This was not a pleasant trip. Keeper Ralmarys had far more insight into the Anguish than Meraala and Hla, and this is where the tale branches more in to the creature himself (itself?). For longer than I felt comfortable with, even my heart bled for this beast.
It's a trick, I tell you. This how he does it. He buries himself so far in your heart with the space he's made himself in it, and then he leeches the happiness and joy from you. That must be it! It must be!
I hope so…
Keeper Ralmarys:
The ash outside fell like snow. It drifted on the heat, weightless fragments of destroyed things, and floated down on the unsuspecting tongues of children, whose faces twisted with disgust as the taste drew them from happy memories.
Perhaps he was also a destroyed thing.
Anguish stared at himself in the water of the basin the wise woman had filled for him. His charred and molten skin – his betrayed-skin – had stained him. He was once beautiful. He had been the envy of his brothers and sisters. Mortals would have thrown themselves at his feet, he would have enjoyed the finest wines, and no one would have been able to resist his whimsies. All that remained of that life were his eyes, still gleaming lights in a world of gloom.
But he would not allow that injustice to be left unpunished. He would raise his murdered siblings and offer them a feast that would sate them for eons, and after that he would throw them Vivec's soul to tear apart as he had to them. Then he would be beautiful again. He would shed his betrayed-skin, and like a butterfly emerge as he had been once before – whole.
And when he was whole, he would storm Coldharbour itself and rip his father's failure from his chest.
"My Lord?"
The wise woman's voice pulled him from his reverie. Anguish started to wash the ash that had settled in the crevices of his burns.
"Do you wish for counsel?" he asked.
"No, my Lord, just…" the woman paused. She was an older Dunmer, near her two-hundredth year, and had faithfully guided her tribe in the old Chimer ways for over a century. When the Anguish had appeared to them from the depths of the lava beds, she had thought her people finished, that this evil creature was conjured by the Three to wipe out their peaceful settlement; and when he had offered them an insight into the future, into his plans for the False Gods of the Tribunal, she, like her people, had fallen to her knees and sworn fealty. She considered him the harbinger of the Chimer's return. Disfigured and unsettling though he was, he would save them from their disgrace. Azura's Nerevarine would never need return to Tamriel if the Anguish could end the Three's heresy.
The wise woman let out a low, steady breath. "I came to tell you that the excavation's started."
He paused. Once more, she pushed aside her innate fear of him.
"Excellent," he said. "And did you send word to the other tribes?"
"I did, my Lord. Our runners are expected to return at any moment."
"You did well in accepting my gift so quickly, Aphiese. Once I've completed the ritual, the rule of the Three will be at its end. Vvardenfell will be united for the first time in centuries."
That was enough for Aphiese to calm her troubled mind.
Sotha Sil was late to Vvardenfell – by roughly three days, if Vivec counted. But when he stepped through the portal with the corpse of Ul'acius, the Warrior-Poet forgot any annoyance he might have felt.
He put him on Vivec's bedroom table, sweeping away empty flin bottles and gifts from worshippers as he did. As the Three stared down at the corpse, it was clear this was no creature of Nirn. Three stubbed arms protruded on his left side and his mouth was unhinged to an alarming degree, frozen in one final death-screech before Seht had ended his terror for the second time. His single, sightless eye lolled aimlessly in his head. Ul'acius, the runt of the litter. Truly an abomination.
"What is this thing?" asked Almalexia.
"A brother of the Anguish," Sotha Sil replied, "I assume that was what we were called for, Vivec."
The god looked down at his twice-dead child. There was a stirring inside him, a feeling of regret for this wrong thing, but whether or not that meant he loved him he was uncertain. He assumed so. He did not want to gaze upon his corpse a third time, if that meant anything.
"Vehk," Almalexia's voice derailed his train of thought, "Will you explain now what the Anguish is?"
Vivec levitated to a bench nearest to his bed and settled himself on it. It was the first time in a long time that he had sat down. With him came Almalexia, but she remained suspended in air, and Sotha Sil stood to the side of the room, his chin lifted thoughtfully as he gazed at his friend.
He told them the whole of it. As he did, the Warrior-Poet reached for his flin and drank at leisure – a practice he had come to associate more with comfort than intoxication. It was true that even highborns could find solace at the bottom of a bottle. Almalexia's face flickered between despair, anger, and sometimes even sympathy as he explained the Anguish's sudden appearance on Nirn. Sotha Sil remained quietly contemplative throughout.
