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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.

Chapter List
- 6
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Seven � Going to Hell
Again

By morning I�d thought up all sorts of problems.� The first one was �I�ve violated a priest.�
�Really,� he said, quite casual.� �I thought I�d violated you.� And I�m not actually a priest anymore, am
I?� I think it�s time to come to terms
with that.�� And he kissed my hands, and
that was delightful, and distracted me from woe and strife for a while.�
No one arrived with business for Martin, and we took the
opportunity to laze together for a decent portion of the morning.
�Everyone�s going to know,� I said after an hour or so.
That one made him laugh.�
�What of it?� Are you ashamed to
be seen with me?� Or do you think it�s
going to make someone forget everything you�ve done to save their lives?�
And he had a point.�
But later there was, �Didn�t Mephala tell you
it would be your death if you dabbled in daedric magic again?�
He looked thoughtful.�
�Yes.�
�Then I want someone else to take over working with the Mysterium Xarxes.�
Now I had his attention:�
now I had sucked him back into the gloom with me.� He stroked my hair.� �There is no one else.� You�re our only other mage, and you�ve got to
do all our legwork.� And you�re not a
conjurer.�
�Then I�ll learn.�
�We don�t have that kind of time.� Let it be, Tavi.� Reading
isn�t casting.� When the time comes, I�ll
think of something.�
I wanted so much to believe him that I started adding in
justifications myself.� �Perhaps she just
said it to frighten you.� She is rather
alarming.�� I nestled my head against his
chest, and he put an arm around me.
�Probably so.�� He rubbed idly at my neck, and as with me the
first time, the contact between us was enough to make everything right for a
moment.� Then he stopped rubbing and
asked, �How do you know she�s alarming?�
I wanted to say it�s
what I�ve heard and leave it there, but I couldn�t lie to him that
way.� �I didn�t accept her quest.� But I spoke with her.�
�And she said something alarming to you.�
At least I had something to tell that was true, and would
make sense, and yet would avoid the thing I did not want to explore, the whole
business of the traitor Methusiele.� �Her quest sounded disturbingly like the
offer I got from the Dark Brotherhood.� Down to offering me a dagger.�
He started to rub my neck again, which was reassuring.� �That makes sense.� I�ve heard it said that the Dark Brotherhood
worships Sithis, and some people think that there is a connection between
Sithis and Mephala, or even that they are one and the same.� I wish you hadn�t ended up there.� That could have been very dangerous for you.�
�More dangerous than Oblivion or a pit of
crazed Mythic Dawn cultists?�
�For you personally,
yes.� She�s one of the Lords who are
dangerous to the mind, and to the soul.�
I considered telling him what else she�d said, seeing if he
could lend some sort of perspective, or banish it from my thoughts, or�but that
would mean opening myself to the risk that he couldn�t.� And that would have crushed me.
So if she was �dangerous to the mind,� I would just have to
tell myself it had all been a lie, and go back to studying more conjury at the
University so I would be better protected.�
That would also improve my chances of wresting the task of doing any
daedric spellwork away from Martin, because that
must never happen.
My last protest against our happy solitude was �I�m starving
to death.�� By then the morning was
almost gone.
He clucked his tongue.�
�Yes, I suppose it is getting late.��
He kissed me on the forehead and finally consented for us to dress.
When we emerged into the main hall, to not a few turned
heads, Martin strode directly to Jauffre, who stared at us as if we were
spriggans who had idly wandered into the Temple.
�Jauffre,� Martin said, and did not even bother to lower his
voice.� �From now on, when Tavi is at the
Temple, she is
my personal guard and advisor.� She is to
be given no other duties while here, and she will have unrestrained access to
my quarters and my person.�
Jauffre had too much dignity to gape, but that was clearly
his mood.� �As you say,
Martin.�
I cleared my throat uncomfortably.� �Tintaviel.�
Both men turned to look at me.� �Tintaviel,� I said again.� �If you are going to make formal
proclamations about me, then you should use the formal version of my name.�
Jauffre inclined his head in agreement.� Martin knew the gesture as an intimacy, and
though he had the decency not to throw both arms around me, he drew close and
put one around my waist.� �Tintaviel,� he
whispered.� �That�s lovely.�
�You should not do this here,� I whispered back, glancing
around the room.�
�No?� Why not?� I might have kissed you.� For that matter, I think they would not move
to stop me if I threw you down and took you right here on the table.� Would that have been better, do you think?�
It was hard to suppress both the blush and the laugh.� I held it down to a light
warmth across the cheeks and a close-mouthed giggle.
�Then be merciful, and grant me an embrace and a
whisper.� It�s the best I can do.�
In my head everyone was already calling me the Emperor�s
concubine.� Then again, one could be
called worse things.
So we went to the mess and sat together, flagrant in our
preference for each other�s company, and ate.
The next handful of days was glorious beyond reckoning.� During the day I helped him with his studies,
finding references for him in the books I understood; at night I drowned his
thoughts of Gates and daedra in my body.�
He was a skilled and ardent lover, a man of so much passion once it was
unleashed that I wondered how he had ever moved on from Sanguine, even if lured
by occult knowledge or power.
�I didn�t quite mean to,� he finally confessed.� �The danger of Sanguine is that he tires of
his playthings eventually.� His servants
can wake one day and find that they belong to Sheogorath or Molag Bal without remembering just when it changed.�
And perhaps that was why he never told me exactly what had
happened: perhaps he had been one of those who crossed the line by accident,
without ever seeing it until he was well on the other side.� The nearest he ever came to revealing it, by
my guess, was at a time when we were discussing something else altogether,
going through spellbooks.� I was browsing
one that was centered on illusion, and there was a reference to, as it claimed,
a little-known spell that could be learned from certain high daedra, a
variation on spells of frenzy that provoked licentiousness in its target, making
the caster impossible to resist.
�It exists,� he said, without looking up from the book he
was reading.� �I knew it.�
�Did you?�� I
smirked.� �Would you show me?�
He glanced up and met my eyes with an intent, disturbed
gaze.� �No.� I will never show you.�
But that did not, in itself, explain the allusion he had
once made to someone having died.� Even I
do not know the tale.
It was the happiest time in my life, and we both began to
pretend that we could go on that way.�
But the night came that we should have expected, when guards ran to us
from the wall shouting that some horror had appeared down toward Bruma.� Martin and I exchanged a pointed look and
rose together from our dinner, along with Jauffre, and went out onto the wall
ourselves to see.� Everyone else could
only guess, but Martin�s hand found mine and squeezed tight, and mine squeezed
back, because we had seen its like before, and we knew.

