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Apotheosis II	By : OneMoreAltmer Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Oblivion Views: 3007 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I didn't create and do not own Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or its characters (except for Tavi, within game format). I make no moneys.

Chapter List
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Ten � In This World of
Shame

Anvil was in an uproar when I arrived, and at first all I
could determine was that people were happy I had �arrived so quickly.�� And that they were greeting me not as
�Arch-Mage� but as �Champion.�
I almost panicked.� No.� No, no, no!�
Not that!
But I regained my reason quickly.� The sky was still a lovely pale blue, cool
with breezes from the sea.� I collected
my wits and asked one of the city guards for the story.
The priests in the Chapel of Dibella had been murdered and
the church itself defaced.� The
investigation was going nowhere, and some crazy old hermit had come into town
and taken up residence in the garden next to the Chapel.� He was babbling about the threat to all
mankind, and the mood was spreading throughout the city: those who believed him
were calling him �the Prophet�.� I agreed
to take a look for myself.
They had not even cleared away the bodies yet:� one even lay sprawled across the central
altar, broken.� But what shook me deep
was the writing scrawled in what seemed to be blood, in letters no one else in
Anvil was equipped to read, because they were Ayleid.
By the eternal power
of Umaril, the mortal gods shall be cast down.
My blood boiled, and my head reeled with unbidden memory.� I knew the name of Umaril, the uniter of the bastard
Ayleid kings against the revolution.� He
whose progress I had come into being to slow, until�ah, yes.� Until Pelinal had cut me down, right along
with everyone else in the city I had failed to flee in time.� Pelinal who had been � I recalled this now
from the talk with Alberic in Chorrol and my reading long ago at the University
� an aedric spirit incarnated to do the bidding of the Nine.� Who had slain me and Umaril, both daedric of origin.
What foolishness was this about Umaril�s �eternal power?�� He was ages dead.� And if he was not, then by Mephala, this time
I would kill him myself.
I shook my head to stop the wild stream of alien
thought.� There was no sense in my
swearing oaths to Mephala, or standing here trembling over Pelinal and Umaril. �I was not Meth � wait, I was Methusiele, but not in the sense that � I shook my head again.� That which was Tavi reawakened in me sang
about the daedric weakness to shock, in the event that I might have another
opportunity to take advantage of it.
Stop!
I was a Silencer in the Dark Brotherhood, here to
investigate a threat to our order and hopefully save the life of my
Speaker.� My oaths belonged to Sithis and
the Night Mother.� There, that was who I
was.
�And yet I dawdled as I left the church grounds, listening
to the ramblings of the old man.�
Listened with growing attention as he warned us that an ancient enemy of
the Nine was rising again and would seek to destroy the church and its people,
unless a champion came forward �
I already was a
Champion, after all �
�to find and take up the relics Pelinal had used and made
holy, now scattered and lost.� The relics
were the only vessels of sufficient sacred power to harm Umaril, and could only
be wielded by someone pure of spirit and beloved of the Nine.� But who, he bellowed, was worthy enough to
seek them out?
�No one,� I muttered, and turned to leave.
I didn�t notice he had stopped his speech until I felt a
hand on my shoulder and turned to see him facing me.� �I know who you are,� he said, and the look
in his eyes was so much like Dagail�s that I wasn�t sure which part of me he
was claiming to recognize.
�Let me go,� I whispered.�
�I am not the pure Crusader you seek.�
�And you have the humility to say so,� he smiled.� �Every would-be savior who has come to me so
far has failed even that first test.�
I opened my mouth to tell him that it was not humility but
knowledge of my guilt, but I was not sure I could make him appreciate the
difference without giving much more detail than I intended to.
�The Nine forgive those who seek with humble hearts,� he
went on, and fumbled in a pouch on his belt, pulling out a crumbled piece of
paper.� This he pressed urgently into my
hands.� �This map shows some of the
wayshrines around Tamriel.� If you
approach each of the Nine in prayer, they will wash you clean, and perhaps then
they will see fit to guide you to the relics.�
Then I would be a �clean� daedric assassin.� There did not seem to be much use in that,
but I nodded quietly in order to escape him.�
Contented, he returned to his preaching as I walked away.� As I walked I pulled out the drop note that
had led me to Ungolim, and without thinking much about it, I put the map into
the bag in its place.
The next orders were supposed to be in a barrel, by the statue
near the northern gate.� If I picked them
up, I would know who the intended victim was� but I would have no way of
finding the author.� I hid myself and
watched instead.
At dusk, a blond Bosmer strolled near the little pond around
the statue.� He tried to look casual as
he went around behind it, looked deep into the barrel for a moment, and then
walked away again.� I followed.
He lived upstairs above the smithy at the other side of the
gate.� When we were safe inside, I made
myself visible again and cuddled up behind him with a dagger to his throat.
�Was there anything good in the barrel?� I purred.
