Chapter 25: Poems and Tools
Normally, the only sound in this chamber deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Truth was the scurrying of rats. Today, it was the whip.
"Again," Berel Sala commanded, his back to the mer. The whip cracked. Still she did not make a sound.
"You realise," he said, turning around, "that you are never leaving this place? Why do you remain silent?"
Alvela Saram gritted her teeth and addressed the floor. "If I am going to die here, why should I tell you anything?" she choked out.
Berel Sala placed his boot on her neck and pushed her face into the ground.
"Filth," he said. "Traitor. It is not my judgement you should fear, but the judgement of the Saints and the Three. You have knowingly helped dissidents and heretics. Think on your sins. Think on your soul."
The mer remained silent, her naked form shaking on the ground.
Berel Sala sighed. "Know that I do this for my Gods," he said. He took her hands, almost gently for there was no resistance, and drew his knife. Then he started the cutting.
Alvela Saram screamed. "Llovesi! Her name was Llovesi! That's all I know, please, please!"
She pulled her shackled wrists away, held the bleeding stumps on her hands to her face and howled. Berel Sala took the knife one last time, and slit her throat. The room fell silent. "Good," he whispered.
Then he straightened, and addressed the Ordinator with the whip: "Fetch Duldrar Saren," he said. "I want to assemble a team immediately. We will find everything there is to know about this 'Llovesi' and then we will destroy her, in the name of the Tribunal. Go. Then return here and clean up."
The Ordinator left. Berel Sala contemplated Alvela Saram's broken form on the floor for a moment, then he too left. Soon, there was no sound in the chamber but the scurrying of rats.
The sun was drawing low in the sky, casting a heather-pink glow on the waves as Blatta steered the boat into an inlet on Azura's coast.
Llovesi and Julan were snoozing lightly, her head on his shoulder, when the change in direction woke them.
"We're nearly there," said Blatta behind them.
Llovesi straightened the crick in her neck, and turned to look at the island they were approaching. It was large, and she could make out a set of carved steps winding up the island and out of sight. They were approaching a small wooden dock where a robed Dunmer woman was sitting, waiting, a boat moored nearby.
"Here we go." Blatta lowered the sails and picked up a long oar, much like the gondoliers in Vivec used, and steered the boat towards the dock. She threw a rope to the Dunmer woman, who tied the boat to a mooring post next to the other one.
Blatta brought the boat round and Julan and Llovesi stepped stiffly onto the small dock. It felt good to be on solid ground again. The Dunmer shook their hands.
"Greetings," she said, "I'm Vevrana Aryon, a monk of Holamayan. The monastery is here, on this island. Take the stone pathway north from the docks and the path uphill. A magical shield hides the entrance; it will open at dusk and dawn only, the magical twilight hours sacred to Azura. Mehra Milo has told us of your coming. You can find her in the library with Master Barelo. Later, I can arrange for your return to Vivec whenever you are ready."
Llovesi looked at the darkening sky. "Isn't it dusk now?"
The woman smiled. "You forget that it is still winter, sera. Azura's hours are from six to eight by the clock, and are not based on the light of the sky. It is currently only five on the clock. You can wait here, or go up, as you choose."
Llovesi chose to go up, and they left Blatta and Vevrana chatting and started to climb the wide stone steps. They curved round into the centre of the island. A large shell-shaped Velothi tower sat in the middle of a clearing, set into the backs of the cliffs. It was completely hidden from the outside world. Llovesi and Julan went to sit against the building wearily.
"I hope this is worth it," Julan said, then yawned. "This is a long way to come for nothing."
"Mehra wouldn't have asked us to come here if they hadn't found anything," Llovesi replied, hoping she was right. Could they be about to find the lost prophecies?
They sat for a while in quiet contemplation. Llovesi ached; her muscles were tired. The last few weeks had been near constant exertion, physically and mentally. Her induction into the Urshilaku Tribe, Shani, Corprus, Clause...
Suddenly, there was a loud grinding noise, and the wall they were leaning against shifted upwards suddenly. They jumped to their feet, and watched as the stone shell receded back into the building, revealing a small wooden door.
