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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
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Nine � Leaks from a
Thousand Wounds

I went forth an ambassador.�
I was given an Imperial seal to present to the High Chancellor and to
each of the Counts, proving that the Blades had accepted Martin as
successor.� The Mythic Dawn already knew
where we were, so there was little point in hiding from our friends.
There would turn out to be a familiar, consistent rhythm to
my encounters with the nobles, starting with Chancellor Ocato.� I would be greeted warmly as the Hero of
Kvatch.� I would announce my business and
ask for soldiers for Bruma.� Why should
anyone care about Bruma?� Because the next Emperor was there.� I would produce the seal.� There would be various sorts of exclamation
of surprise, relief, and concern.
And then they would still say no.
Ocato left it at that.�
No, couldn�t possibly, needed every hand in the Imperial City.� Good luck and fare thee well.� Could not spare Imperial
Legionnaires to defend the Emperor.� One is asked to suppose that it was for the
greater good:� after all, it was nearly
as important to defend the Temple
of the One, the site of the hoped-for coronation at which the Dragonfires would
be relit and all this horror ended.
He did not say
it.� He did not leave so clear a path
away from the explanations of personal ambition and cowardice.
Disgusted, I left the Imperial City
and rode east to Cheydinhal.� There, as I
was talking to the Dunmer widower who was Count there, he was given a much more
reasonable excuse to refuse me:� guards
ran in and cried that some awful portal
was opening outside the city walls, spewing daedra, and that the poor Count�s
son had taken his friends and stormed into it, and they were gone.
Farwil, his mortified father explained, was a self-absorbed
fool who fancied himself a knight.� He
had even founded his own Order and had a hall built for them.� But he had no real combat experience, and
what he and his followers most excelled at doing was alienating the city�s
trained guardsmen.� But ah, what great
good fortune, I was the Hero of Kvatch!�
If I could save the city, he would find men to spare for Bruma.� If I could save his son, then treasures from the vault of his ancient and venerable
family would be mine as well.
I did not have the heart to say that I thought his son was
already dead.� That proved to be fortunate, because it happened that I was wrong.� When I untied the knots in my stomach and
stepped through the too-familiar red disc that shimmered between great black
horns, I found the boy still alive at the bottom of a winding trail of cliffs
and caverns.� All but one of his friends were dead, yes, but Farwil was not.� More�s the pity.
He scolded me for my tardiness and then started ordering me
about as if I were any common lackey.� But
his eyes were clearly terrified and his voice nearly hysterical,
and I tried to take that into account, and not knock him to the ground and
leave him there.� His remaining companion
saw my waning patience, and with many apologetic looks to me, talked his lord
down into being something that at least approached reasonable.� Though Farwil did not go
down without several more volleys of youthful bravado and cries of �Huzzah.�
After more discussion than I thought we had time or safety
for, the Count�s son agreed that I ought to take the lead, and he and his
friend could be my rear flank.� Huzzah.
By then, naturally, several dremora had followed all the
noise of his chattering to us, and I had my first opportunity to see him
fight.� He wasn�t without raw talent, but
he was both unhardened and a bit reckless, and it was lucky that he didn�t
accidentally fling himself into a pool of magma.
That was interesting in its own way, to watch an untested
youth struggle with the fear and fight through it.� I had never given myself credit for how much
ease I had gained in the midst of danger, even though it still made me feel a
little bit sick.
The way to the tower was not easy, nor the
way up through it, and poor Farwil remained so uneven in his mood and
his thinking that I became paranoid for his safety.� I kept urging him to wait, stashing him in
far corners and running ahead to spot enemies and trigger traps.� He did not always cooperate.� At every slight moment of relative safety, I would
bombard him with healing spells.
�Stop that,� he said at last, when we had nearly reached the
top.� �I�m fine, and my skin is starting
to buzz.�
�Then let it buzz,� I snarled.
The orb was not in my hands nearly soon enough.� But the Count was true to his word:� he called out to his steward right away to send
word to the guard to marshal forces for Bruma, and he himself fetched out an
old staff that ended in a tangled snarl of thick thorny vines, and hummed with
exotic power.� That was the gift he gave
me for his son�s life, and any man who goes to Bruma to look at the statue of
the �Savior� can see its likeness.
And it was a little bit exciting to know that I had gotten two people through a Gate alive, with no
casualties on my watch.� I was getting
better at them.
I was on my way to the stables to leave the city when I heard
screams and strife behind me.� I turned
and saw a mob, all beating fists, work implements, and a few actual weapons
against some figure in the center.� I did
not understand until I heard the name of Dagon
invoked.
When the guards finally convinced the crowd to disperse, a
dead man in a red cloak lay in a pool of his own blood in the street, beaten
nearly beyond recognition.
I had become a target in my own right.� In hindsight I should have expected it.
Some of the people who had meted out this vigilante justice
on my behalf called out hails and thanks to the Hero of Kvatch, which I did not
know quite what to do with.� They also
spat out curses against the Mythic Dawn, in which I encouraged them more
heartily.