He was already gasping.�
�Please don�t hurt me.�� He tried
to crane his head to look at me.
I pressed in a little with the dagger.� �No, no.�
Don�t turn around.� Just tell me
what you were doing.�
�I� there�s a man.� He
paid me to put some kind of note in the barrel, now he�s paying me to look once
a day and tell him when it�s gone.�
�I see.� Tell me about
this man.�
�I don�t know his name.�
I� I think he�s staying out at the lighthouse.�
�Very good.� Thank you.�
I am going to take my leave of you, then � do not turn around before you
hear the door close, or I will kill you.��
He nodded, a slight but frantic motion:�
I stepped back from him, put my ring back on, and left.
The lighthouse keeper was easier to persuade to cooperation
through simple friendliness.� Why, yes,
there was technically a room beneath the lighthouse that could be rented.� No one ever did, though, and he left it
neglected most of the time.� Certainly I
could have the key if I wanted to look at it more closely, although he
apologized in advance about the smell.�
He�d not yet cleaned up after his last tenant.
The cellar �
I had never seen anything like it, and I had spent much of my
short lifetime dealing with evil cults and murderers.� Bodies of men and animals were strewn
casually about, not even organized or laid out in the calculated way typical of
necromancers.� Just� just left there at
random, filling the closed space with the stench of decay.
Of course, perhaps I had left the lairs of my enemies in a
similar condition, in that regard.

What I had never done was to create an altar for a severed human head, pickled
to preserve its skin.� It was surrounded
by candles and a book.
It was the journal of a mad person.� A man most likely, given the entry about the
woman he�d loved, who had rejected him because of� this head was his mother�s,
and Lucien had killed her on a contract.�
He�d been planning his revenge against Lucien and the Night Mother
herself for all this time� he�d been a member of Lucien�s own Sanctuary at some
point, and had been sent away to be someone else�s Silencer.� He must be the one Lucien had traded for
Gogron.� Unfortunately, the diary did not
tell me whose Silencer he was, or where, and Lucien had never discussed the
names of anyone outside our ranks.
Some pages were random scrawls or ridiculous yet gruesome
poetry.
The madman also gloated at some length about how clever he
had been in changing the drops and using me against Lucien and the Black
Hand.� That was enough to move me past
sickened to angry.� I snapped the book
shut and brought it out of the cellar with me � this was the proof we
needed.� In the hands of someone who knew
the membership of the Black Hand better than I did, it would reveal the real
traitor.
Shadowmere all but flew across Tamriel to the cold little
farmhouse.� To my alarm, there were other
horses tethered beside it.� More than one.
I leapt down and ran toward the door � and it opened before
I could touch it.� Standing in my way was
another Altmer woman, in the dark robe and hood of a Speaker.� �Ah, yes,� she said calmly.� �Methusiele, I presume.� Please, come in.�
I could feel the sparks dancing in my hands.
Fifth Tenet, I
told myself.� Hold.
She read my tension.�
�We do not hold you accountable, Methusiele.� You are in no danger here.�� She stepped aside and waved for me to enter,
seeming to think nothing of the carnage she made visible all over the floor �
of the body hanging from the ceiling.
Lucien.� I was too
late, as always.
It was no cool, professional kill:� it was clearly personal.� They had not murdered so
much as savaged him.� Left him strapped up by his feet, partially skinned and in
pieces.
Had he � had he still been alive when they �
I leaned against the door frame to steady myself.� I hadn�t quite loved him, had sometimes hated
him, but he was, he had been my �
The fools.� The idiots.�
�Did he resist you?� I asked, my
voice almost even.
She sneered.� �He could
not have stood against the entire Black Hand.�
In other words, no.� But that apparently told her nothing:� she assured me that we were all �safe� now
from Lucien�s treachery, her face lit up with a degree of na�vet� I would never
have imagined could exist in the face of a Speaker.
Dead.� Not merely dead:� mutilated.�
They had not waited for the proof.�
They had ripped him apart like they were dremora, even though he was �
well!� Innocent hardly seemed an appropriate word, did it?� I chuckled helplessly.
�I am Arquen,� she told me.�
�I am now the senior member of the Black Hand.� And as you were Lucien�s Silencer, you are
positioned to assume his mantle as Speaker.�
The Sanctuary in Cheydinhal is now yours to restore to glory.� Come, I will introduce you to the others.�
I let her lead me by the hand to where they waited.� The young Dunmer was Banus Alor;�� Belisarius Arius, the older Imperial
gentleman; and Mathieu Bellamont, the peaked-looking Breton.
One of them was the traitor.�
Not Lucien.� The others were still
in danger, more so now that they were off their guard.� But I was angry and shaken, and if none of
them had the sense to ask me the truth of it I was in no mood to offer.� He�d been a viper,
and the source of much of the wreckage of my soul; and yet, still, he�d been
the only friend I had left in the world.�
And now he was gone, just like everyone else who had ever gotten too
close to me.� A fine daughter of Sithis I
was making.� My shadow was his shadow.
