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Apotheosis I	By : OneMoreAltmer Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Oblivion Views: 2266 -:- 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.

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Thirteen � Severance

Morning brought him a sense of haste, and he pulled me from
the bed with noises about things to be done �while we both still had the
courage.�� I pulled on another of the
assorted robes I�d enchanted with shields when bored at the University.� We took a quick meal of what was left from
the night before and rode back up to the Temple.
When we arrived, he banished all foot traffic from the main
hall and began to bring out the items I had collected for him, leaving me to
set the Great Sigil Stone in the place he instructed.
He did not pause from hurrying around the room placing the
artifacts as he spoke.� �The ritual
itself is surprisingly straightforward, so once everything is set it should not
take long.� But once you are through, we
may not have much time.� I am making yet
another rend in the veil between us and Oblivion, and
I do not know how much more it will bear.�
Are you ready?�
So he was going to do the ritual himself.� He hadn�t come up with any other answer.� Of course I hadn�t either, and I realized
with some hopelessness that there was no point in stopping to argue about it
now.� He could not relight the
Dragonfires without the Amulet, and could not retrieve the Amulet without
risking his life on this spell.� We were
trapped.
He stopped and looked at me, and smiled a little, seeming
grateful that I was not going to fight him.�
�Why do you suppose I began as a conjurer, Tavi?� So that I would know my
enemy, and so that I would have the knowledge and the power to send you through.� The gods will not let it be for nothing.� I will be here when you come back.�� He touched my cheek.� �She did not say I would be struck dead instantly, you know.�
�I know,� I said, although I knew no such thing.� I had no power to change his mind once it was
set, so nothing remained but to do what he asked of me.� �I�m ready.�
He nodded.� �I believe
that you will have to kill Mankar Camoran to get back.� I cannot hold the way open for you once
you�re through.�� He watched for my
assent, sighed, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he began to
concentrate.� I felt the energy of the
room shift as he dropped his consciousness into the spell and began to make
arcane gestures with his hands.� The
inhuman words of command flowed with a seductive ease past his throat and
tongue � strangely beautiful, I thought:�
had I been a daedra I would have answered such a summons � and I could feel, before I saw, the tear forming in
the space between us.� It widened and
filled with a pale light, and I stepped through.
Hear and understand this, Tamriel, if nothing else:� �Paradise�
was a flower-choked prison.� Lovely,
yes:� filled with the golden light of
morning, flush with trees and grasses and rare blossoms.� And also with atronachs and dremora keeping a
watchful eye over the misguided souls who had become their slaves.� There were men and mer wandering the garden who had died in service to the Mythic Dawn (I even met the
Bosmer girl I had found dead in my room at Leyawiin), all wandering dazed and
cowering before their captors.� A few had
not yet abandoned their illusions, but most were beginning to understand that
the riches and power Camoran had promised them were lies.
And this, you must know, was the pleasant side of Paradise.� Her
other face still awaited.� I had to fight my way through the atronachs
and the daedra, although few of the poor fool cultists resisted me.� What spurred me forward in especial fury was
that Mankar Camoran�s voice greeted me, echoing from nowhere and everywhere.
�So at last the Champion of Cyrodiil comes to challenge
me!� It is only fitting that you have
come, my dear, the last fading strength of the old era sacrificed in midwifing
the birth of the new.� Come to me, and
before you meet your honorable fate I will tell you the real import of the
moment you have been sent to witness.�
It was as bad as his writing.� Perhaps he had written his speech ahead of
time:� it did not sound like a
spontaneous utterance.� I trembled from
hating him so completely.� I was going to
kill him horribly � and then, if Martin was not waiting safely upon my return,
I was going to hunt Mankar�s soul down in whatever pit of the damned it was
thrown into and eat it.
He had told me to come to him, but he did not make the way
obvious.� I scoured a good portion of his
island fiefdom before I stumbled onto the cave entrance I needed, and here
there was a sentry posted.

The daedra raised his hand to me and approached me.� �No mortal passes through the channel to the
Forbidden Grotto except by my leave,� he said in his awful gargling voice.� But he raised his hand again as I obligingly
reached for my sword.� �I am Kathutet,�
he said.� �I have heard of
you�Tintaviel.� You have slain many of my
kind and gained great renown.� For a
mortal you are competent.�
I had never seen a dremora hesitate or make peaceful
talk.� I stood and listened, not sure
what else to do with it.