And so, that became the rhythm in full of my visits to the
cities, minus the rescues of misguided nobility.� The rejection always came from fear of the
Gates that arrived immediately before or after me, then
became a barter of my service for theirs, and I would make another tortured
journey in and out of the jaws of Oblivion.�
And then, their Gate closed, the frustrated cultists would seek me out
personally, and die either at a blast from me or at the hands of an enraged
populace.� Too few of their recruits
understood the strategic importance of not wearing red and shrieking in an
assassination attempt.
This is not to say that there were no exceptions.� I was in Leyawiin, and, oddly enough, it was
raining.� I was exhausted, and having
both closed the Gate and repelled an attempt to stab me, I felt myself about
finished with the town.� I thought to
rest for a night before moving on, and paid for a room at the Three Sisters
Inn.� It was expensive, but Martin had
insisted on my having traveling money and being kept whenever possible like a
proper ambassador.� I thought it lacked
subtlety, but then again, it was getting hard to stay anonymous out in
populated areas anyway.
I was even more weary than I�d
thought, and I slept hard.� Hard enough,
apparently, to miss some interesting action, because when I woke up, there was
a body in the room with me.
How had I failed to notice this smell of blood, never mind
the sounds of people entering my room and having a struggle?� How had I slept through all of that?�
She was a Bosmer girl � not an especially pretty one, from
what I could tell through the drying blood on her face.� More blood was cooling in a large, sticky
pool beneath her.� The slice through her
throat � under her red cloak � was clean and precise.� So it had not really been much of a struggle
after all, I thought.
On her back was a bit of paper, pinned there by a dagger,
none other than my often abandoned yet never lost Blade of Woe.� Against both my will and my better judgment I
pried it loose from her, and took up the note, which was quite short.
Careful! � LL
I was alarmed not only that he had been there but also that
he had left the body behind for me to deal with:� but no one thought twice about a dead Mythic
Dawn agent, or cared who had killed her, so I was able to leave without further
incident.
I visited Kvatch with reluctance, knowing that it would
still be only a shanty town; but I thought that if nothing else, I could look
in on the people Martin had known and give him a report of their slow
recovery.� It was the only place in which
I did not have to fight for his support.�
What was left of Kvatch loved me, and loved Martin, and was eager to
send the little they could spare to his defense.� Indeed it justified
them in their suffering.
Of course it was also the only city in which there was no
presiding noble, and it was the captain of the guard who spoke with me.� Make of that what you will.
After I had finished my tour, I made my way back to the Imperial City,
despite a desire to head home to the Temple
instead.� I had done what I could for
Bruma:� next I must do what I could for
Martin.� I returned to the University,
determined to train in the secrets of conjuration.� If someone had to risk casting a spell from
the Mysterium Xarxes, it ought to be
me.� It had to be me.� Mephala�s
warning was too dire to ignore.
Web-spinner.� Methusiele.
How odd that I had never really given
thought to what was missing from my memory, that gaping void that stretched out
behind waking in an Imperial dungeon.�
Why had I so seldom wondered after it?�
Who had I been?
Had I been?
Absurd question.� And yet, as I began my research into the
metaphysical lore I needed to understand conjuration, I found that there were
references to lesser aedra or daedra being sent into mortal form to perform
particular tasks for their gods or Daedric Lords.� There were precedents.
The whole reason I
dropped you in that dungeon in the first place.
Wouldn�t I have known
if I had been such a creature?
I distracted myself, again, by throwing myself deeper into
other aspects of the study.� I gave the
effort as much focus as I could, but of course I had this reputation for
heroism � for simple competence � and
the Guild would insist on setting me on its own errands, under the guise of it
being an aspect of my education and advancement.� As a result, I had a meteoric rise through
the ranks, and ended up a Warlock almost before I could notice.
From this period of close work with the University, I
learned three things.� First, a bureaucracy
of wizards is an abomination, an interminable morass of stagnation and useless
bickering.
Second, necromancers and vampires are thick on the ground
throughout Cyrodiil, prospering despite the expulsion of the former from the
Mages Guild and the hunting of the latter by both amateurs and professionals.� And to go back to the first point, when an
entire order of wizards is expelled from their Guild, useless bickering
escalates into homicidal feuding, and meanwhile, the stagnation ensures that
little of real use is done to prevent it.�
At a time when the Empire could have used all the talents and knowledge
of the Guild in counteracting the threat from Oblivion, most of them were too
absorbed in their own squabble � the necromancers choosing this inopportune
time to raise up the �King of Worms� who promised them power (and would he
defeat Dagon when he came to Tamriel,
did they think?), and the Guild to do�dismayingly little.� It was maddening.
Third and most unfortunate of all, I had no talent for
conjuration.� None.� I improved my destruction spells immensely,
almost without effort:� my little
fireballs became huge ones, and even those I abandoned as I crafted spells that
made crackling arcs of all the elements woven together.� I could leave an unwarded target
unrecognizable without really taxing myself.�
I could attack the life-force directly, if I wished, or suck it out
through my fingertips by touch.� The
skills of conjuration, meanwhile, remained limp and lifeless in my hands and my
brain, no matter what I did to encourage them.�
Perhaps one simply cannot learn to summon a thing one does not really
want to see arrive when called.
