The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel

by KEYES, GREG

• ISBN13: 9780345508010
• ISBN10: 0345508017
• Edition: Original
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-24
• Publisher: Del Rey

Summary

Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadowufor wherever it falls, people die and rise again. And it is in Umbriel's shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest . . . . Based on the award-winning The Elder Scrolls, The Infernal City is the first of two exhilarating novels following events that continue the story from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, named 2006 Game of the Year.

Author Biography

Born in Meridian, MS, in 1963, Greg Keyes spent his early years roaming the forests of his native state and the red rock cliffs of the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona. He earned his B.A. in anthropology from Mississippi State University and a master's degree from the University of Georgia, where he did course work for a Ph.D. He lives in Savannah, GA, where, in addition to full-time writing, he enjoys cooking, fencing, the company of his family and friends and lazy Savannah nights. Greg is the author of The Waterborn, The Blackgod, the Babylon 5 Psi Corps trilogy, the Age of Unreason tetrology (for which he won the prestigious "Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire" award), and three New York Times bestselling Star Wars novels in the New Jedi Order series.

Excerpts

Chapter One


A pale young woman with long ebon curls, and a male with muddy green scales and chocolate spines, crouched on the high rafters of a rotting villa in Lilmoth, known by some as the Festering Jewel of Black Marsh.

“You’re finally going to kill me,” the reptile told the woman. His tone was thoughtful, his saurian features composed in the faint light bleeding down through the cracked slate roof.

“Not so much kill you as get you killed,” she answered, pushing the tight rings of her hair off her face and pressing her slightly aquiline nose and gray-green gaze toward the vast open space beneath them.

“It works out the same,” the other hissed.

“Come on, Glim,” Annaïg said, tossing herself into her father’s huge leather chair and clasping her hands behind her neck. “We can’t pass this up.”

“Oh, I think it can be safely said that we can,” Mere-Glim replied. He lounged on a low weavecane couch, one arm draped so as to suspend over a cypress end table whose surface was supported by the figure of a crouching Khajiit warrior. The Argonian was all silhouette, because behind him the white curtains that draped the massive bay windows of the study were soaked in sunlight.

“Here are some things we could do instead.” He ticked one glossy black claw on the table.

“Stay here in your father’s villa and drink his wine.” A second claw came down. “Take some of your father’s wine down to the docks and drink it there.” The third. “Drink some here and some down at the docks . . .”

“Glim, how long has it been since we had an adventure?”

His lazy lizard gaze traveled over her face.

“If by adventure you mean some tiring or dangerous exercise, not that long. Not long enough anyway.” He wiggled the fingers of both hands as if trying to shake something sticky off them, a peculiarly Lilmothian expression of agitation. The membranes between his digits shone translucent green. “Have you been reading again?”

He made it sound like an accusation, as if “reading” was another way of referring to, say, infanticide.

“A bit,” she admitted. “What else am I to do? It’s so boring here. Nothing ever happens.”

“Not for lack of your trying,” Mere-Glim replied. “We very nearly got arrested during your last little adventure.”

“Yes, and didn’t you feel alive?” she said.

“I don’t need to ‘feel’ alive,” the Argonian replied. “I am alive. Which state I would prefer to retain.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hff. That’s a bold assertion,” he sniffed.

“I’m a bold girl.” She sat forward. “Come on, Glim. He’s a were- crocodile. I’m certain of it. And we can get the proof.”

“First of all,” Mere-Glim said, “there’s no such thing as a were- crocodile. Second, if there were, why on earth would we care to prove it?”

“Because . . . well, because people would want to know. We’d be famous. And he’s dangerous. People around there are always disappearing.”

“In Pusbottom? Of course they are. It’s one of the dodgiest parts of town.”

“Look,” she said. “They’ve found people bitten in half. What else could do that?”

“A regular crocodile. Lots of things, really. With some effort, I might be able to do it, too.” He fidgeted again. “Look, if you’re so sure about this, get your father to talk Underwarden Ethten into sending some guards down there.”

“Well, what if I’m wrong? Father would look stup

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Excerpted from The Infernal City by Greg Keyes
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