The Tale Of Sudhendra Vahl: Mad Gods, Being the ninth chapter... Options

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The first things I wanted to do this morning were to put some of my recently acquired funds into the Bank of Vvardenfell; I also wanted to deliver the Amulet of Infectious Charm to Louis Beauchamp. To that end, I opened a portal after breaking my fast and stepped though into the dusty streets of Ald’ruhn.

“The amulet,” Louis gasped when I handed the twinkling charm over to him. He listened with a distracted air as I relayed the fate of the missing airship: somehow I think the loss of the craft and its crew was of secondary importance to him. He did, however, pay me two thousand Septims for recovering the amulet and finding out what had happened to his aircraft.

From there I returned to Tel Vahl where, reluctantly, I donned the uniform of the Legion before opening a portal to Ebonheart. Captain Carius had informed me that Varus Vatinius has issued an instruction that I am to report to him. The Imperial Dragon was easy enough to find, he was the ill-favoured Imperial that I’d seen at the side of the Duke Dren when I applied for my construction contract ~ the one with a low opinion of Telvanni honour.

“So, the Telvanni returns,” he sneered when I crashed to attention in front of him and snapped off a salute. “Finally decided to get on the winning side, eh?”

When I made no response to his barb, he snorted and said, “you’ve turned out to be a decent soldier Telvanni, and several commanders speak quite highly of you. Do right by me and I’ll make sure that you get what you’re due.

“Now then,” he continued, “I have a job for you. Until a day or two ago, the Lord’s Mail was displayed in the Cult Shrine here. Somehow somebody got in and stole it ~ none of the guards saw anything. Take the key to the Shrine and see what you can learn. Bring me the Lord’s Mail and I’ll give you a promotion.”

My first step was to visit the barracks, housed in the lower levels of Fort Hawkmoth. Most of the guards were unwilling to talk to me but one; a Redguard by the name of Sader was disposed to talk. He told me that Furius Acilius had recently been passed over for promotion and had gone AWOL. I hardly thought it coincidental that Furius Acilius had gone missing two days before the Lord’s Mail vanished. I took a look around Acilius’ quarters but, apart from a scribbled comment about Vatinius that make me smirk, there was nothing of any interest.

Both of the Troopers assigned to the Shrine snapped to attention, clenched fists crashing against their cuirasses as they saluted me. Despite my time with the Legion, that was one thing I still hadn’t gotten used to. The door to the Shrine clicked open and I stepped into a fairly typical Imperial Cult Shrine. Multi-denomination tapestries hung from the walls ~ except for behind the altar, where a rich green and gold tapestry depicted Julianos. There were the usual sacred objects on the altar, a small silver platter for collecting donations and a large silver chalice. The green and gold cloth that covered the cold stone block confirmed that this was a Shrine devoted to Julianos.

I understood why the Imperial Cult adopted this multi-denominational style in Morrowind but I missed the majesty of the individual Shrines that I remembered from my travels around the Illiac Bay. Not that I was particularly moved by the idea of the Divines any more ~ the things I had experienced in my time here had seriously undermined my faith in the religion of my childhood. Shaking off the melancholia that my childhood memories always seemed to induce, I returned to the task at hand.

There were no windows in the Shrine, nowhere that somebody could have clambered in and stolen the artefact. The heavily reinforced door couldn’t have been broken down without attracting the attention of people nearby. Nor had I missed the flare of magic when I’d inserted the key into the lock ~ such locks (requiring both mundane and magical means to open them) were extremely rare and notoriously difficult to pick. And, given that Furius Acilius was, by all accounts, a career soldier it was unlikely that he’d have the skill to pick such a lock.

Something had been tugging at my subconscious while I examined the door. Turning I surveyed the small, austere chamber. A close-fitting door and no windows… So, where was the breeze that was fluttering the edge of the tapestry nearest the door coming from? The wall behind the wall hanging looked solid enough but a quick chant of “Ostendo sum” soon revealed the truth.

The flare of reddish-purple light settled along the outlines of the hidden door, a loud click denoting the fact that the unlocking spell I’d just read from the scroll had done its work. The heavy stone door creaked open to reveal a small stone cell barely big enough for me to get into. The floor of the cell was covered with dried mud; the rough reed mat that covered it caked with the stuff. Since there was no obvious other exit, I placed my hand against the back wall of the cell and pushed. There was a click and a large section of stonework moved backwards to reveal a dark opening.

The muddy floor of the cave left me in no doubt that the thief had used this secret way into the Shrine and that it would take someone who knew Ebonheart extremely well to have known of this hidden access ~ someone like, let’s say, a career soldier who’s been stationed at Ebonheart for years and has, for the sake of argument, recently been passed over for promotion.

