27 Evening Star, 3E426

Almalexia and I had another meeting with the Imperial Ambassadors yesterday regarding the Temple's recent changes in religious policy. They seem pleased that the discrimination has ended, and I attempted to make moves to relinquish some of the Temple's authority to the Imperial City. But Almalexia stood firm, never angry, but always gently conflicting with my words, clinging to every scrap of power she can still grasp and holding to my arm in a show of unity.

I was beginning to be enlightened to the fact that she was not taking her loss of divinity very well. She spends countless hours with me standing at her side, saying nothing at all and staring into space. For the first time I actually saw her leave the High Chapel and abandon her Guard to come and sit in my chambers as had dinner, and she stayed with me until the sun rose, lying with me as I slept.

If I so much as mention that I want something around here, it is brought to me. I had been exaggerating when I came in from the Temple plaza, practicing with Trueflame, and said that I could eat a dozen kwama eggs. And yet moments later, that is exactly what one of the lower-ranking priests shuffled in with. So difficult it was not to laugh. I don't even spend that much time in armor anymore, usually in my Hortator robes with a sword-belt and leaving my shield in my chambers. I've not so much as left the city.

But there is always something that needs done. Disturbances on the border to Black Marsh, negotiations with the Imperials, an influx of bandits from Skyrim, thinly-veiled mudslinging between the Temple and King Helseth's drones. It is all so horribly tiresome, and yet, I must take part, to balance out the extremism of Almalexia's wishes. I cannot tell what she is thinking anymore.

As the time went on, the hours we spent together grew less and less. Day or night she rarely came to my chambers and soon, stopped entirely. A few whole days passed without any contact between us whatsoever outside of official business, and I found myself appreciative of the solitude. The lack of space had been draining, but even with this relief, I could still see the bars of my gilded cage.

It was yesterday that the city came under attack again. Another wave of creatures spilled out from beneath the statue, and now there were no constructs standing between them and Mournhold. Citizens had not been common in the Plaza Brindisi Dorom since the first incident so there were fewer civilian casualties, but it took a bad toll on both the Ordinators and Royal Guard. I was still assisting with recovery when I was summoned to the Temple to speak with Almalexia. She had news.

"Sotha Sil." She spoke his name with a sorrowful sigh. "As I feared. It was his creations, these Fabricants, that attacked my city. This once great man is now a danger to Mournhold and to all of Morrowind. He must be stopped, Nerevar."

My head was low for a few moments. Another old friend, gone mad. My heart felt heavy. "I hope it is still possible to reason with him."

"If he cannot be, you must end his life," Almalexia replied. "Though the idea saddens me, it is best for Morrowind... and it is best for him, as well. You have the power to do this."

"I question if I have the will," I said honestly, "Even though we haven't been reunited yet in this life, he is a dear companion to me."

"I cannot count the times I have fought by the Magician's side. It was he who stood with me the day I fought in Mournhold and banished Mehrunes Dagon to the depths of Oblivion." She closed her eyes in bittersweet reminiscence. "I have suspected for some time that the Lord Sotha Sil had entered Sheogorath's realm. His visits have been more and more infrequent, and punctuated by violent fits of anger. He began to speak of the fall of the Tribunal. He is no longer the man he once was."

Taking a deep breath, I spoke with determination. "Let me meet with him alone."

"If that is what you wish, I can teleport you to his Clockwork City. But Nerevar, please," Her smooth hand graced my cheek and I raised my own to hold it there a moment. "Be careful. His lair is as puzzling as the mind of the Sorcerer himself. Ever-moving, ever-changing, its levers and gears responding to its master's will alone."

I nodded, bringing her hand to my lips to kiss it. "Don't worry for me. Send me to Sotha Sil."

In the blink of an eye my surroundings changed. I was knee-deep in water, standing in a flooded metal chamber. Mosses draped over some of the piping. The levers and gears looked rusted over. I had to muster all my strength to pull the mechanism that opened the door in front of me, and I found myself in a larger chamber that began to slope upward, which I followed.

"Sotha?" I called out, hearing nothing in reply but the constant scraping of working machines. I proceeded on, quite grateful again for Azura's blessing to my sight, for it was pitch-dark in places. The air smelt stagnant, like a ruin.

The Clockwork City was a hazardous maze of massive gears and chambers containing moving mechanisms of ridiculous proportion, many obvious traps such as swinging blades hanging about to ward off the foolhardy adventurer. I made my way out of the flooded areas and into hallways that didn't show near as many signs of rust and neglect. Sparks streamed out of parts of the ceiling like small fiery waterfalls.

