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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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Six � Death and Living
Reconciled

Ocheeva acknowledged the change to our chain of command by
asking me for a personal favor:� I hunted
down and killed an Argonian who had served in the Shadowscales along with her
and Teinaava, but who had deserted.� I
did it gladly, out of both established fondness and my feelings about
desertion.� I brought her his heart.� An Argonian does not smile, exactly, but her
mouth widened and her eyes narrowed in what I knew was
glee as she put it in a little box to keep among her things.� She gave me a proper contract and I set off
at once.� Vicente carefully avoided me
the whole time.
Ocheeva�s contracts were all very comfortable in terms of
the targets � mercy killings, in a way.� People who were already dying or, in some sense, killing
themselves.� Admittedly, Faelian
the skooma addict was a bit of a problem, in that he was in Talos Plaza,
dangerously close to the parts of the Imperial City
that were most painful.� I was better
this time at invoking the ice of Sithis against the ghost voice in my head that
kept beckoning toward the Temple District and insisting that I was still Tavi, but even so, I felt the temptation
to join Faelian in one last good binge before I killed him.� I slit his throat quickly and fled home to
more comfortable contracts.
The actual killing was starting to come naturally.� It no longer felt like such a tremendous
change from what I had done in my old life.
I had just come back from poisoning a fatally ill warlord
when Vicente worked up the courage to talk to me, out in the dining room where
the skeletal guardian paced, defending us against having too much privacy for
comfort.� His eyes did not meet mine, but
he approached me.� �Methusiele.� I must apologize.� My behavior toward you was�most unbecoming.�
�I understand.� I do
not hold it against you.�
�Thank you.� And thank
you for your discretion.� It is only�� he
seemed diminished and sad.� �It is�lonely
to know that you and Lucien will die before me.�
But you are both here because you want
to die before me.�� He sighed.� �I will not ask you again.� If you ever change your mind, the door will
be open.�
I was sorry for him.�
I was also quite sure I was following Lucien�s order never to be alone
with him again, because my mind was not going to change.� �Thank you, Vicente.�
With that, I retreated to Ocheeva�s quarters, where she gave
me a beautiful black dress and informed me that my contract was to go to a
party in Skingrad and kill everyone there.
The idea made me smile.�
Old times.�
�Does that mean I can blast them all at once?�
Ocheeva clucked her tongue at me.� �No, silly girl, that won�t do.� Everyone would know it was you if you left
them all smoldering husks.� You�ve
learned more subtlety than that � use it.�
Kill them one by one.�� She
touched me playfully under the chin.�
�Take your time.� Enjoy yourself.�
I stood and thought for a moment.� �How am I going to keep from being found
out?� Won�t it look a little odd that I�m
the only survivor of this whole party?�
�You will have to make it seem as though you�re in town on
other business, of course.� It won�t be a
public affair:� you�ll just have to cover
your entrance and exit from the manor with some caution.�
So I packed my things and made a grand display of going out
as the Arch-Mage for a visit to Skingrad�s Guild hall, and as usual, notable
persons of Cheydinhal bade me good journey.�
For the first time, one of them wished for me that �The Dragonborn watch
over me.�
That name had once referred to the whole bloodline of the
Emperors, but it was becoming a name for Martin specifically.� I�d noticed on my visits to the Imperial City that he had begun to gain something
of a cult of his own.� I had done my best
to avoid them so far, but evidently the mood of religious revival was
spreading.� At least they were calling
him �The Dragonborn,� which allowed me that small remove by not being what I
had called him.� The avatar of Akatosh,
sent to be the eternal protector of Tamriel.�
Splendid.
I hoped very much that he would not watch over me.� If he was
watching over me, that would mean that he was watching
me murder people and have sex with assassins and vampires � watching me ascend
in the ranks of the Dark Brotherhood from which he had wished he could protect
me.� That he knew now exactly what kind
of creature he had trusted with his heart before his assumption into
Aetherius.� It might make him fall from
grace, like Meridia.� Or it might make
him hate me.
Don�t look down.� Forget me.
Skingrad was a better hall to visit than Chorrol:� its specialty was mine, destruction.� We gloried in our power over the elements and
taught each other novel combinations and applications.� Then I made plausible noises about exploring
nearby ruins for a couple of days, as was known to be an old habit of mine, so
that no one would wonder where I had gone.
I wore a cape with a deep hood as I walked through the rain
to Summitmist Manor, to obscure my identity.�
A well-dressed Nord with white hair greeted me at the door with a wicked
smile.