It was peaceful inside, and the large entrance room echoed with the sound of footsteps in the rest of the monastery. A large ash pit sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by shrines to various Dunmer saints. A monk was lighting incense on one of these.
"This place feels special, somehow," Julan whispered. "Protected. As if nothing bad could happen here. I hope that's true."
Llovesi nodded. She felt the same way.
The man by the shrines stood upright and turned to them, smiling.
"Are you Llovesi? Mehra Milo is waiting for you, with Master Barelo, downstairs in the library. While you are here you are welcome to partake of our services and hospitality. Rest in our beds. Speak with the others here, and you may find they can be of service in various ways."
He indicated the door with a sweep of his arm. Llovesi thanked him, and he returned to his prayers.
They walked down a set of wide shallow steps, and into a large room lined with bookshelves. The shelves were old and dusty, but the books were well kept. They walked through to the centre of the library. Here, cushions were piled around a low table, and Mehra Milo was sitting with an old Dunmer man, some parchment on the table in front of them.
Mehra stood up and embraced Llovesi.
"Thank you for rescuing me, Llovesi. I'm glad you two got out okay as well. This is Master Barelo." She indicated the old monk still seated and he rose to his feet with the aid of a cane.
"So you are Llovesi," he said in a tired, cracked voice. "I'm Master Gilvas Barelo, the abbot of Holamayan Monastery. Thank you for helping Mehra Milo. She says you are interested in 'lost prophecies.' I believe we can help you."
He eased himself back onto the cushions and motioned for Llovesi to join him at the table. Julan sat himself next to her eagerly.
"I have reviewed the Apographa, the 'hidden writings'," Master Barelo said, "and have found two passages of particular interest. We've made copies of these passages to give you. Many are familiar with the two Nerevarine prophecies current among the Ashlanders called 'The Stranger' and 'The Seven Visions'. We have two other prophecies, 'The Lost Prophecy' and 'The Seven Curses', that may offer additional insights into the riddles surrounding the coming of the Incarnate. Perhaps these are the Lost Prophecies that your friend Nibani Maesa told you about.
"We have also prepared a document for you called 'Kagrenac's Tools'. This document will explain to you, and to others, the terrible secret that the Temple conceals about the true history of the Tribunal and the corrupt nature of their divine powers. It is to conceal this secret that the Temple persecutes the Nerevarine and the Dissident Priests. This persecution must stop. We are fiercely loyal to the Temple's ancient traditions. But we are troubled that the ultimate source of the Tribunal's divinity might be the same as the source of Dagoth Ur's evil power. Dagoth Ur's power seems to wax as the Tribunal's power wanes. We must be united against the true enemy, Dagoth Ur. And if you are the Nerevarine, you must lead us against him."
He passed all three documents across to her and Llovesi looked down at them, her heart thudding.
"Can you talk me through these?" she asked.
"Certainly. Shall we start with the last document? I summarised it from the Apographa myself, and it is central to the divergence of our beliefs from the Temple's.
"Long ago, Dwemer miners discovered a great magical stone under Red Mountain. Lord Kagrenac, High Priest and Magecrafter of the ancient Dwemer, determined that this magical stone was the heart of the god Lorkhan, cast here in the Dawn Era as a punishment for his mischief in creating the mortal world. Kagrenac was determined to use the heart's divine powers to create a new god for the benefit of the Dwemer, so he forged three artefacts to draw power from the heart.
"These are called collectively 'Kagrenac's Tools'. 'Wraithguard', the gauntlet that protects, 'Sunder', the hammer to produce a volume of power, and 'Keening', the dagger that flays and focuses the power.
"When Kagrenac used these tools on the heart in the battle of Red Mountain the Dwemer race disappeared entirely from the mortal world. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Lord Indoril Nerevar and Lord Dagoth Voryn retrieved the tools, and Nerevar asked Voryn to guard the tools while he consulted with his counsellors, Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil, to decide what to do with them.
