Episode 3: An Invitation

  Chapter 1

  Daria took off her heavy glasses and closed her eyes, then raised her right thumb and forefinger to massage them through the lids. Dad had said the new pair was about the same as her old one, but she saw the differences—the lenses got blurry at the top instead of at the bottom, and the ache always started in her right eye instead of her left.

  At least Daria could see. Could see, read, and walk without stumbling into somebody. Which also meant she could return to the dreary instructions at Drenlyn Academy.

  She hid from the sun as she so often did, taking shelter in the surprisingly well-stocked Drenlyn library. Safe amidst the dry smell of old paper, the same in Morrowind as it was in Cyrodiil, she returned to work. And to actually see letters again, clear and ordered! Reading felt like breaking a long and unwanted fast, and her eyes devoured page after page as she committed the facts within to memory.

  Which in this case meant memorizing the names of nobles whose greed and ambition had earned them grand titles and places of honor in Great House Hlaalu's semi-annual Yellow Book.

  "Mistress Nevena Ules," she mouthed, "by Grace of ALMSIVI, Honored Councilor of Hlaalu Council, Vvardenfell District, Free Trader, Ules Manor, Suran, Ascadian Isles, Bal Ur, District of Vvardenfell, Province of Morrowind."

  She looked up from the text.

  "And exploiter of forced labor," she whispered.

  "Exploder of forced labor? Huh?" chirped a high-pitched voice behind her.

  Daria flinched. Bad idea to say that part out loud. There was no way to know who might be listening. She slammed the book shut and shoved it into the stack of finished texts. Turning around, she saw Briltasi Talori and let herself relax a bit. The Dunmer girl's saucer-plate-round eyes looked bigger and more vacant than usual. She twirled the strands of one silvery-white ponytail around her finger as she stared, waiting for an answer.

  "It's an Imperial joke, Briltasi," Daria said. Doubtful that Briltasi understood anything, but she had to be careful. Synda still watched. As did the Cammona Tong.

  "Gee, outlander jokes are weird. I don't know why you keep making them when you're in Morrowind!"

  "We Imperials are simple folk who only run a vast continent-spanning polity, far too uncultured to understand the complexities of Dunmer humor," Daria said, not allowing so much as a quantum of emotion into her voice.

  "That is sad." Briltasi's full lips pouted, her eyes thoughtful as if pondering some unquantifiable and slightly tragic mystery of life.

  "It's tough for me too, sometimes," Briltasi said, perking up. "Like right now I can't understand what Sera Benniet wants me to say. Maybe you could help? You and she are both outlanders, so you probably think really alike!"

  "I'll see if I can tap into the vast gestalt that animates all non-Dunmer."

  Briltasi turned her head to the side. "Is that a yes?"

  Daria sighed. Annoying though Briltasi was, there was no chance she'd ever understand Daria's mockery. Which made her safe, or as safe as anyone got in Morrowind.

  "Yes."

  "Great! Sera Benniet wants me to write something about how many people it takes to make a quill pen. I told her it was just one, because usually only one servant brings a quill to you, but she said I should think about it harder. But I've already thought about it really hard, and I have to go to a party tonight! Are there really heavy quills that you need two people to carry, or something?"

  Daria sighed. This was going to be tough. Part of her wanted to give a flippant answer, but she knew the Talori family had some influence in Balmora. It wouldn't hurt to have powerful friends after what happened with Synda.

  "Think of it this way," Daria said. "Where does the feather for a quill come from?"

  "Um, a bird?" Briltasi said, as if she genuinely wasn't sure. She actually might not be. Few birds lived in Morrowind; their ecological role instead assumed by big bugs and flying reptiles.

  "Right. Now, are you the one who takes it directly from the bird? Or does someone else do that?"

  Briltasi put a finger to her lips, tapping twice.

  "I guess someone else does that. I feel bad for the bird though."

  Suddenly a bit more sympathetic, Daria continued. "Quills are usually made from molted feathers, so the bird won't mind."

  "That's a relief!"

  "Anyway, a fowler or a birdkeeper might collect the feathers."

  "Okay. Isn't that just one person, though?" Briltasi asked.

  "Sure. But you can't use a regular feather as a quill pen. A penturner has to cut it so that it can hold ink."

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Got it! Two people!"

  "Maybe more than that. Remember, the penturner has to use a knife to cut the quill. Where did he get the knife?"

  "Uh... from his dinner set?"

  "My point is that the penturner has to rely on tools, which in turn are made from materials mined from the ground, forged by smiths, delivered to merchants, and so forth."

  Briltasi looked down, her ponytails limp and her brow furrowed. "I don't think I understand this."

  Daria resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Just say that a quill pen needs lots of people working on lots of specialized tasks to create. If she asks for more detail, say it needs a fowler, a penturner, a miner, a smith, and probably some more. She'll get it." Maybe. But it was unlikely that an outlander instructor like Benniet would put undue pressure on a Dunmer client. A noble Dunmer client, at that.

  Briltasi's eyes brightened as she scribbled down the simplified notes.

  "Thanks! I wish I could help you with schoolwork, but I only know about important things."

  "If I ever need to know how to look..." Daria had been about to say 'vacuous,' but immediately realized how bad of an idea that was. "...glamorous," Daria finished, the word as foul as oil on her tongue. "I'll be sure to ask."

  "Is your family important?" Briltasi asked. "Like important here, not important back wherever you came from."

  Daria hesitated. What was Briltasi getting at?

