The Egg of Time
by Bibliophilos Stratiotes
The shock was quick and harsh. I had fallen feet first and hit my journal, which lay on the ground below me. How my journal got there before I did is a mystery of physics that requires more scientific investigation. The world went black, and it seemed an eternity before I opened my eyes again.
When I finally came to and sat up, the world somehow seemed very different. I couldn't put my finger on it. Just very different. I rose to my feet only to find to my utter horror that I no longer had any. I also looked down and saw the corpse of poor Tarhiel lying sprawled on his journal. Why do I say "his"? It was really "mine"!
His—mine—it didn't matter any more now because a young ex-convict had seen my fall, and he approached my corpse to see what he could help himself to. I don't know how I knew that he was an ex-convict from the prisoner transport ship. All I knew was that the condition I was in made me unusually omniscient. But not entirely. Maybe prescient is a better word for it. Well, whichever, all I know is that I was much more aware of what was going on around me and why.
He stooped down and put his hand to the neck of the corpse to ascertain that it really was dead. And seeing that it was, he proceeded to strip it of everything it had.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" I bellowed as he unsheathed the sword, grinned at the enchantment glinting over its surface, sheathed it and buckled it around his own waist.
I pummeled him but I might as well have been shadow-boxing for all the good it did. My fists went straight through his body.
"No, not the Colovian helm!" I finally bawled as he took even that.
People often snickered when I walked about in that fool's-cap of a helm, but I still had a particularly strong attachment to it. However, all my roaring, pleading and outright bawling had no effect at all on him. It was as if he was totally senseless.
I watched distraught as he continued on his way toward Balmora. His Deus ex Machina didn't even have the courtesy to click "Dispose of corpse", for which he deserved a sound thrashing! The sun was starting to set, and I wailed like a beaten child.
I continued to watch over my mortal remains and, surprisingly, predatory animals sensed my presence and kept a good distance away. Then as the sun rose, a lone traveler came and approached my body. A whiff of the odor told him that I'd already been dead for about a day, so he hurried into Seyda Neen. Several guards came with a handcart to pick me up. I was gratified that my body wasn't allowed to moulder on the highway after all, but I chose not to follow and see how they would dispose of it for fear it would be in a manner altogether devoid of dignity. I knew that unidentified corpses were dumped into an open pit and sprinkled with lime.
You may have observed that in Vvardenfell human life is cheap.
* * *
I was disconsolate for about a day as I considered what my new role should be among the legions of the Undead. But I pulled myself together and somehow came to the conclusion that my next destination was Mournhold. The problem was how to get there. I somehow knew it was southeast as the crow flies across the Inner Sea to the mainland of Morrowind. That was farther away even than Solstheim! I began the long trek, but in half an hour I was only as far as Vivec.
There had to be a more efficient way of getting around. I tried jumping and was astonished at how my spring didn't arch as it would have if gravity had had its way, but it angled upward and wouldn't stop until I willed myself to angle downward again. In effect, I was flying—not levitating, but flying! Not aerodynamically flying, but flying flying! As a seasoned Mage, I had experienced levitation many a time, but it was nothing at all like this. This was a much better way to get around.
And if I put a little oomph into it, I could fly like an arrow. If a mountain interceded I went straight through it. It only got dark inside and then light again. I whizzed onward like a demon with his tail on fire and came to Mournhold in very good time.
The problem now was where to go because I was a total newcomer to Mournhold, but as before, I simply followed my instincts. I had to get to the Plaza Brindisi Dorom, which I finally did. I then drifted about the plaza surveying the area for what I was looking for. There was nothing—no entrance to Bamz-Amschend as my instinct told me there would be. A sudden hunch directed me to the ugly statue at the center of the plaza. That had to be the cork in the subterranean bottle, and I still had no clue what the bottle contained, only the urge to get down there.