"But Lord Dagoth was tempted by the power of the tools. When Nerevar and the counsellors returned to Red Mountain, he refused to give them up. He fought Nerevar and the counsellors, but was mortally wounded and driven off, and the tools were recovered. They decided to keep the tools safe, but after Nerevar's death, Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil too yielded to temptation and went to Lorkhan's heart to give themselves divine powers.
"It was discovered that Lord Dagoth had not died. We believe, although we do not know, that his experiments joined him with the heart in some way, so he could draw power directly from it. We think that Dagoth Ur, as he so came to call himself, was driven by anger and greed and used the heart without caution or restraint. As a result he has become terribly powerful, and terribly mad. The Tribunal showed care and restraint and were not driven mad, and did much good. But it seems they too have been subtly corrupted by the heart's power.
"Kagrenac's tools are cursed. Stealing power from the heart of a God is a terrible folly, and fated to disaster. The Tribunal can no longer control the power of the heart. They grow weak, and cannot protect us from Dagoth Ur. Moreover, they conceal the truth of their powers in shame, and persecute the Nerevarine and Dissident priests. This too is folly, for divided we are weak. We must unite against Dagoth Ur if we are to end his hold on this land."
He stopped, and sipped a mouthful of water from a goblet nearby, offering some to Llovesi and Julan. Llovesi drank slowly, her mind a blur. She remembered what Yagrum Bagran had said to her, only a few days ago.
Kagrenac shaping 'mythopoeic forces'. He had acted like a God, the fate of his entire race a result of his choices. And the Tribunal – were they the same? She had never bothered much about the Living Gods, other than a vague interest in the idea. But now they were revealed to be frauds, equivalents of Dagoth Ur. Did it matter that their intentions were good? I had good intentions once, and I hurt a lot of people. Too much power is dangerous, no matter whose hands it lies in.
She thought of the silent God in the city that bore his name. Could he really sit back and watch the destruction of his home, because of shame?
Master Barelo coughed politely, bringing her back.
"Perhaps now you'd like to hear our interpretations of 'The Lost Prophecy' and 'The Seven Curses'?" he asked politely.
"Yes, please."
Julan squeezed her hand.
"Very well," Master Barelo ran his finger down the lines of 'The Seven Curses', reading aloud as he did:
"through the doors of the unmourned house
where scoffers scoff and schemers scheme
from the halls of the oath-breaking house
rings seven curses of Gods blasphemed
first curse, Curse-of-Fire
second curse, Curse-of-Ash
third curse, Curse-of-Flesh
fourth curse, Curse-of-Ghosts
fifth curse, Curse-of-Seed
sixth curse, Curse-of-Despair
seventh curse, Curse-of-Dreams
"Your copy of 'The Seven Curses' bears our guesses at interpreting the verses. In short form: Seven curses come from House Dagoth, or House Dwemer, or both. Fire and ash come from Red Mountain. Flesh is Corprus. Ghosts, Seed, and Despair are unclear, but Curse-of-Dreams seems to refer to recent cases of soul sickness and Sleeper attacks in the towns."
He pushed the paper back towards her. "There is more annotated on there, read it at your leisure. Now, 'The Lost Prophecy':
"From seventh sign of eleventh generation,
Neither Hound nor Guar, nor Seed nor Harrow,
But Dragon-born and far-star-marked,
Outlander Incarnate beneath Red Mountain,
Blessed Guest counters seven curses,
Star-blessed hand wields thrice-cursed blade,
To reap the harvest of the unmourned house."
Julan dropped her hand suddenly, and she felt him flinch beside her. She was shocked too. What?
Master Barelo inclined his head at her reaction. "Again, I've annotated your copy of 'The Lost Prophecy' with our best efforts at interpretation. But a rough summary might be: 'An outlander - foreign-born, but welcomed as a guest - confronts seven curses beneath Red Mountain. His, or her, hand, blessed by Azura, uses a cursed blade to bring justice to House Dagoth, or House Dwemer, or both.' The Nerevarine? An outlander? That wouldn't please many Ashlanders, and may explain how the prophecy got lost."
