something that won’t hurt them.”
    She thought about that, and then found herself answering carefully.
    “I could,” she said. “It’s easy for me to sneak the things I need to make an ounce or two of anything. But you would need more than that—a lot more than that—to make a difference. I would have to set up a generation vat. I don’t think I can do that without permission, but if I managed to, it would be noticed and I would be in big trouble.”
    “Maybe you can get permission,” he said.
    “If I bring up the skraws, Toel will wonder why I know anything about them and why I care. He considers caring a weakness, and he already thinks I’m about as weak as they come. And he might find out about you.” She paused, and then went on even more cautiously. “Anyway—our goal is to bring Umbriel down, remember? Before it destroys our world?”
    “The skraws don’t have anything to do with that,” he said.