Sooner or later I was going to have to give up.
By the time I realized this I had risen
enough in station to be reporting directly to the Arch-Mage, and he asked me to
go into Bruma to investigate something for him.�
The Guild there had fallen mysteriously silent.
This nearly sent me into a panic.� They
have fallen to the Gates.� Martin � �But I cut off that train of
thought quickly.� The whole city could
not be destroyed, nor Gates be standing open
there.� Word that dark would have
spread.�
�Understand,� I said, as respectfully as I could, �that if I
go to Bruma it may be a long time before I return, although I will send you
word.� The successor is my first
concern.�
�I understand,� Traven assured me.� He was a sweet old fellow.
It was strangely refreshing to return to Bruma.� The University is an insular place, very much
cut off from the world, even from the Imperial City;
and except for one vexing sojourn in Skingrad, all of my errands for the Guild
had been to isolate corners of the world � lovely, familiar Ayleid ruins, and
hateful cave-dwellings.� (Evil cults
appear to adore living and working in caves.�
I remain mystified.� Surely there
are other routes to the needed privacy.)
Not many people who are not mages feel much need to visit a
hall of the Mages Guild, and while there are exceptions, mages on the whole are
not a gregarious lot.� I suppose that was
why no one in town had discovered the incident before I arrived.
They were all dead.�
Books were strewn everywhere, torn or burnt; bottles and alchemical
equipment were smashed and shelves overthrown; and the bodies lay mouldering
where they had fallen, and undead things were wandering the halls.� Sickened, I put on my chameleon ring and
scoured the building.� The patrolling
wraiths fell to my new spells with gratifying ease.
Upstairs there was a voice, cruel and taunting.� Searching for someone, which
meant they thought there was a survivor.�
Stealth was, as ever, my friend, and I listened to the awful woman gloat
about this message she had brought from the King of Worms, soon to be echoed
throughout every dwelling place of the Guild.
Enough.� I interrupted her vile talk with a bolt of
lightning.� Hurt but not killed, she
turned on me, calling ghosts and zombies forth to stand between us.� But my studies had, at least, made my
destruction spells very potent, and I won past them with little injury and
pulled the life out of her.
Then realized the irony of downing a necromancer with such a
spell, and was uncomfortable, and resolved not to use that particular spell
again except in the worst need.
I took off the ring, reasonably sure I had cleared out
everything dangerous, hoping to encourage the survivor to come out.� And I shook with a horrible rage.� Such a pointless sort of
violence, such a waste.� This was
not the time.
J�skar dropped his own spell and stepped forward to greet me
with his ears pointed straight back in terror.�
He was a fine illusionist, but no fighter, and he had been badly
outclassed in this fight � along with, clearly, the rest of his Guild, under
Jeanne�s lack of leadership.� I felt
guilty for thinking ill of her when she was freshly dead, but there it was:� she had barely been capable of managing her
Guild even in peace.� Doubtless it had
been a factor in choosing Bruma as the target.
J�skar thought me lucky that I had come when only one of
them remained, searching for him.� I
thought I could have handled more, but did not contradict him.� He was badly shaken.� I sent him back to the Imperial City
to report to the Arch-Mage in my place, figuring that as a witness he could
give more detailed information anyway.�
He went happily.
I had only recently emerged from the remains of the Guild
hall when a messenger found me to request that I come and have an audience with
the Countess of Bruma.
She was the only one I had not met, and I found when I
arrived that she was my favorite.� An
Imperial who had gone somewhat �native� in Bruma, she was full of will and
fire.� She had sought me out, she said,
for three reasons.� First, while she
realized that I was very busy with matters of war, she knew that I had begun as
a treasure hunter, and wondered if I might ever make the time to find an
Akaviri artifact that interested her.� I
told her that I could certainly not spare the time with matters as they were,
but would tell her if an opportunity arose.�
She acquiesced.
Second, there was a lovely house that stood unowned, and it
would be wondrous to be able to say that the Hero (she tended to leave off �of
Kvatch�) resided in Bruma.� I thought it
would be odd to have a house in Bruma, so close to the Temple, when I could and always did stay
there.� She pointed out that I could display
there the keepsakes from my many travels � surely too many to keep in any
dignity in a barracks?� Although I did
not see fit to tell her that I slept in the Emperor�s rooms, the truth was that
the Emperor�s rooms in the Temple
were not that extensive, and I didn�t
really have a place for my own things, which were stashed here and there in
chests.� I paid her for the house.
Third, a letter had come down from the Temple for me to be given when and if I
arrived in Bruma.� She had received it
more than a week ago.
It was sealed with the Emperor�s sign.
By Akatosh, where are
you?� All the soldiers have arrived, so
you are no longer on that errand.� Not
dead.� Someone would know that.� Word would have reached me.
Return to the Temple when you receive
this.� There is work yet to be done.
And this was signed Martin
Septim.
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Apotheosis I