I passed through the monument base and entered a vast hall with gigantic lapis-lazuli pillars, some of them having collapsed. The place was very airy with Dwemer machinery still patrolling the entrance. I couldn't tell if they didn't notice me or ignored me; there was no resistance as I flew through closed doors one after another, increasingly certain that I was on the right trail to Radac's Forge.
Now, if you think my urge to undo what could not be undone was misplaced, well think again. Yes, no more gravity, no more having to eat, no more having to procreate, no more having to die. No more pain, no more sickness, no more sorrow. No more rising at dawn and falling into the sack at dusk. No more of these! But let me tell you, he or she who doesn't do these things is as good as dead! The last thing anybody should want to be is dead, and it saddens me tremendously when somebody chooses that horrific route and takes his or her own life.
Sure, being dead has its prerogatives—the total awareness of everything, the ability to fly, the passing through objects and closed doors—but nobody should actually want that. No, being dead is no fun at all. No, I'd much rather have love, joy, good food and drink, a good book, a good nights sleep, good health, peace of mind. And when my time finally comes, I'll accept it with equanimity.
* * *
I arrived at Radac's Forge and Radas Stungnthumz received me very kindly—as ghost to ghost. I told him my problem, and he went tisk-tisk.
"Listen," he said, "you're dead like me; I'm dead like you. Why should it be different for either of us? And you want out of this vale of tears?! Well, so do I, but there is no way out. You are dead, so deal with it!"
"Excuse me," I responded testily, "but you do know a way out. And the reason you haven't taken it is anyone's guess."
Radas's brows knit as he pondered how much I might know about his little device. However, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't really omniscient in the strictest sense of the word, but the fact that I'd come to him indicated I had to know something.
"All right," he responded, "yes, I do know a way out, but it's not going to be easy. Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Unlike you, I don't want to go bump in the night for the rest of my existence. And what could harm me now? I'm dead!"
"Dead, yes, but not gone to Oblivion. I don't know what it's like there, but I can say I'd rather be here than there. It's like dying twice, and it's not very nice. Sorry, no rhyme intended."
He told me to go into Norenen-dur in the Citadel of Myn Dhrur and steal something from the Dremora Lord Kash. I asked what it was, but he wouldn't tell me. He only said that he'd left this something in Lord Kash's trust, hoping it would stay there forever and never be found, much less used. This thing could be found in a chest behind Lord Kash's throne.
"So I, a ghost, must take a physical object from a physical chest and bring it here," I pointed out sceptically. "Won't it just go through my hand?"
"You would only be taking its spiritual essence. All you really have to do is reach in and grab it. The problem will be how to get out of there again, what with all the Daedra on guard for intruders. But if you want it badly enough, then go to it!"
I asked why he couldn't get it himself. He explained he had instructed Lord Kash that if he himself (Radas Stungnthumz) were to come asking for it to send him to Oblivion on the spot. Why? He wouldn't say. He only said, "Go to it! But make sure you get out of there alive—I mean undead!"
It was with some trepidation about what I was being asked to do that made me fly at a slower pace than I could have. I finally arrived at Norenen-dur and was able to evade all the Daedra there. Somehow ghosts are not in any way suspect, so I was ignored as I whirled around Norenen-dur searching for the chest . I finally found the throne and zipped behind it, and sure enough, there was the chest.
The fact that all of this had been so easy up to now made me very careless of what I was doing. I thrust my ghostly hand through the chest lid, felt around until I found something like a kwama egg, grabbed it, and yanked it out. AH-OO-GAH! AH-OO-GAH! AH-OO-GAH! The whole cavern echoed with the klaxon that went off, and before I knew it, fire balls and shock balls were whizzing all about me.
I quickly flew about the cavern evading the Magicka the best I could. I occasionally got hit, and could feel my strength going. I panicked because I was totally disoriented and couldn't remember from where I'd entered. I found my way out, but accidentally flew back inside and had to fly around evading fire balls and shock balls to find my way out again.
