Episode 5: The Guilded Age

  Chapter 3

  Sunset was no more than a sullen red glow in the west by the time Daria emerged from the Mages Guild with a headache clamoring in her skull. She took off her glasses and massaged her eyes through her lids, fingers sore from rolling scroll after scroll.

  And she'd get to do it again the day after tomorrow.

  Quick steps took her to the Odai where riverfront merchants finished up the day's business, the cool air rumbling with guttural Dunmer voices. That sound mixed with her exhaustion and loneliness to conjure physical memories of pain, and then of Synda's gloating voice. Stupid to worry about that here. The streets were packed with onlookers and guards.

  Still, for all their obnoxiousness, places like Drenlyn and, yes, the Mages Guild did offer a sense of cosmopolitan sanctuary. No one took notice of an Imperial there. Outside, the whole city seemed to draw away and stare at her with those unreadable red eyes.

  She shook her head. Best just to get home.

  Daria returned to find her mother lighting a wax candle before the small household shrine to Julianos. The flame's light reflected on the beads of white and green glass so that the entire mosaic glowed in the evening's soft darkness. Mom put her tinderbox back on the shelf next to the shrine and turned to Daria, her face as remote as a saint's in the candle's glow.

  "If it isn't my daughter, the volunteer! How was your first day?"

  "Great. They put me in a dark basement where I rolled papers into scrolls to see whether my eyesight or fingers would give out first. It was my eyesight."

  "Oh, it couldn't have been that bad."

  Daria looked her mother right in the eyes. "That's all I did. No learning. No magic. Certainly, no networking. But hey, if you wanted a scroll-roller for a daughter, you got one."

  Silence for a moment. "I know it's frustrating. But it's only your first day. I worked with the guild when I was your age, and—"

  "You wanted me to do this to learn how to network, right? Because there doesn't seem to be much of that going on."

  "Be patient. The guild's one of your best options in Balmora. You can't do it alone, Daria, even though you might like to. When's your next day?"

  "Fredas. Most weeks that'd be time spent with Jane, but I guess it's more important for those scrolls to be rolled; my social development be damned."

  "You'll still have time for Jane on Loredas," Mom said, annoyance creeping into her voice. "Anyhow, I made dinner tonight! Bread and tripe, with some Cyrodiilic olive oil, just like what we used to have on Stirk! Your father got the oil from one of his associates, and I can't wait to open it up. It'll be nice to have a condiment that isn't made from mashed-up bugs."

  Daria had to admit it did sound pretty good.

  *********

  Daria returned to the guild at noon that Fredas. An unexpected and persistent drizzle had soaked her clothes on the way there, and she conceded a certain relief at the dry interior.

  The paperwork pile on top of the desk had renewed itself, and she wearily set about rolling each sheaf into a scroll. Her finger bones ached as soon as she began. At least no one slept on the cot that day.

  Time stood still in the untangling of twine and the crinkling of paper. A pyramid of scrolls grew on the floor next to Daria's chair. The contents of the papers offered no relief, memo following requisition following memo. She imagined the immensity of Tamriel's forests: their mighty timbers fallen and rendered into pulp, then dried out in the heat of the sun, refined and processed into usable sheets, and then sent to dozens of offices across the Empire just like this one so that an exhausted guild associate could write out a request for more paper. And so, the cycle continued.

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  After some time—how long, she had no idea—she heard Hetheria's low voice. Daria turned to see the associate talking to a Dunmer woman in dark velvet robes.

  "Given my already considerable tasks," Hetheria said, "it's difficult for me to pursue my research—"

  "That's not my problem. Your research is to be done on your own time. We aren't going to coddle you just because of your family."

  "Certainly not, Warlock Athrys. Forgive my impetuousness."

  Athrys made a dismissive gesture. "I expect the report on my desk by tomorrow morning."

  Hetheria waited until the Dunmer woman turned away before she made a face, and then leaned against the backrest of her chair to stare at the ceiling. As if sensing Daria's observation, she turned to look.

  "Hey, Volunteer... Daria, right?"

  "I am called by that name."

  "Yeah, so maybe you could help me with something?"

