Keeper Hla:

No one is quite sure where the Anguish went; all that is known is, when he returned a few moons later, his power and knowledge had far advanced.

Vivec had sent word to the families of the priests and scholars that each one had been sent on divine missions to the ashlands – missions from which they would not return – and Thormil, old Mer that he was, had passed peacefully in his sleep. Panic would spread like a toxic cloud if he told them the truth, and to die nobly on the divine path was an honour he would not withhold from their houses.

But once he had appointed a new archcanon, Vivec started to ponder on his child's plot. He had revealed it to some extent, but not enough for the god to act. To raise dead creatures of Oblivion, half-Daedra and half-divine, would require an enormous amount of power that he was not certain Anguish was yet capable of. But, if he had felt comfortable enough to reveal himself, perhaps he was close. Vivec welcomed worshippers to his temple and made appearances in his city, but thoughts of his child's madness persisted. Eventually, he decided that he could not deal with the problem alone; and though it irritated him to, he sent for Almalexia and Sotha Sil, telling them that a 'pressing problem' had presented itself and he needed to confer with them as soon as possible. He could hear Sotha Sil's voice as he wrote the letter, chiding him for his 'whimsies'.

Almalexia arrived first, surrounded by her Hands and a number of her most trusted elite soldiers. She was a beautiful goddess – a Chimer still, surrounded by light, though the sight of her reminded him for a split second of the Anguish and he had to steel himself.

"Vivec," she said, and her voice was imbued with a power that had leashed itself to her very bones, "Your letter sounded urgent. Sotha Sil's not here?"

He gestured for her to follow him. The pair went through a door in the hall that led down to Vivec's private quarters, where not even the soldiers followed them. Their feet never touched the floor.

His chambers were large and filled with peculiar luxuries. Blue flin bottles with curved necks, throw pillows in a variety of colours, and his bed, which admittedly he spent very little time in – for what is a god who needs sleep? Almalexia did not pay much heed to their surroundings, for she could sense stirrings in the air, and no mortal pleasantries would distract her.

"I sensed trouble on the winds, Vehk, and now you've called us forth to Vvardenfell. What's happened? Is it the mountain?"

"No," he replied, and his voice was graver than she ever recalled it being, "If it were the mountain, I would have dealt with it myself. No, it's far more complicated than that."

"Then what is it, Vehk?"

"Patience, Ayem. We must wait for Sotha Sil. If I'm to tell this, I don't want to repeat it."

Perhaps it was the severity of his voice or the fact he had refused to speak further on the subject, but Vivec's words struck Almalexia. He had seldom declined the opportunity to speak before. He seemed distracted, on edge, and she chose not to press him.

"Very well," she said, "Then we shall wait for him."

The pair lapsed into an uneasy silence. For Almalexia, Vehk's silence was worse than his tale.

Sotha Sil, of course, was in his clockwork city, where he spent most of his time outside of Artaeum. He stood in his study, surrounded by the fantastical works of the Dwemer; large mechanical spiders that whirred and clicked with every move; the spheres that folded out into fearsome foes; even the pistons that shunted his city's day-to-day operations were impressive feats of engineering. The thrum of the machinery was as familiar and comforting to him as his own heartbeat.

Lord Seht started his day as he often did; unaware that it was day at all. The passage of time did not concern him so much as it had in the First Era, and sometimes he had to feel his power fade and weaken before he realised it was time for his annual pilgrimage to the Heart. It was one of the few pitfalls of secluding one's self from Nirn. It almost irritated him that he had been called there by his brother Vivec, when he was so deep in complex projects that required his full attention. If not for the letter's urgency, he wouldn't leave. He wanted to finish a project before he made his trip to Vvardenfell, however, and so he focused himself on the task at hand. But there was a strangeness to the air as he hunched over his desk – a sort of metallic oddity carried by a non-existent wind.

Blood? He thought, but dismissed it almost as quickly. There was no blood in the clockwork city, only oil. Perhaps some had spilt from one of the spiders, or a project had sprung a leak. But even as he tried to explain it away, the god was sceptical of himself.

He was right to be.

Sotha Sil heard the disturbance before he saw it; it sounded as if the air itself had torn at the seams, and a cloud of foul-smelling smoke enveloped his study before he had the chance to blink.

"Seht." He heard a voice, an evil voice, carry out of the shroud that engulfed a cloaked figure. He could see its ominous silhouette and smelt a distant fire burning.

