On Boethiah's Summoning Day 1
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To my friend Tal Marog Ker, Tis' been near fifty years since last we had chance enough to speak, when I lent the battlemage Dagon's protonymic and my isle was for a short time freed from it's prison. Liberation lasted long enough for me to gaze once more upon Direnni, and see the fall of Tharn, the same span it took for Dagon to reappropriate. I would have warned you earlier had I not been snatched away. I would have relaid it immediately but my mind comes and goes. Have you seen my son? Perhaps I was better off in the void. The void. It wasn't void while I was there... Your notes on the journal I gave you last we met are terribly poor. Perhaps the journal was poor. I may be able to make clarifications next we meet. I write to you at the outset of crisis. Old habits die hard [even for a Leaper Demon] but Caecilly is no longer safe from the tempest of Alduin; we were before, hidden away in the skyvaults of the deadlands in the back of the Dagon's mind - a pocket of stasis in a void of chaos, a new Aldmeris waiting to bloom. Numidius would have had his own, Camoran did but did it wrong. You realize by my writing that Dagon's banishment by the Akatosh-Incaro set Caecilly free once more, though for how long I cannot say - if the Thalmor who came to study it's chapel are correct perhaps forever. But now we're here and the world-eater will find us, soon even, for we're in the north. I've felt since birth that should I ever meet a dragon it would be my solemn duty to slay it. Yours, 232 Stendarr's Star To Tal Marog Ker, I am well my friend, or as well as I can be. I'm told for eight years I was a madman but the healers sent from Northpoint were adequate, even if their magicks less refined. Few hallucinations creep in. Forgive my dating. It is of my own design; time in the void doesn't match our own, and I've yet to shrug it off. Why should the Inquirers care for the return of an Isle with one insane citizen? Those of my clan which have set foot on Caecilly have given me no word on the politics of Summerset, or if they have I wouldn't know, I was far down the golden road at the time. Am I so early as that? Are the Nords at peace? Events which I barely know I saw in my last moments in Oblivion. I witnessed the Dagonites fall, not from Nirn, but from my place in the back of Dagon's mind. The coming wars occupied the Dagon's thoughts as a plague, though whether in favor or against I cannot say. Rumors and whispers travel like lightning when there is only one divine decree to wade through. Last time there were twelve worlds, in the next there will be sixteen. Or is it seventeen now? Caecilly may still be one of them, a bit of hoarded dirt, if he reclaims it, if he can reclaim it - the crystal chapel has stopped pulsing. Where went the other four ehlnofey? Meredia, Peryite, Trinimac and... who? They'll be divines again no doubt, next time; the Velothi spoke too soon in calling them their ancestors. Or were the Velothi here to soon? With their triadic gods one could never say. Anticipations indeed, but one never anticipates your ensuing immanence to usurp you before its time. I hope to see you soon, my hand grows pained in writing. Rest assured, the jaws of Oblivion were only the first molars of Alduin's. Yours, 250 Stendarr's Star Tal Marog Ker, I leave motivations up to the councils. I do not know to what ends the gods act, only some of the technicalities of their means. The scholars read too much into the uniformity of the divines. A man may have conflicting desires, but must choose between them, thus his finitude. Stand on the mythic scale of raw possibility and all such inhibitions are lost, it is only a matter of prominence. The Alessians inaugurated the prominence of Akatosh. The Marukhati tried to exclusify it. Hjalti reinstated it. The Empire upheld it. The Dagonites ended it. The Dragon of Cyrodiil is bound in stone, and in time, The Dragon of the North will no longer be. To think the daedric realities monotonous, the University pampers you too much my friend. Untold ages I've stood and read the skies of Oblivion, seen it shift and change with the moods of the Prince, or more often with the tides of war between the Markynaz and the Xivilai, or the Mazken, or whoever they were vying for power with at a given time. I personally preferred the ever-so-short period when the Hernai gained favor. The daedra make up for in war and debauchery what they lack in romance. The divines may romance. Man and mer may romance. The daedra may not, for romance requisites division. The ehlnofey knew this, thus they became sundered. You ask what of the Empire's collapse, of new lords? I will tell you, that is what I am speaking of already. Is not the Talos Cult more persecuted than ever? The cycle need not continue - the end comes by many roads, it may be destruction or fulfillment. Do not listen to the lies. The usurpers of the East, or the West. The triadic gods wars against Talos, and would have him removed, for he sets the stars in stone which could spell their doom. They come before they are anticipated, for unless they do they may never come at all; Alduin is their antecessor, but only if Hjalti fails. Talos holds back the divines of the next world. This is why he became a divine of this one - divine yet unanticipated, thus his uniqueness. He upholds the dividing lines of the cosmos. Defends romance lest we lose it the pit of singularity. The Princes of this world will follow the lead of the Princes of the last - they will step up and become kings, with Peryite as their chief. This much should be obvious, every Prince Anticipates their future immanence. I can feel the pains of childbirth in the heavens and I rail against it. I am an old man. I was an old man before. I don't think I'll ever be anything but an old man. It is for our progeny that I write. My son is somewhere. Yours, 240 Stendarr's Star To my friend Tal Marog Ker, I don't believe my old bones could stand the long journey to Cyrodiil, age has taken up where Dagon's curse left off in binding me to this isle. If the Council is to be informed it must be by your voice, I am here only to give what direction I can. Those of the rising Dominion believe me mad, though that of my own will; one does not cast his lot in with those who may or may not be the authors of your doom. The Direnni I've found were not the ones I left, I consider myself true, perhaps the last - that is a lie, I am a heretic, but my staff is