  "My mother's an advocate with the Imperial Guild of Barristers and my father is a consultant for local merchants seeking to do business with other non-Dunmer."

  "Hmm, I don't know what all that means, but it sounds pretty important! My dad does a lot of business with outlanders, and he's holding a banquet on Loredas evening. Why don't you all come along?"

  Daria thought about it a moment. A party sounded dreadful, but her family needed allies. Did the Taloris amount to much?

  "Is your dad going to be okay with it?" Daria asked. Seemed odd that he'd allow Briltasi to make decisions, given what she'd heard about Dunmer parents.

  "Daddy says I'm an excellent party arranger! I'll ask him, but I'm sure he'll say yes."

  "Sure, in that case." Not that she wanted to go. But a connection was a connection.

  "Great! I probably won't talk to you too much, but that's not because I don't like you. I just don't have much time for you."

  "Believe me, I'm completely fine with that."

  "There will be a lot of important people there. Kavon, of course," she giggled. "Then there's Elmusa and Llemisa and Synda..."

  Hearing the name "Synda" brought back the blows suffered in that alley, the crack of her old glasses, and the weeks of blindness. Daria was suddenly faint.

  "Don't worry!" Briltasi said, interrupting her endless guest list. "There will be plenty of outlanders too, so you can hang out with your own kind. I wouldn't want you to be lonely."

  Daria could only stammer out a mumbled thanks.

  *********

  The day drew to a close, and Daria put the books back on the library shelves. She looked out the bulbous green-glass window, so much like an insect's eye. No sign of Jane in the courtyard.

  Or of Synda.

  Quinn had already found protection. She'd had no trouble winning a new group of friends, not to mention a trio of male admirers: an Imperial, a Breton, and a Bosmer. Nice to know that blind adoration of Quinn crossed most cultural divides. At any rate, Synda no longer seemed to care about Quinn. Daria had always surpassed her sister when it came to earning enmity.

  Probably safe to leave without waiting for Jane, she thought. Stick to the crowded streets; don't go out of sight of guards...

  Daria leaned against the adobe wall, taking deep and measured breaths until the fear went away. Of course, Synda would be at the party. Her family possessed wealth and influence. And, as Synda had demonstrated, connections to a xenophobic criminal organization active throughout the entire province.

  She spotted Jane leaving Sera Defoe's atelier, Defoe being the only other outlander instructor besides Benniet. Daria hurried out of the library and fell in next to her friend, the two of them soon navigating the dense crowds on the flagstone-covered banks of the Odai River. The late afternoon sun gleamed off the river's murky current.

  "Briltasi invited me to a big Talori family banquet."

  Jane whistled. "Not bad. Between you and your sister, social climbing must run in the family."

  "If it were up to me, I'd have declined. But Mom would kill me if she found out I didn't take advantage of this 'opportunity'. You don't think Briltasi's setting me up, do you?"

  "Nah. Planning something like that requires more brains than she has. And her dad does do a lot of business with Imperial interests. East Empire Company, I think. They made him rich."

  "Nice to know that the most craven of Dunmer natives can find their equivalents among the Imperials. This whole banquet's probably going to be an endless cavalcade of flattery and networking. I wouldn't mind some sane company. I could try to get you in," Daria said.

  "Hmm, that's kind of a long shot. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to go—I could probably get a bunch more clients there. But menials like me usually don't get invited anywhere."

  "You paint awfully well for a menial."

  "A skilled menial is still a menial. Look, I usually only get commissions from outlanders. People like the Taloris don't want to be around foreign-born Dunmer like me," Jane said, the two of them briefly parting ways to make room for a line of barefoot Dunmer pilgrims in rough robes, their smoky voices joined in prayer.

  "What if I talked to Briltasi about letting you in?"

  "It's just not done, Daria."

  "Maybe if..." Daria scanned the crowd, all the sharp gray faces seemingly pointed right at her. Her heartbeat picked up, a cold sweat forming on her back.

  "Is everything okay?"

  Daria turned her gaze forward, her world shrinking to the space within the copper rims of her spectacles. Nothing bad would happen along a main road during the day. "I'd feel a lot better with you there."

  Jane's head lowered for a moment. "Right, sorry. I forgot. But I don't think anyone's going to rob you at a High Town manor party. If they do, it'll be with bad deals and legal forms, not cudgels."

  Probably true. But Jane didn't know the truth of the attack. More importantly, she couldn't know. Telling Jane about Synda and the Cammona Tong might put her in danger. Daria gritted her teeth and stilled her tongue, fear and rage boiling to be let out to knock some deserving heads.

  They passed through a veil of smoke drifting from an outdoor oven, the scent of baking deshaan bread a peppery and momentary delight.

  "How powerful are the Taloris, anyway?" Daria asked.

  "They've got a lot of money. I don't think they're that powerful, though."

  Daria groaned. "Great. So the one time I surrender my ethics for the rat race of social climbing, I pick the wrong family to suck up to."

  "Hey, it definitely wouldn't hurt to have them on your side. None of the big Hlaalu movers and shakers live in Balmora anyway. This whole city's a show they put on to impress foreigners."

  "Can I at least throw rotten fruit at the players?"

  "Sure, just make sure you have an escape plan for when they set the guards on you."

  Everyone back home had described Morrowind as a remote and barbarous province. Some small part of her had hoped there'd be fewer rules to hold her back.

  If anything, it had more rules than Cyrodiil.

  Musical Closer -