�We have the same Mother, you and I,� he muttered, slipping
something cold into my hand.� �Here is
the key:� no one else has one.� They believe they are playing a game,
searching for hidden gold in the house, and that the door is locked only until
someone finds it.� I wish I could join
you, but I am only here to guard the door.�
�Guard it well, Brother.�
We wouldn�t want anyone leaving prematurely.�� I kissed him on the cheek and opened the
door.� As it closed behind me and I drew
back my hood, a short old woman approached me from the nearby stairs.
�Altmeri!� she cooed.�
�Well, aren�t we an assortment!� I
am glad there will be someone else of
some culture here.� You will not believe
that some of the guests could have been invited into such a nice house.� That filthy Nord, and,� her voice dropped to
a near-whisper, �and that little Dunmer
girl.�
So I knew why someone might want this one dead, anyway.
�My name is Matilde Petit, dear,� she went on.� �And who are you, exactly?�
She annoyed me:� it
just came out.� �I am the assassin who
was sent to kill you.�
Her eyes widened for just a second, and then she
laughed.� �Oh!� Oh dear!�
You are too funny.� Why, you�re the Arch-Mage, aren�t you?� I�d heard you were in town!� What a delight to meet someone of your
importance.�
Some sleeping faculty awoke in me, and instead of fuming I
smiled and laughed with her as I removed and hung my cloak.� �Of course I�m the Arch-Mage.� Forgive my strange sense of humor � blame the
company of scholars and wizards.�
She waved away my apology and started to babble at me as if
we were best friends, mostly dreadful revealings of her attitudes on the race
and class of the other guests.� A dreadful, trampish little Dunmer girl; the good, rich Imperial
boy in danger of being caught in her snares; the loutish, drunken Nord; and the
exotically handsome Redguard, a retired member of the Imperial Legion.
I made a mental note of the last one especially.� He might prove problematic.
We went together up the first flight of steps, where the
other guests were waiting.� �Finally!�
said the Imperial boy � Primo, she�d called him.� �Does this mean we can start searching?�
I made the face a lovely woman makes when she pretends to be
sad in order to get something. ��But you
have all had time to get to know each other, and I have just now arrived.� Surely you can spare me a moment to settle in
before we start?�
�Oh, of course we can!� Matilde chimed in behind me.� �The money�s not leaving without us, is
it?� We�ll all agree on when we should
start.� This is the Arch-Mage, everyone!� Oh,
dear, please remind me of your name?� I
can�t just be calling you �the Arch-Mage.��
Who knows how long we�ll be here.�
It took a few seconds to beckon to mind the name they
needed.� �Tintaviel.�
So I made a quick tour of the other guests, drinking and
chatting as if I were a friendly, good-natured creature.� It was not difficult to speak to each of them
privately, since most of them did not seem to like each other enough to be
unwilling to break away with me alone.� I
started with Neville, the retired soldier.�
He was less overtly objectionable than Matilde, though a bit
stodgy.� He disliked everyone but
Matilde, who he felt sorry for because, although she was from a noble house,
she had lost her fortune and was here because she was desperate to regain her
wealth and thus her access to upper class society.� He particularly didn�t like the Nord,
Nels.�
I went to Nels next, to see if the feeling was mutual.� If anything, Nels hated Neville more, because
he hated the Imperial Legion generally for old war crimes in Skyrim.� But he liked the Dunmer girl, who reminded
him vaguely of his dead daughter.� All good to know.
The Dunmer girl was named Dovesi, and she seemed to be as
na�ve a young thing as I could imagine.�
She confided in me that she was smitten with Primo, and once we had
grown familiar over a few sips of wine and well-placed giggles, she begged me
to find out if he was attracted to her.
He was, so I could tell her that much in all honesty.� I added on my own the part about how, when we
broke ranks to start searching, he wanted to meet her privately in the room
he�d been assigned.� Then I announced to everyone
my gratitude for the chance to mingle and unwind, and suggested that we begin.� All the guests wandered off in different directions, which was going to make my job absurdly
easy.� Dovesi went with me up another
flight of stairs to the bedrooms, chatting and giggling the whole way.� I must stay and give her courage until he arrived,
if he was not there yet, she said.
I stayed and slit her throat.� My near-dead conscience stirred a little as I
cleaned my blade on her dress.� She�d
seemed a harmless enough thing.� And
though my sudden facility for deceit was making things easier, it also made me
uncomfortable.� It was an ancient part of
me, a part I�d left behind with the Ayleids, and I was not sure I wanted it
back.
As it happened, Primo went up not long after I�d left and
discovered the body, sending a panic through the house.� That made things a little bit trickier, but
on the other hand, the others immediately started to turn on each other, and
that could be turned to my advantage easily enough.� I listened sagely to Nels�s accusations
against Neville and forgave him his impulse to get drunk over it.� I suggested that he keep an eye on the
soldier.� I would continue the search on
both of our behalves, and give him half � I didn�t need the money, I was the
Arch-Mage!� I�d just been here for fun, and now, what a dreadful thing to
happen.� I could defend myself,
naturally, but I feared for Nels.