Julan stood up suddenly and excused himself, leaving the room. Llovesi barely noticed him go. Outlander Incarnate. Could it be true? Did she want it to be true?
She picked up the pieces of parchment. "Thank you, Master Barelo. For your help and time."
He nodded, and spoke again as Llovesi rose from the cushions: "Our interest in the Nerevarine used to be a matter of principle, a willingness to consider the validity of mystical insights rejected by Temple doctrine. Now, Dagoth Ur grows stronger while the Tribunal grows weaker, and the return of Saint Nerevar, even if only reborn in spirit, may be our best prospect of salvation.
"So long as the Ordinators, Buoyant Armigers, and Tribunal could contain the Blight and Dagoth Ur's creatures within the Ghostfence, faith in the Temple's protective power was strong. But now travellers and settlements suffer from Blight storms and marauding monsters, and the people fear the Temple is losing its ages-old battle with the Devil Dagoth Ur. If the outlander is to be a Nerevarine, then so be it. We need the Nerevarine, no matter who they may be. You know now what you must do, but please, rest here a while before you depart."
Llovesi thanked him again, and left the library, Mehra Milo at her side.
"So Llovesi, will you go to Nibani Maesa now?" she asked.
"Yes. I hope these prophecies will help her decide the right course of action. But first I think I'd like to rest here for a few days. Do some reading."
Mehra nodded, smiling. "Tell me," she said, "did Caius have any message for me? All this trouble with the Ordinators – I've found it hard to communicate recently."
Llovesi looked at Mehra's earnest face and her heart sunk slightly. "Oh Mehra, I'm sorry. He's been recalled, he's left Morrowind."
Mehra looked crestfallen. "Caius has gone back to the Imperial City? I wonder. I never know what he's thinking. I think he's involved in something secret, something dangerous. I was hoping he might help us. Now he's gone. I don't know what to think."
She turned away, apparently deep in thought. Llovesi made her way back to the entrance hall. Julan was there, lounging against a wall and scowling.
"Well, it looks like the lost prophecies were a big waste of time, doesn't it?" he said as she approached.
"Excuse me?"
"I was hoping I might get something useful from them, but it looks like they were lost for a reason." He sighed. "Just more stupid poetry that makes no sense."
Llovesi crossed her arms. "Are you just saying this because one of them claimed the Nerevarine would be an outlander?"
Julan pushed himself away from the wall and ran an uneasy hand through his hair. "Who knows what they claim? They're prophecies, it's their job to be vague about everything."
"It sounded clear enough to me."
Julan's temper flared suddenly. "Well, that's why it's stupid nonsense, isn't it? Of course the Incarnate isn't going to be an outlander! And you shouldn't forget what we're doing here – you're only pretending to be the Nerevarine to help me – we agreed that!"
"You agreed it for me!"
He glared at her. "Look, I'm sure all this attention is very flattering for you, but keep in mind what's important, okay?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I don't want to talk about it any more all right." He left through the wooden door, outside.
Llovesi watched him go, her cheeks burning with rage and embarrassment. Arguing in this temple, of all places! She was sure he wouldn't get far; the entrance was bound to be closed by now. All the same... she twisted the telepathy ring on her finger.
Get out of my head, Llovesi, I'm not talking to you right now!
She let the ring go. Right. Fine. That's the way he wants to play it. Well, she wasn't going to wait up for him. She turned on her heel and stalked off to find a bed to sleep in for the night.
She was roused the next morning by someone shaking her gently. It was Julan, and he was shivering slightly.
"Julan? What's going on?"
"I got stuck outside. The shield closed after me when I left last night. I had to sleep outside and wait for dawn. I had a bit of time to think, and... well, I'm sorry. Again. I get that you're curious about the prophecies. So, let's just take them back to Nibani Maesa and see what she has to say."
"You're being very reasonable all of a sudden."
"What can I say?" He grinned suddenly. "It was very cold out there."
"Well, come into bed and let me warm you up."
"Oh really!" His grin grew even wider.
"No! Not... I didn't mean... Julan, we're in a temple!"
His grin faded, but he slipped in beside her nevertheless, and they both went back to sleep.