�You cannot pass through without the Bands of the Chosen upon you,� he went on.� �You may fight me for them, and it will gain
me honor to kill you.� But it will also
gain me honor to make you bow to me.� I
have a task.� Obey and I will give you
the Bands.�
I smiled.� He really
ought not to have given me the choice if he meant to take that tone with
me.�
When he was dead, I took the Bands and approached the door,
but it would not open to me.� Ah, I had
to have them on me.� I clicked them into
place, and as the way slowly opened, I saw the familiar red glow that marked most
of Oblivion.
Camoran was still talking, now about the ancient majesty of the
Daedric Lords and their superiority to the gods who had �merely� created the
world and were thus confined by it.� Ugh.
Inside were molten streams with metal cages hanging over
them, some containing charred remains � which made no sense to me.� These were the
dead:� how could they be killed again?
�Champion!� a hooded figure hissed to me from ahead.� �Come, and I will explain everything.�� With a shock spell dancing on my fingertips,
I stepped forward.� The speaker was an
Altmer boy � of course an Altmer boy! � who regarded
me with a peculiar mixture of hope and dread.
�Kill me and I will only return to life,� he warned.� �Such is the infernal curse of this place.�
Then he explained that he had been one of those responsible
for opening the Gate at Kvatch, and that he had died there, puzzled at how hard
the people fought to defend their corrupt lives against the coming
purification.� (It was good that he had
warned me against killing him, although I played with the thought of trying it
once to make sure.)� When he had failed
to show proper appreciation for his slavery above ground he had been
transferred to the job of torturing these even unluckier souls, with the
warning that failing an improvement of attitude he might join them.�� Camoran�s powers had granted them a daedric
flesh such as was needed to dwell permanently in such a realm:� and so, like daedra, they could be tortured
or killed and then renewed at their point of origin endlessly.
Daedric spirits are built to endure that kind of mental
strain:� men and mer are not.
�We did not understand,� he whined.
�That was very foolish of you.� The mighty never give their power away for
nothing.� They use it as a lure to
attract more to themselves.�
�Let me help you reach him,� he whispered.� �You will need me.� I can remove the Bands.� You will never be able to leave here wearing
them.�
I allowed him to lead me through � and still Camoran kept
talking.� Now he was saying that in truth
the gods had not even created the world at all, that it was itself a Daedric
realm that had been stolen and that Mehrunes Dagon was poised to liberate and reclaim in the name of the
Daedric Lords.� (As if they were all of
one mind!� I knew better than that.)
He never showed any awareness of where I was or what I was
doing, so perhaps his ability to sense me was limited to knowing my presence or
absence.� Or he did not yet care.� Or perhaps he was just too enamored of his
own words to pay attention.
The fool boy � Eldamil was his name � was true to his offer
and took me through the first half of the dungeons more or less without
incident.� I only had to kill the dremora
he answered to, and that only because I did not trust Eldamil quite enough to
cooperate with his plan to have me pretend to be an imprisoned cultist.� After that I had to fight the other daedra in
our way, but that was not a grave concern for me.� Almost all are vulnerable to shock, at which
I excelled.
And still, Camoran!�
Did he believe half of what came out of his own mouth?� Did he never stop talking?
At last Eldamil removed the Bands from my wrists, pointed
the way that led out to the mountain villa where Camoran resided, and asked my
leave to come with me and continue to assist.�
I assented:� he had been useful so
far, and if I got him killed I would not have to feel very sorry for him.� If he died and it took, I would even be doing
him a favor.
Outside we re-emerged into false loveliness, and our trail
led up to a hall in the Ayleid style.� I
actually clucked my tongue at Fate�s grand redundancy.
We were met by the Camoran children.� I thought I recognized their faces, and that
I remembered killing both of them, but of course, Mankar would have been able
to clothe them in new daedric flesh just like all his other followers. They
offered to lead us in to see their father.�
I had only seen Mankar once, from a distance and in poor light, but the
faces of his children affirmed to me that he would be, indeed, yet another
Altmer � and this one long-winded.� I
began to wish I had taken Mephala�s dagger so I could use it to cut out his
tongue.