Then I went and feared for Primo, who was a bit crushed by
the death of the girl he�d been hoping to bed.�
I might have gone after him next, for the sense of romance, but Matilde
attached herself to my arm and declared that she was not going to let me out of
her sight again.�
Very well, then.� I would help her search and keep her
safe.� At least until
we found ourselves alone in the basement, and I could stab her.� I decided that this time I would find the
body, and I ran back up the steps shouting.
I was glad I�d decided to use the dagger, and that Ocheeva
had insisted on my training toward weapons and away from spellwork:� it never seemed to dawn on anyone that the
Arch-Mage would kill with anything but magicka.�
Suspicion flew in every direction except towards me.� Neville stormed down into the basement to
investigate more closely:� Nels settled
in at the bar with his sword drawn, drinking and muttering dangerously to
himself.
How deliciously easy they were making it for me.
I fretted prettily at Primo about how nervous I was about
the whole affair, how I didn�t quite trust either of the other two men, and how
I hoped he would agree to stay near me.�
As I thought, as the youngest and most sheltered of the men, he was the
easiest to lead in that direction.� He
didn�t see an Arch-Mage, he saw a pretty girl.�
Of course I was frightened:� of
course I wanted a handsome young man to protect me.
And once he was dead, it was nothing to turn Nels and
Neville against each other once and for all.�
Nels had enough pure rage to win against Neville, but not against me.
I strolled one last time through the house to see if there
was anything I wanted to take, as I had been invited to do.� My feelings about the whole contract were
strangely complicated.� I�d embraced this
work, hadn�t I?� Embraced Lucien, having
learned how much of himself he gave for us, for me?
A shame he wasn�t here.�
He was so good at driving everything else out of my mind.� It would have felt good.

The lying.� It
must be the lying that was bothering me.�
I resolved not to take that route again.�
Silent sneaking was better.� I put
on my cloak and walked back out into the rain.
Back in Cheydinhal, Ocheeva told me that more rain was in my
future:� the next contract was in
Leyawiin.� But before we discussed that
further, she said, she was empowered to give me a special blessing from the
Night Mother.� She laid her hands on my
head, and I felt the energy come down � a strange little chill that made me
feel slightly sick.
The target was a retired Imperial Legionnaire who had been
particularly troublesome to the Dark Brotherhood.� Knowing that we would want to retaliate, he
was kept under constant guard, and still lived in the barracks in Leyawiin
rather than a private residence.� He was
almost constantly armed.� But M�raaj-Dar
and Telaendril had prepared something special for him, guaranteed to pierce the
armor and to kill in one stroke:� an
enchanted arrow.
I took it with unhidden skepticism.� �You should have told them I don�t shoot
bows.� What am I supposed to do with it?�
�Be creative,� she said, shrugging.
Once he was dead, I was to cut off one of his fingers and deliver it to the Legion captain in
the Imperial City.�
The one with his Legion ring on it, she said.� (Why did that bother me?� I had cut out the Argonian traitor�s heart, and several daedric hearts before that.)
M�raaj-Dar and Antoinetta were home while I was there,
making dinner.� I took the garlic away
from her and replaced it in the chest where she kept her private things,
reminding her again of Vicente�s allergy.�
She flirted with me in response and I had to ignore her.
�Thank you for the arrow,� I said to M�raaj-Dar.� �You seem to be good at enchantments.� Maybe you and I should � �
�This isn�t the Mage�s Guild,� he growled.� �I don�t answer to you, Madame
Arch-Mage.�� I let the matter go.
It was actually not
raining in Leyawiin.� It was merely
overcast.� Dagail, the head of the local
Guild, greeted me warmly; but as we made our pleasant initial small talk her
eyes glazed over, and she took me by the shoulders and pulled me close to
whisper in my ear.
�Sanguine�s son does
not condemn Mephala�s daughter.� The
Dragon waits.�
I felt ill.� �What?�
Dagail looked at me curiously, her eyes normal again.� �Did I say something?� Oh my, was it something troublesome?� Do you want to talk about it?�
�No.� I do not.�� I pulled free from her.� I did not quite understand what it was she
had meant, but the utterance had been full of names I did not want to hear or
speak again.� Blasted
mystics.