They passed the rest of the waking day reading in the library and talking to the dissident priests, learning of their beliefs. In the evening, they were invited to share in a communal meal with the rest of the monks. For the first time in a few weeks, Llovesi felt truly safe and at peace.
It was with regret that she left the following day with Julan. Vevrana had them back in Ebonheart by midday and there was a sense of returning to the real world again.
"I wish we could just teleport to the Urshilaku Camp," Llovesi said, and sighed.
Julan looked surprised. "You should've said. I'll set a Mark when we get there."
"You'll have to teach me that," Llovesi said, as they set off for Vivec. "And, well, a lot of other spells I guess."
Julan laughed. "I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be teaching you something!"
In the end, they took the silt strider as far as Khuul and walked east, but the whole journey still took them two days. The Urshilaku greeted them warmly, and Nibani Maesa bid them inside her yurt.
"So Clanfriend, do you bring me news of the lost prophecies?" she asked.
"I do," Llovesi replied, and passed her the papers Gilvas Barelo had given her.
Nibani took them. "These are the lost prophecies? You will tell me these things, over and over, until I have them by heart. And then you will tell me what these priests say, what they see in these words. And then, you must leave me. Hunt. Sleep. Train. Feed. Learn the land. I must bring these things into me, and place them before my ancestors, and listen to them, and to the skies and stars of my dreams. And then, when the moons have come and gone, return, and I will give you my judgement."
So Llovesi spoke, telling the wise woman everything Gilvas Barelo had said, and talked her through the annotations on the documents. Nibani sat and listened, her eyes closed. Then, when Llovesi had finished, Nibani rose and held open the yurt's entrance for them without another word.
"Hmph." Julan snorted, once they were outside. "Nibani Maesa may believe this lost prophecies stuff, but I don't. This is pointless." He sat down moodily in the dust while Llovesi pulled the tent from her pack and started to pitch it.
"Well, we're not long from hearing Nibani's judgment, so you'll have your answers soon enough. Give me a hand with the tent will you?"
Julan got to his feet and started irritably jabbing poles into the canvas.
"What did Nibani mean by the moons coming and going?" Llovesi asked Julan, once the tent was standing.
"Oh, that just means one day. Wise woman talk. So what are we going to do?"
"I suppose I'd better go and write some letters," Llovesi said, lifting the tent flap and crouching to go inside.
Julan followed her. "Who to?"
"The other Blades, just to let them know what's going on. It'd be good to stay in contact. And I guess I'd better write a report as well."
"Sounds fun," Julan said sarcastically, and yawned. "I'm going to have a nap. Let me know when you decide to do something exciting."
He unfurled a bedroll and collapsed on it, pausing only to kick off his boots.
Soon the tent was filled with the sounds of Julan's snores, and Llovesi's charcoal on paper. She wrote the same letter out seven times, checking the addresses of the agents. Then she wrote a short note about the lost prophecies to send to the Emperor. It was a strange feeling. She wasn't even sure if it would reach him.
She was just sealing it with wax, when Julan sat up and slid his arms around her waist.
"Are you finished?" he asked, whispering into her ear.
She turned around. "Actually, I am."
"Good," he pulled her onto his lap. "Because I just thought of something fun we could do."
He slid his hands up her shirt and they fell backwards onto the bedroll.
Llovesi straddled him and planted her hands either side of his face. "Does this mean I'm back in your good books then?"
"For some reason, I just can't stay mad at you..." He sighed and moved his hands to her hips.
"I wonder why," Llovesi said dryly.
"Shall we stop talking about it?" Julan asked. "Tomorrow is another day, and right now," he rose beneath her until his face met hers, "there's something I'd much rather be doing."
Llovesi smiled and kissed him. Tomorrow was another day indeed, and if Julan was happy with a bit of escapism, so was she.
A/N: Hope this slightly lore-heavy chapter is okay for everyone! Morrowind's backstory is just so important that I felt I couldn't cut too much. A note to say there may or may not be a chapter tomorrow, as I'm off to visit a friend in another city and not sure when I'll be back yet!