�Keep them busy,� I whispered to Eldamil, �and I will focus
on Mankar.�� He nodded.
The architect of all our troubles sat enthroned and wearing
his robes, his staff ready by his side.�
He could not wear the Amulet, but he held it in his left hand, as if to
taunt me with it.
Fool.� Now he could
not hold a weapon.
He was actually opening his mouth to speak again when my
first arc of lightning struck him.
There were immediately sounds of struggle behind me, Eldamil
keeping his promise by fighting the others.�
Freed from that concern for the moment, I drew my sword and ran forward
to meet my nemesis, shock still dancing through my hand, down the blade, and
into him.
He was fast, and strong in his shields, and it was a struggle
to pin him down for long enough to hurt him.�
But in the end, I could hurt him with much more ease than he could hurt
me.� He was a brilliant conjurer, and
that was his undoing.� A conjurer is
defenseless without his servants, and I had already torn my way through them
all to find him.� I was a destroyer, and
when the raw elements danced between us, they danced for me.
He fell, and I dropped to my knees roaring with joy to take
the Amulet and the staff.� But with his
death, the little world maintained by his power began to collapse in on
itself.� The walls cracked and crumbled
around me, and the ground itself gave way, and Mankar�s body and I were falling
through blackness�
He, into the Oblivion he had courted and championed.� I, into Cloud Ruler
Temple, still roaring,
with my prizes in my hands.
And there Martin stood, eyes wide, face slowly registering
his pleasure and relief.� Still alive
himself, and not instantly struck dead, just as he had promised.
I felt myself on fire.�
I could not speak, but held the Amulet up in my right hand.� I paced toward him with it raised, and he
inclined his head and let me drop it around his neck.� It sparked to life on his chest, brilliant
red.� He put an arm around me to embrace
me and I reciprocated, but it was almost an absent gesture: we were both in too
fey a mood to give it our usual attention.
�I�d read,� he said softly, �that the souls of all the
Emperors were ensconced in this gem, back to Saint Alessia.�� He was staring down at it, stroking it with
one fingertip.
I scowled.� �So after
you serve the Empire, your reward will be imprisonment in a glorified soul
gem.� It isn�t fair.�
�That�s not quite what it really is,� he said.� �Now that I have it, I know.� It is like�a conduit between our world and
Aetherius.� That is where they are, and
they reach us, reach each new Emperor, through the Amulet.�� He paused.�
�I can hear them speaking to me.�
I was fascinated.�
�What do they say?�
He looked up at me as if he had never seen me before.� Then he took my head in his hands and kissed
my forehead, ever so softly.� �They say
we must hurry,� he whispered at last.� �My shining Altmer lady.�
Follow me this step further.�
Of course.� I would follow him anywhere.
While I had been gone he had sent a messenger ahead to Ocato
to be ready for his arrival, assuming my success.� The presence of the High Chancellor was
necessary to make the coronation legal:�
but all unneeded pomp and circumstance was to be put aside.� We rode down with a small contingent of the
remaining Blades, through the night and into morning without rest.� Although the leader of the Mythic Dawn was
dead, Martin feared that Camoran�s followers would not all give up their plan �
might not all even know what had happened for some time yet �� and that the damage already done might
be worsening by the moment.
We arrived in the city and were met with noise and bother
from the crowd, and the Blades had to push them out of our way.� We moved as quickly as this would allow into
the Palace District and to the chambers where Ocato should be waiting.
I had already developed an ambivalence
toward Ocato, and that combined with our hurry did not incline me to be subtle
or gentle as I strode in ahead of the others.�
�Martin Septim approaches!� I shouted.
Ocato was alone at the great round table in the center of
the room; he rose and lifted his chin in self-satisfied greeting.� �Martin Septim, you say!� he intoned, as if I
had not come before bearing the Emperor�s seal and informing him of the needs
of Uriel�s heir.� Perhaps some part of
him had not quite believed it.
But Martin entered with Blades flanking him:� and he was wearing the Amulet, which
glimmered on him, and he had the purple robe appropriate to this occasion flung
over his shoulders, and the gleam of purpose in his eyes; and any doubts Ocato
might have been entertaining fled.� He
bowed and stammered and welcomed Martin to his city and his palace.� They exchanged the required formal words of
acknowledgment, Ocato bowing and scraping the while, Martin doing all he could
within the gravity of the moment to move things along.