Sotha Sil folded his hands in front of him and tapped in to his inner peace. "How did you come here?"

"One may learn all sorts of secrets if one knows where to look," the creature replied.

"Then forgive me my impertinence, for I must be in the presence of a great and wise wizard."

He laughed. It rumbled lower than even his loudest pistons, and he was not so proud as to deny that he was on edge.

"No mere wizard could do what I have done. Crawled from the fiery arms of Oblivion itself. Borne wounds severe enough to murder ten men. But, alas, Seht, I've come to discuss more important matters."

"You know me and yet I do not know you," the god pointed out, "Perhaps first you can introduce yourself, so I know exactly who I'm dealing with?"

There was a pause. Then the figure made a quick slash with his arms and the smoke dispelled – and with it went the smell, which Sotha Sil imagined he would remember for eons to come. It was that scent of burned flesh, reminding him of torn souls wailing in the deepest depths of Coldharbour.

His companion revealed his face, and whatever shock Seht might have felt he did not show it in his expression. He remembered those eyes, though. For him the time of the Chimer was a distant memory, not a section of a library. If not for the horrific burns (that still seemed for a split second to be on fire), he might have called the man beautiful.

"Hear me," the creature stretched his arms out to his sides, "I am the cries of children at their parents' demise; I am the betrayal of a close friend; I am the darkness that seeps in and steals a dying man's last breath. I am Anguish, Child of Coldharbour, Heir of Vivec, the lost beauty of the Pomegranate Banquet. Learn it now, Seht, for I will crush Nirn underfoot before I am forgotten."

The god's chin lifted somewhat. "Very well. I welcome you, Anguish. Tell me – what is so pressing that it required such a dramatic appearance?"

"My quarrel isn't with you. That bloated Poet who claims himself a warrior; he's the thing I want. I came to offer you a proposal; to leave me to my dealings on Nirn and, in turn, I will leave you to your machines."

"And if I were to refuse this generous offer?"

His smile revealed teeth that had been filed to fine points, "Then you will join Ayem and Vehk in the grave. Eventually."

Sotha Sil chuckled and shook his head. He paced from his desk, and the Anguish peered for a moment at the projects that littered it, the complicated diagrams and half-written notes. He didn't understand them. That angered him.

"Such pride," said Seht, "Be wary, young one, for arrogance has seen many a man early in their tomb."

"I am no man," the creature bit back, "I am the next in the line of Daedric Princes."

"Forgive me, Prince, for I wasn't aware it was a hereditary role."

"Enough!"

The shout rattled the halls of Seht's city. Pieces of machinery that had sat comfortably on their shelves rolled on to the floor and small pistons were shaken out of place, but Sotha Sil did not have time to observe these things. He had time only to block the sudden force that had been thrown towards him, perhaps to kill him, perhaps simply to knock him from his feet. However, to do that he needed to shield himself, and that locked him in a cage of his own making – for a time. He dare not dispel it while the Anguish was still there. He might not be able to block the next attack.

"My sire, Molag Bal, isn't fit to call himself a Prince, no less a King," said the demon. The more Sotha Sil looked at him, the more he appeared as a boy on the cusp of manhood. "When my brothers and sisters feast on Nirn, I will rend the power from his bones, drink his blood in a chalice of rubies. I will carve my name in the stones of Oblivion itself. And you, Sotha Sil – you will be too busy to stop me."

"Will I, Anguish?"

"Yes," that laugh again, "I have a gift for you. My first prototype, you might say."

"I'm honoured."

Anguish's face changed. Sotha Sil's calmness had infuriated him but, for the smallest of moments, the god could swear he sensed a longing in those golden eyes, a lost and thoughtful hurt that had twisted itself into madness.

"Be honoured," he growled, "for my brother Ul'acius has risen again, and your fabricants will be his first meal."

The figure raised his arms. A peculiar light appeared in his hand, and if not for Seht's pang of panic he would have observed that it was no colour he was familiar with. From this light emerged a staff, twisted and gnarled, with a fiery stone on top from which he swore he could hear screaming. In the space of an instant Seht saw armies of red-eyed Dunmer rising up from the lavas of Red Mountain, and an entire city crumbling under their mad weight.

It was all he could see before the Anguish slammed his staff on the floor, and a red, hot light blinded him.