I tried to shout for him again. "Sotha Sil? It's me, Nerevar... I just want to talk." Everything I knew of the Tribunal's divinity suggested he should already know I was here and yet there was no answer, and the hideous traps remained activated. It slowed my progress, made every step tedious. It seemed as if he had become mad enough to wish death on anyone who came near him or his experiments.

Finally I came to a door that was a bit larger than the rest, dusty banners of the Tribunal hanging on the walls just outside it. I knocked at first, but there was no answer but the clanging background noise. Perhaps he couldn't hear, I reasoned, calling out to him one last time in vain. Shaking my head in resignation I found the lever and pulled it, standing back and out of the way as it came open.

It was pitch dark at first, but I proceeded in anyway, able to see naught but a strange silhouette by the light of Trueflame in my hand. But as the door moved back into place behind me, a series of Dwemer tubes lit up, all around the edges of the circular chamber I was in. And right in front of me was Sotha Sil, unmistakably long dead.

My heart pounded in horror and I put my hand to my chest to calm it, trying to control my breathing. What was left of my old friend was hung up by his own machines, the cables dangling the remains a few feet above the dry, blood-caked ground. One glazed eye, still open, was visible from the damage to his mask, staring into oblivion.

Someone had gotten here before me. My heart sank to my stomach and I felt bitterly cold, turning away, and then a voice like ice spoke.

"Sotha Sil... he always thought himself our better, shunning us, locking himself in this hole. He spoke not a word as he died. Not a whisper. Even in death, he mocked me with his silence."

Almalexia.

"But I think you will scream, mortal."

There she stood, as if from nowhere, wearing her tusked war-mask whose eyes glowed with the same golden fire as her own, Hopesfire in her tense hand.

"This Clockwork City was to be your death." Never had I heard the goddess so angry, not even when I had told her of the cult. "You were to be my greatest martyr! The heroic Lord Nerevar, sacrificing all to protect Morrowind from the mad Sotha Sil." Her hands shook in anger. "But you live! You live!"

I cannot say I was surprised apart from the moment of her initial appearance. No, it was mostly... I suppose the word is disappointment. I had hoped she would merely be content just to have me again, but the loss of her power had proved to be the final straw. I wanted nothing more than for the transition into this new age to be made peacefully, but I should have known that the Nerevarine's burden does not end with prophecy. The demons of Nerevar's life are too many.

Thus Trueflame and Hopesfire clashed. "I will tell the tale myself when this is done," Almalexia growled at me, pressing against my defense with divine strength. "I will tell my people how with your dying breath you proclaimed your love for me, the one true goddess!"

I dealt her a firm kick to the stomach and she reeled back a step. "Just how much longer can you protect them?" I inquired, furious. All of it, from the very beginning, had been her doing. The ashstorms, the Fabricant attacks, and now the murder of our cherished friend... I suspected that the 'bad information' that the King got had the same source. "Your powers are waning, Almalexia. You are mortal again, the Heart is no more. They are going to lose faith, and it is for their own good."

With a shriek of anger she blasted me back by means of some sort of concussive magic. I landed on my back and she threw the crackling Hopesfire at me; I barely rolled out of the way before it sunk rather deep into the metallic floor. With a wave of her hand she willed it back to herself. "You know nothing, Nerevar. You are powerless."

"Refusing to wield the same profane powers you gave your soul to, Almalexia, does not mean I am powerless." I stood in a defensive stance, staying rigid despite the ache building in my chest. My very soul felt pierced and I dreaded what I was starting to realize I'd have to do.

"None may stand in my way. Not you, and certainly not Vivec." She brandished her weapon at me and I braced myself. "He is a poet, a fool. I will deal with him when I have finished with you."

Fire and lightning met again and again as Almalexia and I exchanged blows. She wore no shield but made up for it by dodging with uncanny speed and our swordplay seemed on equal footing. One of her powerful downward strikes got Hopesfire lodged in my shield and I tried to angle it away so that she couldn't reclaim it. Irritated she unbalanced me by swiping at my face with a magically-burning palm, took her sword back, and then plunged it right beneath the pauldron of my armor.

I bit my tongue so as not to give her the satisfaction of hearing me scream. The sharp blade itself and the small hook on its edge would have been bad enough but the lightning made it so much worse, setting the nerves in my whole body alight with pain. My shield-arm was now handicapped, any significant motion quite agonizing. I was breaking a sweat from the shock but I tried my best to focus through. I let my suffering become anger and then, determination, and swung at her neck as she held her blade in my flesh.

The blade was jerked out when she leapt back, landing gracefully in an almost dance-like stance and holding the bloodied Hopesfire out before her in challenge. For a moment, it seemed, she remembered her honor and gave me a minute to catch my breath and recover. That, or she just wished to drag this out as long as she could. I had no clues as to what was going on behind that war-mask, but something about her demeanor told me she wasn't smiling.