* * *
Had I been mortal, I would have returned to Radas Stungnthumz a total nervous wreck, but I was still my usual self. Even so, he could tell I'd been hit and badly. I handed him the egg-like object he'd told me to fetch, and he took it as if he was almost afraid of touching it.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Ask no questions and I'll tell no lies," he said tapping the egg against a hard surface as if to break it open. The two halves came apart revealing intricate machinery inside.
"I nearly went to Oblivion getting this for you, so I think I have a right to know."
He stopped and rolled his eyes in exasperation.
"All right," he finally said, "this is the Egg of Time. It's a time machine. You can go backwards, forwards—it doesn't matter. I actually made this while researching the immutability of fate, to see if it's possible to change the outcome of past events by tweaking the circumstances in which they happened."
"Is fate immutable?" I asked tentatively.
"With a gadget like this? No, sir."
"So why didn't you use it to resurrect the fallen Dwemer? Why did you give it to Lord Kash?"
"One, I saw no need to bring back the past, and two, I was afraid it would fall into the wrong hands."
"And so you trusted Lord Kash with it," I added sardonically.
"Come off it!" he said impatiently, "He's a Daedra, for crying out loud! How can a Daedra ever benefit from changing the course of history? But supposing some idiot—yourself for example—got hold of this and inadvertently sent the universe back to the Big Bang? Where would we be then? No, something like this is way too dangerous to put into the hands of a fool, so I'll set the machine and let you activate it, all right?"
I winced at the "idiot" and "fool" implications but swallowed my indignation.
"All right," I responded.
He had me recall the exact moment I began falling toward Nirn, and he entered the data into the machine.
"Can't we set it back to where I can change my mind about trying Icarian Flight?"
He shook his head.
"Fate may not be immutable," he explained, "but stupidity is. You'll just have to experience that free fall all over again. In fact, I would wager a flask of brandy that your mortal self is, at this very moment, walking the face of Nirn, eating, drinking and fornicating. It's a good thing you didn't meet yourself on the way here. A man can't have two souls, so one would, out of necessity, have cancelled out the other, and I don't know which. If you had been cancelled out, both you and your mortal self would have ceased to exist. If your mortal self had been cancelled out, it would have nullified your purpose of your coming here, and I wouldn't be able to help you any more."
"But what if I get killed all over again?!"
He looked at me as if I'd just come from Masser.
"You call yourself a Mage and don't know the spell of Slowfall?!" he asked in total disbelief.
My jaw kind of wagged up and down trying to formulate an answer. Now why hadn't I thought of that before I let myself get killed in the first place?
"Now listen," he continued, "if something goes wrong, don't come crying back to me. I can't let Lord Kash know I have this Egg of Time, so I'm going to dispose of it in the nearest lava pool. Oh, and stay away from anywhere you might meet yourself. Well, with that understanding," he added snapping the two halves of the egg back together, "let's give this baby a whirl, okay?"
He reached it toward me. I reviewed the wording of the Slowfall incantation to make certain I had it right and then put my finger on the button. I pushed.
* * *
Suddenly I was hurling towards Nirn at an alarming speed, but I intoned the magic words and began to drift harmlessly to the ground. I was back on land and just as alive as you are. I nearly fell to my knees to thank all the gods for my deliverance, but I saw the ex-convict standing nearby and decided not to. With a cocky step I strode past him, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Sorry to disappoint you, old sport!" He blinked at me uncomprehendingly as I strode on.
I came to Arille's Tradehouse in Seyda Neen and banged against the door with such force that it nearly knocked me backwards. It had been a while since I had to open a door for myself. The door opened and Arille stuck his head out. He looked at me strangely as I massaged my bruised face.
"Are you all right?" he inquired.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," I responded sheepishly.
"Maybe in Colovia the doors open automatically, but in these parts they don't," he said grinning at my Colovian helm.
I wanted to swear at him, but I held my peace. My bruised face throbbed as I blushed beet-red with shame, but it was far better than being dead.
I sold him the scrolls of Icarian Flight—won't be using those any more—and headed upstairs to celebrate my overall good fortune with a flask of Cyrodiilic brandy.
"Here's to life!"