A Cornered Rat

Delphine
During Diplomatic Immunity, you will find out about Esbern, an old friend of Delphine and only other existing member of the Blades. Delphine will tell you to go to the Ratway in Riften to find him before the Thalmor do.

Locating Esbern
Before you can talk to Esbern, you need to find him. Delphine points you in the direction of an old friend named Brynjolf, who can be found in the Riften market. When you talk to him, he will ask you to perform the simple task of stealing a ring from a box on another booth while he distracts everyone. Whether or not you succeed, he will tell you to meet him in the Ratway under the city. Brynjolf can also be persuaded, with a high enough speech, to skip the test.

If you are not interested in joining the Thieves Guild and don't want to end up with an unfinished quest in your journal, you can also ask the Argonian bartender in The Bee and Barb or go straight down into the Ratway without talking to Brynjolf. Then, either search for Esbern yourself or brawl for the information with the bartender of The Ragged Flagon.

Note: Members of the Thieves Guild can talk to Brynjolf inside the The Ragged Flagon - Cistern to advance to the next part of this quest.

Ratway
Note: Before you enter the Ratway, it is possible to be attacked by Thalmor (2 Warriors and a Wizard) outside the entrance to The Ragged Flagon - Cistern. Inside, after the attack, a spy named Gissur will be identified by Guildmembers and killed. From his body the Dragonborn can loot Gissur's Note. You can also find the Note inside The Ratway.


 * Note: If you killed Gissur at the Thalmor Embassy in the previous quest, he will not appear. Confirmed on PC, Xbox and PS3.

Once you are inside the Ratway, fight your way through a few enemies to the headquarters of the Thieves Guild. Speak to the Guild bartender, Vekel the Man, about Esbern. He will not talk unless you have a high persuasion, 140 gold coins, beat him in a fight, or are the Guildmaster of the Thieves' Guild. Vekel will give you Esbern's location in the Ratway Warrens, with a warning that the Thalmor are looking for him as well.


 * Note: If you are a member of the Thieves' Guild, you may simply enter through the secret entrance in Riften graveyard as you normally would. The bartender will tell you what you need to know without any problems or other requirements.

To get to the Ratway Warrens, you must go through the Ratway Tunnels. Simply turn right, and then go down the hall and turn left. You may have to fight several Thalmor before dropping down into a hole in the ground. When you have descended, turn left and go down until you find the door to the Ratway Warrens.

Immediately entering the Warrens, you will see a large door near the left corner of the room. Go over to it and attempt to open it to engage Esbern in conversation. Tell him that you are the Dragonborn, or tell him the password "where were you on the 30th of Frostfall?", and he will let you in. There is a One-Handed Skill Book: Fire and Darkness in a crate at the foot of Esbern's bed. After conversation, you must lead him out of the Ratway and back to Riverwood. After leaving his room, you will be attacked by a Thalmor mage and soldier. Dispatch them and follow the marker back to the Ratway Tunnels and out to Riften. Take Esbern to the inn in Riverwood to complete this leg of the quest.


 * Note: As Esbern is Essential during this quest, you may wish to drag him along as the extra follower for a while before taking him to Riverwood. If there is any dungeon that you need to clean out, Esbern is the man to bring along. Same thing if you need to visit some Word Walls. Killing any wandering dragon will be a lot easier with Esbern and his conjured Frost Atronachs.

Bugs
NOTE: On PC you can disable the door, the re-enable it through the console command by clicking the door with command open, then entering disable, then enable. Or just leave the door disabled. Tips
 * If you have (perhaps inadvertently) agreed to perform the quest A Chance Arrangement you will be unable to continue this quest until completing that one first.
 * The biggest problem if Esbern is voiceless is that you do not hear him opening the door which takes 30-60 seconds, there are several locks on the door and he comments on each one, SO, if Esbern has no voice just wait 1 minute and the door will open, And if he does have a voice then even after he says it is done it takes 10-15 seconds for the door to open
 * In first conversation, Esbern is voiceless and after the conversation he fails to open the door. This can be sometimes fixed by deleting (BACKUP FIRST!) "Skyrim.ini" and "SkyrimPrefs.ini" from "C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim". All preferences are now default. If everything works it is recommended to set up preferences again rather than overwrite new files with backup.
 * Esbern's voicelessness can be fixed by getting a Voice mod for Esbern. Download the zip file here: ftp://ftp.gamesdot.org/mods/estbern-fix-sound.zip and then Extract it to your desktop so that you can Copy and Paste it in to the Data folder (within folder The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. This will fix all Esbern's voice issues.
 * If this doesn't work try using the TCL command to walk through the door. Shut down the TCL, talk to him, when he starts using the chest kill him. Then you can talk to him again and tell him to lead the way.
 * You might just be unlucky and not even be able to talk to him even if you follow the previous steps
 * After you talk to him, type setstage MQ202 160 and setstage MQ202 170, it'll open the door and make him talkative again
 * Sometimes this quest will fail to start at all and never even show up in your quest log after completing Diplomatic Immunity, in which case you will have to skip ahead to the next quest, Alduin's Wall. In the dev console, type setstage mq203 5.
 * After speaking to Delphine about Esbern, she will direct you to Brynjolf but there will be no mission start and you cannot ask the bartender in the Ragged Flagon of The Bee and Barb about Esbern. Might be a result of having Darkness Returns quest active at the time.(unconfirmed as to if completing will fix this problem)
 * On Xbox 360 Esbern may simply tell you to "go away". This may be an issue with the level of the player. At level 67, the dialogue option with Esbern would not open, but at level 3 it did. It appears that 'The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller' must be completed in full early, completing the 'training' given to the Dragonborn by the Greybeards.
 * If he ever gets stuck again just kill him.
 * Push him by using sprint or Unrelenting Force, to make him walk again if he stops for some reason.
 * If killing doesn't work try failing to pickpocket/place an item.
 * When you get outside he is just as a regular companion.
 * If he gets stuck just start a dialogue with him, keep doing it if it continues.
 * Make sure you kill everything on the way outside beforehand, Esbern instantly summons a Frost Atronach in combat which will get him stuck occasionally.
 * If your follower gets into a fight with him, switch the scene and come back, Esbern will appear as normal again.

Follow this link and do as the OP says http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/786124-skyrim-a-cornered-rat-bug-fix/

"FO3 Archive Utility" seems to work best. Download that from

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34 {C file>open>find your skyrim data folder, pick voicesextra.bsa, extract all to your desktop, move it back to your data folder. You could also try the console command "setstage mq203 1" to skip the quest, but this does not solve the voicee issues.

Крыса, загнанная в угол