They had finally come around to making noises about
proceeding to the Temple
of the One when we began to hear the screams outside.� The pair of Blades waiting at the door behind
us barred it shut and ran to us, forbidding us that exit with the word we had
least wanted to hear.� Daedra.
Martin�s gaze turned fierce.�
�The quickest way to the Temple!�
he cried, looking at Ocato.� The
Chancellor silently turned, gestured us to follow, and ran.� Behind us, I heard the doors give way, and
turned to see dremora entering to pursue us.�
I paused to help the Blades against them, and had to run hard to catch
up with Martin and Ocato.
Outside the palace, the sky was dark, bloody red and
beginning to thicken with smoke from fires we could dimly see over the
walls.� It was more than should have
happened so quickly with one Gate, more than we had seen even at Bruma.� But no Gate was visible to us in the Palace
District, and our only thought was to reach the door to the Temple District.
That had been the primary target,
it was obvious as soon as we arrived.�
Multiple Gates poured color and smoke into the air, and daedra over the
ground.� Our Blades marched forward
sternly to their doom, and Ocato, bless him, began to pound down our enemies
with flurries of hail.� He was another
destruction mage, though a lesser one than myself.� There was no time for any thought of closing
these Gates:� we would have to settle for
beating back the daedra for long enough to reach the Temple of the One before �
Only there was no longer such a thing as �before.�� What there was instead emerged from behind
the once-beautiful white dome of the Temple,
nearly as tall as it was, ten men high, four-armed like Mephala, and as red as
the rest of his realm.
Mehrunes Dagon, in Tamriel.
I did not remember grasping Martin by the arm, but I was
holding it when he spoke, as we both stared up at the Daedric Lord.� �The veil is down,� he said.� �It doesn�t matter now if the Dragonfires are
lit.� He is already here.�
�We have to do something!�
The Amulet!� What do the Emperors
tell you?�
He paused for only a heartbeat, and then his face
hardened.� �I understand.� I know what I was born to do.�� He glanced sideways at me, putting his hand
for just a second over mine, then removing it to the
hilt of his sword.� �Clear me a path,
Tintaviel.�
He did not have to ask me twice.� I leapt forward, weaving the elements into
the space before me, twisting them into long ropes of power that lashed out to
each side of us as we ran.� I did not
concern myself with what, or even who, lived or died as we passed by, and I
trusted Ocato and our dwindling supply of warriors to give us cover from
behind.� I only blasted and ran�and ran
toward Dagon.
His blazing eyes turned down toward us as we neared the
doorway to the Temple,
and he raised one foot as if to crush us beneath it.� Martin cried out to me and ran toward the
door.
I stood; and what I thought as I stood did not seem like my
own voice.� You implied our consent but did not gain our permission.� We decide in favor of the compact:� we decide in favor of the Dragon.� And then I released a shock full of all the
magicka I had left, straight up into the sole of his foot.
I saw the sparks dance up through his leg, further than I
would have imagined I could send them, and he stood still and shook his head,
perhaps dazed.� Martin had gotten inside,
and I ran to join him.� He had approached
the altar in the center, but saw me, and ran back to grab me by the arm and run
with me to the opposite side of the round room, away from the door.
He looked into my eyes, solemn and sad in defiance of the
panicked nature of the moment.� �I cannot
stay to rebuild Tamriel.� I cannot � � he choked on a pain I could not yet understand.� �Remember everything I said, Tavi.� It will still be true.�� He kissed me quickly on the mouth, stifling
any question I might have thought to raise.�
And then he said, �I must go.� The
Dragon waits.�
I stood there as he ran back to the altar, too confused by
the speech to know what I needed to do.�
I could already hear the walls around the door cracking; they began to
collapse, and I saw Dagon�s hands tearing them down.� I screamed for Martin � and that was when I
saw him bring up his sword and smash the pommel into the Amulet in his other
hand.� A light exploded out from it that
threw him upward, encased and then filled him as I continued to scream �
And then he was gone.�
Gone for one painful heartbeat, and in the next, the avatar of Auri-El
appeared, the vast and golden dragon, and blasted Dagon with its terrible
light.� The Daedric Lord replied with his
own fire, dull and dark by comparison.�
They wrestled, the dragon biting and shaking at Dagon�s throat as he
pounded it with all four hands.� Auri-El
broke free first, and fired light again at the Daedric Lord, and again, and
with one more great blast, the image of Dagon reeled back, crumbled into smoke,
and was gone.