I should befriend these last fool Speakers, including the
traitor.� I could wipe out the
Brotherhood itself with my friendship and never have broken the Tenets.
�It remains,� Arquen announced to us, �for us to petition
the Night Mother for her guidance.� We
are cleansed, but without a Listener we cannot proceed with our work.� We must ask her to choose from among us.� Let us proceed to Bravil.�
We were not cleansed.�
As we went out to the horses � as I avoided looking toward the contorted
remains � I asked Mathieu, idly, who had trained him.� He said it was against the custom for us to
speak of it.
A run for the other horses was a canter for Shadowmere, and
she and I arrived in Bravil comfortable and fresh.� It was already dark, an appropriate time to
make the approach to the shrine � the same statue, it turned out, at whose feet I had slain Ungolim.� I was oddly embarrassed.� As Arquen called out the worshipful words of
petition, the statue seemed to contort unnaturally, and with an awful scraping
noise, it moved to reveal a doorway down into the earth.
We walked down into a crypt, the ancient remains of one
adult and several children.� Awaiting us
there was the ghostly form of an old woman.�
She waited until the door was closed behind us before she spoke.
�Fools!� she cried.�
�You come to me unclean!�
I liked her.
�Night Mother,� Arquen protested, �we have eliminated the
traitor!� We ask you to choose your new
Listener.�
�I will not.� Lucien
Lachance was faithful to me, faithful unto death:� he will sleep peacefully in his Mother�s arms.� You have brought a traitor into my presence.�
At that, Mathieu shrieked and started slashing at the other
Speakers.� They were strangely
ineffectual against him, perhaps too unaccustomed to resistance.
�Did I hesitate?� Did
I wonder why I should save them?
Banus fell first, and then Belisarius.� I stood and did nothing, as did the Night
Mother.� I might have let him have Arquen
as well, but the fool came after me next, instead.� He was ill prepared for the likes of me.
Ill
prepared.� I panted and snarled over the
body.� Unworthy of
being the architect of Lucien�s death.�
Unworthy of the Cheydinhal Sanctuary.
�Excellently done,� Arquen murmured.� �I see why he thought so highly of you.�
I turned to stare at her, and considered the ramifications
of going ahead and killing her myself, right in front of the Night Mother.� After all, she�d been a party to � no.� His last order had been to avenge us against
the traitor, and then to do no
more.� I would spare the last of his
killers in deference to his own request, as distasteful as that was.� I would obey the Tenets as he would have
wanted.
As Arquen marveled at Mathieu�s smoldering remains, the
Night Mother beckoned me forward.� �You
have done both of your Mothers proud,� she smiled.� �You are everything that Mephala promised.�
I said nothing.� No
appropriate words presented themselves for what I was feeling.
�Yes, child,� she said.�
�I allowed you to be used to destroy my Black Hand.� I did not expose the traitor.� I have known of his intentions forever.� I will not deny my embrace to those who died
faithful to me, but they were fools not to see him, and I do not reward
foolishness.�
I found myself in agreement.�
I did not regret them.� I felt no
pang of guilt for the deaths of people who had done so much killing themselves,
who had left the body of one of their own broken and flayed so far beyond the
bounds of necessity.
She smiled to see the sentiment in my heart, and told me
that she chose me as her Listener.� She
began to describe my duties, how I would come to her and let her whisper the
names of the doomed to me � �but let there be no dishonesty between us now,�
she said.� �The peace of Sithis cannot be
yours in full.� You have felt by now, I
am sure, how your soul�s daedric essence replenishes itself.� I cannot undo your nature.�
I reeled, denied the only reward I wanted even as she
praised me.� Denied
forever.
This would never be over.�
I could kill everyone in the world, and it would not be over.� I would move past mortals to the daedra, past
them to the Daedric Lords � shatter Azura�s useless mirrors and shred Mephala�s
tangled webs, linger joyously over the broken bones of Dagon � and by then my
thirst for annihilation would be unquenchable, and Sithis himself I would have
to swallow whole.
And once I had devoured Death, how would I kill myself?
There was no way out.�
And thus there was no point to any of this, at all.� I had killed all those people, defiled myself
and the memories of everyone I�d once cared about, and it had been for nothing.
Again the Night Mother intuited my thoughts.� �You do not mean to come to me for the contracts,
do you, child?�� I did not answer, and
she smiled.� �And perhaps that, itself,
is why I chose you.� The Brotherhood
should not recover that quickly.� It needs
time to ponder the price of complacency and failure.� Let them long for my voice and not hear
it!� Even in silence you serve me.� I am pleased.�
Take what you will from this place, and go forth with my blessing.�
Apparently she could not give me the blessing that mattered,
the one for which I had given myself over to this dark path in the first
place.� I was lost.
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Apotheosis II