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getting to the rebels there. Sixty were caught and executed last week, along with four of our own men. There’s a leak we don’t know about, someplace. They know too much about our movements.”
    “But in all of that—”
    “Nothing. No Thalmor connections to the east at all.”
    Marall looked sour. He took the other chair in Colin’s nook, slid it toward Colin’s desk, and sat down.
    “Have you seen the reports concerning the flying city?”
    “I haven’t, sir. Since being taken off the Attrebus case—”
    “I’m sorry about that. The more so because you were right about everything. But you made Administrator Vel look foolish, and there you go. At least I managed to get you back on something—eh—important.”
    “I appreciate that, sir.”
    “I’m going to tell you a few things, Inspector, because I hope you may have some thoughts on them. But you understand you may not repeat them.”
    “Of course, sir.”
    “You’re aware, I imagine, of the stories in popular circulation concerning this—Umbriel.”
    “I am. They are based, as I understand, on letters written by Prince Attrebus and sent to his biographers—before he vanished again.”
    “Yes. They’ve rather captured the popular imagination. A flying city from Oblivion, populated by strange creatures, destroying all it passes over and creating an army of living dead from the corpses.”
    “I’ve heard all of that.”
    “Well, we’ve a good bit of information from our scouts now,” Marall said. “It’s all basically true. There are just a few new details. Umbriel—apparently the name of this thing—landed at Lilmoth and proceeded in a straight line toward, it appears, Vvardenfell. It is indeed accompanied by some sort of reanimated corpses, and those who die beneath it also rise again. But here’s the thing—the cities of Gideon and Stormhold were both overrun. Do you see what that means?”
    “Neither lies between Lilmoth and Vvardenfell,” Colin answered after a moment’s thought.
    “Correct. Apparently this army of the walking dead needn’t remain near its creator.”
    “But do they continue to grow in numbers away from the island? Do they reproduce themselves?”
    “That is unclear,” Marall replied. “What we do know is that a large force of them has entered Cyrodiil and seems to be making its way toward the Imperial City.”
    “I see,” Colin said.
    “Are you certain you’ve seen no evidence that they might be colluding with the Thalmor? If they strike from the east, and the Dominion from the west, or up the Niben, we could find ourselves in a very precarious state.”
    “I’ve seen no evidence that the Thalmor are aware of these goings-on, much less that they are involved with them. Why—if I may ask, sir—why do you feel the Thalmor must be involved?”
    “Well, if not them,
someone.
” He tugged at the slight beard under his chin. “You were educated concerning the Oblivion crisis, of course.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “The received wisdom in the highest circles is that Tamriel can never be invaded from Oblivion again.”
    “And yet we have been.”
    “Yes and no. Umbriel is apparently not entirely
in
our world.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “It exists in a sort of pocket of Oblivion.”
    “And yet it can affect our world, obviously.”
    “Yes. But the consensus opinion of both the Synod and the College of Whispers—who never agree on anything—is that even given its strange nature, Umbriel could not have come into Tamriel even so much as it has without being asked.”
    “Asked?”
    “Summoned. Conjured. Facilitated. The sort of wizardry one naturally associates with the Thalmor.”
    Colin nodded. “More than ever, then,” he said, “I think we’re looking in the wrong place. Once it becomes clear we’re being attacked, I have no doubt that the Dominion will take some advantage of it, but in my opinion that would be to consolidate their hold on Valenwood while our attention is elsewhere. They