I stood there, the lone mortal witness, as the avatar bowed
its head, gasping, as if its strength had been tested.� Still also Martin.� Still also my love.
Its head craned upward again, and it screamed.� I could feel the power radiating forth all
around us, the veil between us and the Daedric realms being renewed.� The dragon screamed its triumph.� Did I only imagine that Martin was still
there within it?� Did I imagine that in
the scream I also heard his grief?
All at once the light faded, cracked and broke, from the
chest outward:� the dragon went horribly
still as the scream became a shattering noise, and when all light and sound was
gone, a great statue remained, still contorted in the same living throes of
Auri-El.
I stood there, unmoving.�
There was nothing else I could do but stand, staring up at the terrible
frozen thing, wondering if the gods would actually have been so cruel as to
entomb my lover�s soul in that stone forever.�
No:� I would have felt him there.� Then I wondered, for one crazed moment, if
perhaps I had misunderstood what I had seen, and Martin was nearby somewhere,
alive.
No.
Perhaps I was dead too.�
I did not feel my breath or my heartbeat.� Perhaps at any moment now, Auri-El�s light
would realize it had left my spirit behind and come back for me.
I became dimly aware that Ocato had arrived and was talking,
and with that came the awareness, once and for all, that Martin was dead and I
was alive.� The worst of all possible
outcomes � worse, for me, than the whole world falling, because then we would
have been dead together.
The first words I actually understood from Ocato�s mouth
were �Where is Martin?�� I wrenched my
gaze down toward him, and my eyes must have been answer enough, because he
stepped back from me with a look of horror and said, �Oh.� I am so sorry.� He was truly a great man.�
�You do not know,� I rasped.�
�You will never comprehend how great he was.�
Ocato bowed his head for a moment in respectful silence, then began to report to me � softly, carefully � how they
had seen from outside that it was a great golden dragon, an avatar of Akatosh,
that had come to save them, and how the Gates had vanished with Dagon and the
skies were already beginning to clear.�
The daedra were gone and the fires were being extinguished.� The City had been spared.
All wonderful, of course.� It ought to be wonderful.� The Empire would survive.� The world of mortals would survive.� It ought to matter to me.� It had mattered to me once:� it had mattered to Martin.� Mattered enough for him to
leave me here without him.
Ocato marveled at the statue, surely a sign left behind of
our salvation, the new token from the gods, to replace the Amulet.� I nodded as if I agreed, as if I cared, and
thought about all the time I had stolen from us, the sum of all of my little
delays.� Would that time have made the
difference?� Would that time have kept
the veil together until we had lit the Dragonfires?
No.� I must not pursue
this line of thought.� I could not have
known, and this might well have always been Martin�s fate.� A death foreordained by the words of Mephala.
But if I was Mephala�s creature, the
difference between her fault and mine became irrelevant, didn�t it?
Ocato tried again to retrieve my attention.� He declared me the Champion of Cyrodiil, and
promised that he would have made a suit of Imperial Armor made for me, the
armor only worn by the Emperors themselves.�
The Council would have to discuss what to do about actually choosing the
next Emperor.
These things he said with a peculiar, pained look on his
face, and I understood him.� We were
Altmer, he and I.� He would never be able
to place me on the throne � as Jauffre had said, the
people would not be able to accept an Altmeri Empress, no matter what she had
done for them.� But he would make his
silent statement by granting me the armor as a symbol.
It was a touching gesture, but one my cynical nature tainted
as it does everything.� I suspected that
in fact, many years would pass before an Emperor was chosen; and those would be
years in which Ocato was the de facto ruler of Cyrodiil � as near to real rule
as one of us could come, for as long as he could manage it.� We were Altmer, he and I.
I accepted the offer with what little grace I could muster
and staggered away from that place with my eyes downcast.� Now that I had wrested my focus away from the
stone dragon I must never set eyes upon it again.
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Apotheosis I