The dimly illuminated tunnel meandered through the rock coming, at last, to a meeting place where three other passageways met. With a shrug, I turned to my left and pressed on down the rocky passage. I had gone barely a hundred paces down the tunnel when I was confronted by a snarling legionnaire. He wasted no time on words, the Imperial broadsword already sliding from the scabbard at his waist as he rushed towards me.

The crash of steel on steel echoed through the cave as I blocked the scything blow Acilius aimed at my head, the impact making my arm quiver. I retaliated, pushing his sword up and away with the Blodskal and slashing the heavy blade inwards. He danced back a step, bringing in his broadsword to deflect the blow. Now it was my turn to back-pedal in order to avoid his upward cut.

We eyed each other warily for a moment, each taking measure of our opponent. Acilius was strong but lacked finesse ~ like so many in the Legion he relied on his training and had no… style. With a grunt, he proved my point, slashing in a powerhouse blow that would have done serious damage if I hadn’t blocked it. My return blow scored a mark across his cuirass. Gripping the sword tightly, he aimed a series of vicious overhead blows at me, forcing me backwards.

Sensing, rather than seeing, that he’d changed his grip on the hilt, I swung the Blodskal downward, the greater mass of the Nordic blade knocking the broadsword from Acilius’ hand. I had barely registered that I’d disarmed him when a thunderous punch to the face drove me backwards. I blinked, my vision blurred from the blow, and saw him stoop and pick up his sword again. I gave him no time to prepare.

“Never,” my sword crashed into his upraised blade with a force that made my arm shudder.

“Hit,” I blocked his blow, the blades singing as they crashed into each other.

“A,” his steel blade shattered as I smashed the Blodskal down on it as he raised it to block the blow.

“Lady!” I finished, driving the point of the Nordic blade into the Imperial’s throat and slamming him back against the wall.

Rolling Furius Acilius over, I undid the silver clasps that held the glittering cuirass in place. The armour came off after a few minutes struggle and I held the heavy, padded cuirass up to examine it. It was made of some dark metal and appeared to be overlapping scales. The edges of the armour were decorated with fine gold scrollwork. That was not, however, what kept me there holding the heavy armour. Visions of combat danced in my head, snatches of scenery that I almost recognised, the crash of steel on steel and the screams of the dying mingled with the triumphant cries of the victors.

Shaking myself all over, I looked at the armour and licked my lips. The overwhelming urge to put it on and just… well, take charge had faded. With a shaky sigh, I placed the cuirass on a rock and opened my pack. Handling the scaled Lord’s Mail as little as possible, I dropped it into my pack. A careful exploration of the caves revealed the rest of Furius Acilius’ belongings ~ a sack containing a couple of hundred Septims, a pair of pauldrons made of the same dark, scaled metal, and a glass-bladed sword. My exploration also revealed a water-filled passageway that led to a door. This egress opened out onto a small sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs: above me loomed the bulk of the castle and keep. It must have pleased Acilius to have stolen the Lord’s Mail and, quite literally, hidden it under the noses of those he felt had cheated him.

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"What you are is someone with the potential to be the Nerevarine,” she said, not unkindly. “Your birth under the sign of the Apprentice and the uncertainty surrounding your real parents are clear enough signs that you have that potential. But those alone are not enough to prove that you are the Nerevarine. Indeed, many are those who have met these criteria and assumed the mantle of Nerevarine ~ all have failed. Your reluctance to claim the title may be the one thing that marks you out as the true heir to those ancient titles.”

“Great,” I groused, “damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

“Such is often the way of the Mundus,” Nibani said with a smile. “Come, sit and listen and I will tell you what I can.”

I sat and listened as the Wise-Woman told me what the prophecies said. About how the Reborn would be immune to disease and old age; “even,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “beyond the talents of those you have aligned yourself with.” She went on to explain that the Reborn would bear the mark of Nerevar’s House ~ the Moon-And-Star device of House Indoril.

“The Wise-Women of the People,” Nibani said, “have kept alive the prophecies and tales of the Incarnate but, alas, many of the tales have been lost down the years. We know that those known as Dissident Priests study the Nerevarine Prophesies and record the words in books. Mayhap they will have answers I cannot give. You, who straddle both worlds, can go to the settled people and get them to show you these books. Then you can bring back the words you have learned.”

If anyone knows how to get in contact with these dissident priests, it would be Caius Cosades. When I returned to Balmora, I would have to ask him. I then spoke of the increased activity I had observed amongst what the Temple called ‘The Sixth House Cult’ and of my strange dreams. Nibani feels that there is some connection between the recent attacks by what she calls ‘sleepers’ and the Nerevarine Prophesies, although she wouldn’t discuss that with me. As to my dreams, she said that these are being sent to me by ‘The Sharmat Ur’ and are designed to tempt me from my course. I should resist them at all costs.

