The Language Of Dragons-A Skyrim Story

8. The Cage

I could feel the heal others spell now, it's power coursing through my veins. Miraak seemed happy as he tried to turn fully towards me but winced from a pain in his side that he held with his hand. It was time for me to use the spell now, so I held out both my hand towards him and concentrated on the power, calling it forth. For some reason I was surprised when my hands started to glow, a warm yellow light, not like fire but like the sun on a summers morning, from the palms of my hands I felt a slight buzz of energy.

"You did it." Miraak said. I didn't realise it but I had closed my eyes and when I opened them he had completely healed. He was ecstatic, wether that was because he was healed or because he had gotten me to learn a spell, I didn't know. "Now we just have to get out of here." I answered.

"Do you have a plan Alye." As he said it I was instantly taken back to our argument where we had practically vowed to share our plans with each other , from what I thought was the previous day. "How long was I out for." I asked. "Three days, it took a whole day to get here."

"I was asleep for three days," realisation hit me then, "and...and they tortured you for three days?" He just responded with a half nod, more of a dip of the head than anything. "Why were they torturing you, it's not like you just have some massive world changing information?"

"Even though I was in charge of them for a while, they hated me and only swore allegiance to me because I was Mora's champion," a crease formed between his eyes and I saw his fists clench at his sides, "so I have a feeling that they tortured me just because they just wanted too and because Mora wants me dead anyway." I felt so sorry for him, the majority of his life he had spent in Apocrypha working for a being he was tricked into working for. "Well i suppose we should get going then, but to do that I need you to see if you can open the hidden pocket on the side of my boot, there is a lock pick in there and I couldn't reach it myself because of the metal shackle in the way."

"Why do you keep it in your boot? That's a bit weird you know."

"I keep it in my boot in case of a situation like this," I stated "oh and also it's not like hiding lock picks in boots is weirder that fighting people with magic tentacles, is it." He chuckled at that and with out any warning grabbed hold of my boot and pulled it towards him, and me with it. "HAY, what was that for." I yelled as quietly as I could as I skidded across the floor. "Well you want me to get this lock pick don't you."

He found the pocket on my boot and pulled out a hand full of lock picks, "By the Dadra, how many lock picks do you have in here?"

"Umm a few."

"I literally have twelve in my hand right now."

"Ok for one, they are all for different things and you never know what type of look you are going to come across, secondly picking locks is like an art so you can never have too many."

I took the picks out of his hand placed one of them into the key hole at my wrist and with a quick movement it sprang open leaving my hands free. I then unlocked my feet the same way and moved over to Miraak to do the same.
I didn't say anything as I sat in front of him and and took his hands in mine. He was freezing cold, so cold I felt my hands almost flinch at the touch. I placed a lock pick into the key hole and I noticed my hands were more shaky than they were when I was unlocking my own shackles but why could that be. It must be the poison wearing off I thought but then Miraak spoke and I couldn't help notice that there was a slight shakiness no his voice when he muttered "I tried to wake you, you know."

"Wake me when?"

"They thew me in here a few times with you when they had tired of torturing me, and I tried to wake you up but you wouldn't."

I felt my hands grow shakier as he said that and I released an unsteady breath. I felt like I needed to change the subject so I asked "How is it that you woke up first."

"They sort of partially healed me, not enough to remove the poison completely but enough to keep me awake." I looked up at him then, his dark eyes, bright like obsidian stone. The lock sprang open and I felt my breath catch in my throat when it did.

"Oh I didn't realise your feet weren't shackled" I said, as I looked down to where the lock should have been.

"Well it would be kind of hard to run away with two broken legs."

"They broke your legs?" I almost shouted. "Yes, but they are fine now."

I felt my hands clench at my sides an my brows furrow as I moved over to the lock on the gate and opened the lock with in a few seconds. "Let's get out of here."

We both walked out of the cage and turned the corner in the rock. Crouching down I cast my bow spell and got ready to fire as we rounded another corner. We were in the door way of a square shaped room with a tiled floor, there were chains attached to the walls in several places, blood splattered on the floor that I couldn't help thinking might have been Miraak's blood, and in the centre of the room were four cultists stood around a table, a table littered with our weapons. I drew the string on my magic bow and aimed for the man's head, I took a deep breath and calmed my self and let the arrow fly. As soon as I released the arrow I nocked another one on the string and sent it to the next man.

As I shot the third cultist Miraak ran past and pushed the last one to the floor, grabbed my dagger from the table and shoved it in the man's chest. I quickly moved over to the table where I equipped my things, but "There are things missing, the shards of mask, the skeleton key and the black book."

"I have a feeling Alye, that if we are going to get them back we are going to have to go further into the cave." At that we both looked to the dark arch in the wall to our right, leading into the depths of the cave and knew this was going to take longer than we thought.