Once he was finished, a silence settled in the room. The divines had known of Vivec's dalliance with the Lord of Coldharbour, but that he had allowed some of his progeny to escape – that one of them had avoided his notice for so long, had become powerful enough to threaten even them – was an almost unforgivable sin in Ayem's eyes.
"If this Anguish plans an invasion, he must die before he can raise his siblings," she said with a cold finality.
"He's a powerful mage, rivalling even our own strength," said Sotha Sil. "It would be foolish of us to send soldiers after him. He would decimate our armies."
"Then what do you suggest? That we allow him to raise a mass of Daedra on our shores?"
"We must tread carefully. I have no doubt that Anguish is further in his plans than we believe. We may have to ready the men for an invasion, regardless."
"Perhaps you attribute him with skill he doesn't possess."
"I felt it, Ayem. He has the blood of Molag Bal in his veins. Even if he isn't as far in his plot as I suspect, he would not shiver at the thought of mortal men charging at him."
"Vehk, you've been quiet."
Vivec had more or less ignored the discussion between them. He found himself staring at Ul'acius from across the room, the way one of his arms had fallen over the edge to dangle lifelessly in the air. If the Anguish had raised him, it meant he knew how he would raise his other brothers and sisters. Ul'acius, though a horrifying sight, was the weakest of his children. Useful for little more than haunting children's nightmares. If he had not killed him, he fancied Molag Bal would have cleaved the creature's head from his shoulders.
"We have been left in a difficult position," he said. "If we move, he can destroy our forces; if we do not, he raises his army unhindered."
"Then we must have more information before we can proceed." Sotha Sil went to the table where Ul'acius laid. He had battled for three strenuous days to kill it, and even then it had wreaked havoc over his city. He was nimble, quick, and had avoided even the most sophisticated of traps just by virtue of his perverse shape. Many fabricants laid in bits about clockwork's halls and corridors.
"Spies? He could be anywhere in Vvardenfell by this point. I doubt we'll find him in a city tavern."
"Perhaps not, but if my interpretation is correct, I had a vision that could help us to find him."
Vivec and Almalexia both rose to attention, their shoulders straightening and their heads tilting ever-so-slightly upwards. Their companion, however, stared hard at the creature before him and made no attempt to explain himself. It felt like an age before he spoke again.
"Vivec, send your finest spies to infiltrate the Red Exiles, the Vereansu, and Ulath tribes. Even if he isn't there specifically, I doubt the Ashlanders haven't heard of him. Any and all contact, correspondence, even rumour can help us. Otherwise we will continue to fumble like blind mice until Anguish decides to show himself again."
The Warrior-Poet nodded. He would do all he could to prevent his children's return.
Murmurs travelled through the Dunmer crowd like a wave. Anguish stood above them on a rock, cut smooth by the winds, and waited as the last of his new followers started to step into place. Behind him loomed the ominous Red Mountain, spewing occasional tufts of smoke and sulphur, and around him snaked the lava pits and wells of magma that warmed the little village of tents far to their left.
The deal had been struck. He had the Ashlanders at his beck and call for as long as the Three's destruction remained his ultimate goal. Even as he faced them as their new leader, however, several Ashlanders felt that strange prick of fear in the middle of their heart. It spread as a disease did.
"Ashlanders!" he announced, "The true faithful, the scourges of Almsivi! Today marks the beginning of the Three's overdue end."
Aphiese wondered if the children in the crowd were truly green or if it was the way the light reflected from their skin.
"I, the new Prince of Fear and Regret, am here to reclaim my rightful place in Oblivion; and from the ashes of Vivec, new life will spring anew. Vvardenfell will see justice done, and you, Dunmer, shall be safe in the knowledge that your Chimer ancestors rest easy."
An Ashlander fainted beside her lover, who hurriedly pushed her up and shook her gently to rouse her. The Anguish was hideous, yes, and his voice enough to unsettle even the hardiest of men, but if it was true he intended to become a new Prince no one wanted to cross him.
"This is a new dawn," he announced, and from the depths of Red Mountain came a rumbling. "Even now, the men of the Ulath Clan have started to excavate the site of our great triumph. There is much to be done before I can begin the ritual, but there is time before that. Drink, eat and be merry, friends, for in morning, you shall join your Dunmer brothers in carving out your victory."
He raised his arms and gnarled staff.
"To Vvardenfell! To Azura!"
The Ashlanders cheered. It was a noise that carried down the rolling sides of the mountain, toppling pebbles and frightening kwama, as Anguish raised his head to the falling ash and smiled.