But of course, we had to hold an entire seminar on blasted
mysticism.� Oh, certainly, telekinesis
was an amusing trick, and absorbing and reflecting spells were both very useful
skills.� But then they insisted on
debating the nature of the soul, its origin and its fate.� And among the mystics, the difference between
aedra and daedra was much more stark and clear:�
they had been cut from different cloth at the very beginning of things, from
order and from chaos.� They were the
opposites between which the whole world was stretched out.
This time I only sat and listened, sullen in my sense of
justification.� Never the twain would
meet, even if a seer cruelly echoed the last words Tamriel�s savior had ever
said to me.� Even so.� The Dragon could wait all it wanted, and it
would change nothing.
The Dragon was not waiting.� My contract was.
Adamus was under constant guard and almost constantly
armored, except to swim and to sleep.� Useless.� I would have
to create my own opportunity.
I took what appeared to be a casual stroll so that I could
happen upon him swimming.� I was sure to
wear the official robes of the Arch-Mage so there would be no question as to
who I was.� Once I arrived, I stood and
watched until he noticed me.� He stood,
grinned, and brought a hand idly to the back of his neck in what would have
been a fetching gesture in his prime.� He
was too old for my liking, but at least his work had kept him fit.
�Arch-Mage!� he called, and his
guard turned and gawked at me as he climbed up out of the water.� �I�d heard you were visiting Leyawiin.� I am Adamus Phillida.�
�Oh my!� The retired captain.� You are quite famous in the Imperial City.� I�m afraid Hieronymus Lex doesn�t hold a candle
to you.�
He beamed at the flattery.�
�Actually, I hear he may end up shipped off to Anvil.� I never cared for the man.�
It was not difficult to get myself invited along to
dinner.� There, I continued to laugh and
beam and flatter.� When the mood seemed
right, I leaned close to him and suggested what a pity it was that we could not
have any privacy.� He swallowed the bait
eagerly, telling me that there was a vacant house in town, and that he would
meet me there at ten that night.� He had
not been a law officer for so long and not learned how to shake off
surveillance, he joked.
I put on something pretty, arrived early, and secreted my
other tools away in a remote corner.
He was prompt, and visibly relieved that I had actually come
to meet him.� And still
wearing full armor.
I laughed.� �Do you
wear it to sleep?� It must be
uncomfortable.�
�I have powerful enemies, and we do not all have your abilities.� I have to be careful.�
I smiled, nodded.�
�Yes, of course�but still.�� I
traced one finger along a metal seam.� �This isn�t quite as interesting, is it?�
A happy sigh, full of the hope of things
to come.� �It was only to get here
safely.� Will you help me out of it?�
Of course I would:�
that gave me access to bare skin faster.�
I sucked the life out of him through my fingertips, as quickly as I
could.� I did not really want to spend
too long watching him realize what had happened.
Why did he bother
me so much?� Just
because he�d been in the Legion?� As
if that was by definition a sign of high virtue?� Of course there was the lying again, and the
choice of spell.� I couldn�t help
that:� it was the best way to get him
vulnerable and kill him without leaving a mark or attracting attention.� These might be things I preferred not to do,
but I had to grow in my craft.� I had to
accept the needs of the contract and meet them.
I retrieved the special arrow and the cheap bow I�d
acquired, and shot his corpse point-blank in the neck.� Then I stooped to remove his glove and sever
the ring finger from his hand.� I wasn�t
familiar with butchery, and had to work a bit to get through the joint.� More uncomfortable growth.
I�d taken a calculated risk in being seen talking to him in
public, so I did not hurry out of town the next day.� I was, indeed, investigated for the crime,
and there was a bit of a sensation over it.�
We appeared in the Black Horse Courier.�
I�d been one of the last people with him, after all, and there�d still
been a whiff of magicka at the scene when he was found.� But the local mages objected
strenuously:� the spell they�d thought
was used verged close to necromancy, and my feelings about necromancy were well
known throughout my Guild.� And there�d
been a similar enchantment on the arrow, reason enough to suspect a false
reading.� And I was also known to despise
bow and arrow.
I cooperated fully, answered questions politely, and
accepted the help of my fellow mages with just enough hesitation to seem
noble.� I was beginning to actively
dislike myself when the Leyawiin guards finally acknowledged that there seemed
to be no decisive evidence that I had been involved, and let me go.
This time the Imperial
City was comparatively
merciful.� It felt as if�as if my memory
stood back a step from me and only watched, sad but quiet.� As if I�d taught the awful voice in my head
to fear disturbing me.� It was strange.� I wondered if it meant I was beginning to
lose my grief.� Then I wondered if that
made me happy or unhappy.
Dread Father.� Did anything
make me happy?� Could I be happy?
I planted the finger in the new captain�s desk, then fled the silence with just as much discomfort as I
normally fled the voice.
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Apotheosis II