  Daria pushed back from the desk and walked over to Hetheria, who was suddenly all smiles and light. "So you can write and stuff, right?"

  "I possess basic literacy. And stuff."

  "Warlock Athrys needs me to write a report, but I don't have time. I'm working with other associates to refine the recall spell, plus I'm running behind on my original research—and I did not settle for Balmora just to stay an associate for the rest of my life! Maybe you could write these reports?"

  "Maybe. I know some of the theory behind magic, but I don't have much personal experience with it."

  "You don't need to for this."

  "What's the report about?"

  Hetheria raised herself from her chair and glanced over the nearest partition. Satisfied, she sat back down. "It's about unlicensed use of magic in Balmora," she whispered. "So it's not really work for volunteers, but I figure you're really smart—"

  "Not for volunteers, huh?" Daria crossed her arms. "I guess that means I can't do it for free." She didn't like flatterers, anyway.

  Hetheria's face suddenly hardened. "All right. I have money."

  "Judging by that Dunmer woman's remarks about your family, I'd gather you have quite a lot of it."

  Her glower intensified.

  "Then let's talk shop. How long does this report need to be?"

  "Four or five pages. It's just a summary. The information you need is all here." Hetheria pointed to a slender packet at the edge of her desk. "You won't have to do any original research."

  "What about handwriting? I haven't learned forgery. Yet."

  "I'll copy what you write."

  "Okay. Twenty septims," Daria said.

  "Ten."

  "Fifteen."

  "Fine!" Hetheria's eyes narrowed. "But you have to make it look like something I'd write. You can use this old report as a sample."

  Hetheria reached into a desk drawer and took out another stack of papers. With her free hand, she picked up the packet from before and handed both items to Daria. "Don't tell anyone about this."

  "Your secret's safe with me."

  "And you still have to roll those scrolls, by the way."

  Daria frowned. "Wait, what?"

  "Look, that's your job here! If you don't do that, people will wonder what you're doing. Stay late to finish that, but do the report now."

  "I should've stuck to charging twenty," Daria muttered as she headed back to her desk.

  At least this work promised to be a bit more interesting. She first looked at Hetheria's sample report, which began with a lengthy preamble giving the date, location, and the guild's official title. The contents dealt with the slow progress of an associate named Ajira. Daria noted elements of Hetheria's style—her preference for multiple adjectives and her omission of the Imperial comma. The layout was simple, each section getting its own overly elaborate heading.

  Satisfied, Daria put it aside and started looking at the notes for the not-yet-written report. Those offered something a bit more interesting. Rumors had been swirling about a Nord woman, one Johanna, offering cheap arcane services to residents in Labor Town. Whoever had assembled the notes seemed pretty sure that Johanna was not a member of the guild and that by providing services—worse, charging for them—she was in violation of standard practices.

  "Surveillance recommended," it read.

  Daria went about turning a single sheaf of notes into a needlessly verbose four-page report in Hetheria's style. It was not always easy to expand on the document's terse observations, but she did her best. Hetheria's own wordiness helped, though Daria winced at some of the extra adjectives she had to insert for authenticity's sake.

  When finished, she walked to Hetheria's desk and showed her the report. The associate gave her a startled look.

  "That was fast! This better be worth what I'm paying."

  "Hand it over, and you'll find out."

  Hetheria scowled. They made the exchange, and Hetheria scanned the report's contents.

  "Huh, you did a pretty good job," Hetheria said.

  "Like any good counterfeiter, I take pride in professionalism."

  "Great. Go back to rolling scrolls."

  It was night when Daria left the office. Spent rainclouds blotted out the stars and the moon, the air damp and heavy on her shoulders. Oily shadows submerged the narrow street outside the guild, the darkness barely kept at bay by the feeble glow of dirty lanterns.

  The deal she'd made with Hetheria suddenly seemed very foolish. But it didn't sound like copying was such a big deal. Everyone knew that guilds swam in corruption.

  Daria had failed to network. If anything, she'd annoyed Hetheria. She'd gotten paid, though, and wasn't money the whole reason anyone networked? The only difference was that Daria knew how to get straight to the point.

  She gripped her coin purse to keep it from jingling as she made her way back home.

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