I had done everything she asked and yet it had all come to this. At least, said a thought in the back of my mind, if I won this fight I would again be free. A bitter comfort in the midst of a foolish battle.

Tired of waiting, Almalexia came at me again with a sideways strike, aiming for my shield more than me. An attempt to wear me down, no mistaking it once she did so again. And unfortunately it was starting to work. I turned my other side towards her and parried with Trueflame, forcing her to dodge a thrust immediately after. She spun and slashed at me with the momentum from that and I blocked it with my blade, still wanting to use my shield-arm as little as possible. I glared into the eyes of the mask as she bore down on me with all her strength but then saw her hand coming up, preparing a spell. There was nowhere to dodge.

With no other choice I pushed through the agony and brought up the shield to strike her in the face, as hard as I could. She cried out, staggering backwards. I saw a few drops of blood fall from the bottom of it and land on tattooed golden skin. Almalexia didn't move for several moments; I suspect she might have even forgotten the feeling of pain, and that just made the entire ordeal that much more unpleasant.

Soon she was on the offensive again, even angrier now; but a lot of her finesse was replaced with raw temper. The amount of power she had must have felt puny compared to what she wielded before. And she had grown so accustomed to that strength that wasn't her own, that she barely knew what to do without it. I continued to parry and block her, rarely swinging back, pitying her more and more the longer we fought, and Almalexia began to tire.

She cast the same spell she'd used to knock me back to aim at the ceiling of the mechanical dome just above my head. The room shook and while I was fighting to keep balance, gears and pipes began crashing down. I held my shield up and backed away from my opponent, my eyes still on her should she try to take advantage of the distraction, wincing when a particularly heavy piece crashed into it. Better that than my skull, however, and though my wound hurt horribly I remained silent. Dust showered down upon us, so much in fact that neither Almalexia or I could see our enemy.

A fireball came flying through the dust and I barely got my shield in front of me in time. A few more came, but they all missed, her sight obscured and I heard her growling. I looked down and saw a sturdy brass pipe by my feet, and had an idea. I scooped it up and waited for another fireball to come flying into the debris cloud, and hurled the pipe right at the source.

I heard a clang and a shriek; I had made my mark. Preparing my blade I ran toward the source to see the moment that Almalexia's war-mask split right down the middle and fell off her bloody face, and it was because of this I was able to see the horror in her eyes when Trueflame ran her through.

Rather than let her fall I took her by the shoulders and reclaimed my sword, then gently lowered her to the ground while she gasped for air, body still in shock. Her eyes were delirious, wide, but she looked upon me and smiled. "You always... won... our sparring matches."

"Except for the last one." I said with a chuckle. The words left my lips but I'm certain it was Nerevar that spoke them; only he would recall that.

A choked, painful-sounding laugh in return, tears in her eyes, a bit of blood streaming from her lips. Then she looked suddenly so afraid, eyes darting here and there in search. "It's dark," Almalexia nearly whispered, though her eyes were open. "Nerevar, are... a-are you there?"

"Yes, I am, Almalexia." I laid my hand on her bloodied cheek to soothe her and she reached out for me. I leaned down and guided her hand to my own face, letting her caress me weakly... and then she went still, her golden hand falling lifeless to the floor. The fire in her divine eyes went out, and with a heavy sigh, I closed them forever.

Something tickled my cheek and I reached up to find a single droplet had made its way out, and I felt certain it did not come from Adarise. I sat there in that room full of death, feeling so cold within, and a hand laid on my shoulder. I turned to see Azura standing there, looking down at me with a sympathetic smile.

"You have done well, Nerevar," came her ethereal, comforting voice. "The death of Almalexia is a boon for all of Morrowind, though it may take time for this to be understood. She would have betrayed the Dunmer as surely as she betrayed all those she loved. This was her curse, and this was her undoing." I nodded in agreement, not quite ready for words yet, wiping the tear off my face and looking over at the dangling remains of my old friend the Sorcerer.

"Weep not for Sotha Sil," Azura reassured me, helping me up and laying her healing hands on my wound. "He shed his mortality long ago, and I am certain his death was no small relief to him. These gods lived with the burden of a power no mortal was meant to possess."

"One still lives," I spoke, my voice feeling hollow.

"Yes, Vivec still lives... but I believe his time grows short. But go now Nerevar, free once more. Never doubt to yourself that you have done what was right and necessary. Go with my blessing."

I blinked and suddenly I was no longer in the Clockwork City and all the blood was gone off my hands. Instead I stood under pure moonlight in the Temple Plaza. Trueflame was in one hand, Hopesfire was in the other, and there was a surprising emptiness in my heart.