Her final words to me were accompanied by a gift, two ancient scrolls that the Wise-Woman said would help me understand. These were ‘The Seven Visions’ and ‘The Stranger’. I had no doubt that Cosades would be deeply interested in these scrolls. Thanking Nibani Maesa, I left her yurt and wandered a little way into the Ashland before opening a portal and crossing the void to Balmora.

Oddly, my conversation with Nibani Maesa had calmed my nerves somewhat. While Cosades’ belief that I may be the Nerevarine Reborn could be written off as his desire that I serve the Empire; even at my most cynical I couldn’t ascribe such motives to the Urshilaku Wise-Woman. She really and honestly believed that I had the potential to be this Dunmeri General, reborn after countless centuries. Not that I was, but that I might be. I could take certain satisfaction from the fact that there was an equal chance that I might not be.

“I will study these carefully,” Caius said, taking the two scrolls from me when I related what I had learned. “But first, I have a new task for you. Following up reports of cultists near Gnaar Mok, a patrol encountered a powerful force of cultists, deformed beasts, and something even worse. The survivor, the only one to make it out of Ilunibi, was unable to describe what it was they found deep in those caverns and he died, raving and diseased, before we could get much more out of him.”

“Diseased?” I asked.

“Yes, some disease none of our healers have encountered before,” the spymaster said. “Although I suspect you may know of it… the locals call it Corprus.” He nodded as I gasped, almost as though he was expecting the response. “I want you to go to Fort Buckmoth and speak to the Champion there, Raesa Pullia. She knows what you are, not who, and is under orders to tell you whatever she can about the patrol. Find out what you can, find out where this base is located, and wipe them all out Finder, every last one of them. It’s a filthy job, I know, but someone’s got to do it.”

Raesa Pullia was distraught, to put it mildly. Clad in a black robe with a black cloth covering my face and the hood pulled as far forward as it would go, and bearing no trace of Legion armour whatsoever, I questioned her in the gruff accent of the Skaal. “Of the patrol, tell me,” I demanded.

“A patrol up near Gnaar Mok,” she said, carefully not looking at me directly. “Sent to investigate reports of cultist activities there. Six of my best men,” she added sadly. Then, pulling herself together, she continued. “They found a cavern ~ Ilunibi ~ and entered. They fought their way through the cavern; the survivor said that they fought mad cultists and terrible monsters. He described them as man-beasts. They came to something else, deep under the rock. The survivor said only two words about whatever it was they faced, just before he died.”

“Those words, what?” I growled.

“Dagoth Gares,” she replied.

“The survivor,” I pressed, “of him, tell me.”

“He turned up the day before yestere,” she said with a shudder, “after being missing for a week. We scarcely recognised him, so disfigured was he. It was only by his… his uniform…” Pullia paused for a while, obviously mastering her emotions. I didn’t press, I had seen the hideous results of Corprus-infection and could imagine, all too vividly, what the poor damned soul must have looked like. “We only recognised him because of his uniform,” Pullia continued after a while. “He was raving, something about dreamers and sleepers awakening and the time of the lost ones.”

That gave me another nasty start, the Dunmeri woman in the sewers beneath Vivec City, the one who’d killed seven people two months ago, she had been raving about ‘the time of the lost ones’. And, my memory prompted, she’d been toting a dagger with Sixth House sigils all over it. “Ilunibi,” I snapped, “where?”

“We don’t know,” Pullia said. “All we know is that they were patrolling north of Gnaar Mok. Tell me,” she pleaded as I turned to go, “is it true that the survivor had Corprus?”

I glanced over my shoulder and nodded curtly, leaving as she gasped in horror. Donning the ring, I returned to Tel Vahl. To be honest, part of me wanted nothing further to do with Cosades, Nerevarine Prophesies, or disfigured horrors raving about ‘Sleepers’ and ‘Dreamers’. The more civilised portion of me realised that the Sixth House Cult was becoming a problem. They’re obviously the source of the foulness known as Corprus and, if they’ve established a base near a population centre, even one as small as Gnaar Mok, then they have grown very bold indeed. Ignoring the problem wouldn’t make it go away ~ in fact, ignoring the problem meant that, sooner or later, disfigured monsters would be knocking on the door of Tel Vahl.

As to the Nerevarine Prophesies themselves? I was uncertain whether or not I believed in them but I was pretty certain that they weren’t about me. The whole idea was laughable, a no-name Dunmer born thousands of miles away, beaten daily and kept in abject poverty by adopted parents, a petty thief, an exile from her own land and reviled by the inhabitants of her ancestral home ~ this, this was supposed to be the life of some great battle-leader born anew? Please, don’t make me laugh.