They had opened another Gate.� The sky
above it was already filling with a red that was not dusk.
The three of us shouted orders as the Blades scrambled.� A squadron must remain behind with Martin and
hold the temple shut.� Another would ride
down with me to sweep the land between us and the city, to make sure that there
were no cultists left trying to open other Gates.�
Then.� Then, of course, I would have to go back into
Oblivion, and see whether I had won through the first time by skill, or by dumb
luck.
By the time we had opened the gates to ride out, there was
another rider galloping up to meet us, wearing the standard of Bruma.� He was a yellow-haired Nord, who identified
himself as Burd, Bruma�s captain, and told us that a Gate had opened.
Did they think us imbeciles, down in Bruma?� Did they think we could not see it blazing there between us?
He had been sent to see if the Hero of Kvatch was staying at
the Temple, as
it had been rumored.� I came forward and
assured him that I was on my way down to the Gate.
He nodded fiercely.�
�My men are there.� Take us in
with you.�� As I opened my mouth to
protest he added, �The threat to Tamriel is growing, and you will be spread
thin.� And it is not our way in Bruma to
depend on the Empire to save us.� We must
learn how to fight them ourselves.� Show
us.�
That was the moment when I fell in love with icy,
beerstained Bruma and its surly Nords.� I
told him to ride down with us.
So it was that Burd went into that Gate with me and three
other men, and I taught them.� They saw
the spinning turrets and the exploding mines and the spikes.� They heard the voices of the dremora
warriors, who sound as if they are already drowning in their own blood.
I learned how invaluable stealth and chameleon-enchanted
items had been to me, and spells cast at distance, and how difficult these
things were to translate into a frontal assault leading four men with gleaming
armor and swords.
Only Burd made it with me to the orb, and felt the world
shatter and reform as we grasped it together, hurled back again from fire into
ice.
If he was shaken by the experience or by the deaths of his
comrades, he refused to show it.�
�There,� he growled.� �I have seen
it.� I will teach the rest of Bruma�s
guard.� We will not be taken as easily as
Kvatch.�
My Blades had dispatched the daedra who had come through to
this side, so it only remained for us to ride home in the wee hours of the
morning.� The sky was lightening into
morning gray as we arrived.
Martin met us on the steps:�
I would learn that this was only because Jauffre had insisted that it
was beneath the Emperor�s dignity to wait in the stable.� All concern for my sense of propriety was
gone, and he clutched me to him as if he had feared I would never come back.
�After all,� I rasped for the sake of my pride, �I have done this before, Martin.�
He laughed, but only held me tighter. ��I watched for you all night from the wall,�
he whispered.� �I think it may have been
the worst night of my life.�
- 6
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Apotheosis I