lit. The teachings of my childhood escape my thoughts, my mind has betrayed me. A dram of tramur will bring it round. Auriel enacts a third end, transcendence, which is another name for destruction by way of neglect. Dagon preoccupies himself with images of dragons, yet Auriel adorns himself with shield and bow; his concerns are less draconic and thus weigh less on those vested in the world [save Talos who defends it]. Have any of my words been outside the bounds of the golden road? I cannot say. I leave it to you and to the councils to judge, I only speak to what I see in hopes that I may equip the hosts for the coming days. Yours, 16 Sun's Dawn, 4E 14 To the venerable Lord Idhdean Vindasel, Xarxes Warden, Councilor: I write to you regarding matters of the highest priority, and for the moment, confidentiality. The messenger with whom I send this letter holds the proper documentation and sigils for admission into the Thaumagnosiam. I believe the matter conferred worthy of hearing on the council floor and trust you will examine what follows with care and discernment. As you may be aware the Isle of Caecilly has returned once again to the continent of Tamriel, not to its residence off the western coasts of High Rock but to the north. I write to you now from its meadows, chilled in the glassy frost which drifts in from the Azurian Sea, within sight of the old Andrelheimoth Keep and the Nordic ships which sail from Solitude around the tip of Northpoint to the Iliac. The exact reasoning for its relocation I cannot say, only that it is here. Of even more import than the fact of its return is the return of its master. For a fortnight I've discoursed with its master on all manner of subject, from the mundane to the mystic, the metaphysical to the mythic, that of our plane and those beyond. One thing seems manifestly clear, the influence of the cosmic influx which has set in upon the outset of the new era. You've seen the college's restricted reports on the Asylums, what hushed whispers we've had of a peculiar event termed the Greymarch. Now we have the rebirth of the old Dominion, and if the gleanings of this island's master hold true, we will soon witness the rise of Alduin in the north; I'm sure you are aware of Nordic superstition, I write to say that its truth is becoming beyond question. In the words of Chimere, Master of Caecilly: "the void realms reverberate with echoes, an echo which settles itself here on Nirn; sound travels faster than time and so serves as a warning. Order ever seeks the dominance of uniformity; first over the void, and then the Mundus. The cycle which we witness will strike our own shores, not in crystal, but in dragon's fire. The image of Talos stands with shield raised against it but is opposed on all sides - in bringing one dragon into subjection it's mirror kin rise up to destroy him for he protects the world." The superficial authenticity of these words cannot be doubted. Even under the reign of the Septims we witnessed the Talos Cult forced into basement shrines, only later did we learn of our infiltration by the Dagonites. Have we not learned our lesson? Agents of the new Dominion enter councils as emissaries and advisers; already they're taking back their former lands, and now we show hints of letting them take ours through conversion of ideas, and for what, diplomatic commonality? That we may sacrifice our gods in the hope of peace? The enemy will not rest with mere ideological appeasement, the advancement will continue on land till Talos' blessing is wiped from the map and we will see that the enemy has outmaneuvered us; should we beat back the forces of the one even as we bury our dead we will turn to see his brother has arisen behind our ranks. Should you doubt the veracity of my statements I bring with me the bloodied signet rings of two Thalmor agents who came to Caecilly Isle fearing the knowledge of its master, of the implications of their actions and the full sway of their influence against our fledgling empire. I shall be leaving for Cyrodiil shortly, first for my residence in Skingrad and then for the Imperial City to meet with you (and then if you deem it necessary, with the council). I have attached relevant sections of my correspondence with the master of Caecilly that you may have a clearer understanding of the patterns being considered and look forward to meeting with you upon my arrival. Faithfully, Sealed: Chimere Graegyn - Master Sorcerer, Summoner & Direnni Retainer 14 Stendarr's Star To Tal Marog Ker, The tides of fate move against you my friend, it would have the truths of this world become cast off with those of the last, failed pathways. We must test it and disprove its standing as fate. The myths are more than truth, not because they tell us the dragon exists, but because they tell us the dragon can be vanquished. It may be fought however it bulks over the cosmos, though it be greater than Adamantia or High Hrothgar, should it be as big as the world it must yet be slain in the name of the world. One need not consider any proportions in the mythic scale of things, but only the original secret of their schematics - Hjalti may shake his axe at the dragon even if the empty heavens above his head are only the monstrous arch of its open jaws; to the spirit which has stripped off its temporal standards the enemy is of one flesh. I drink to your safe passage. Yours, 41 Stendarr's Star To my friend Tal Marog Ker, Your last correspondence was disheartening but I have faith yet - the patterns of the cosmos cannot be ignored. The stars speak for their own truth. There are those who still keep account of old pathways. Schematics are never fully lost, self-sustainment ensures survival even in those who plot the end of the world. The picture is not so black as it is already painted by the Thalmor [and Dark Brotherhood, who view only one angle of that which they worship as god]. Creation is separation, it is as solemn as death and perhaps this is why we hardly discern the difference. The et'ada will learn this difference again, either by rote or through the enlightenment of Talos, which is romance: the maiden, the dragon, and the warrior [and the bard, who sings their song]. Keep my blessing, there is nothing more to say. If you emerge from the gauntlet I hope to see you. The drums of war will beat again, perhaps this time we will prevail; not by my aged hand, but by our progeny's, for whom I write (and my son, wherever he is). If my curse remains I serve simply as witness, and herald. Yours, |
