"I can tell you why/
People die alone/
I can tell you I'm/
A shadow on the sun"
Audioslave, "Shadow on the Sun"
The next room appeared to be relatively mundane compared to the rest of the rooms. It was a little dark, and some of the walls on our side of the room were slightly blackened, but aside from that, the room was unexpectedly normal. Lying patiently in front of us was a tidy, unelaborate wooden desk. A leather chair, presumably Sheogorath's, sat in its opening. Sitting on his desk was a quill and a single inkwell. The naked simplicity of the room astonished me.
Behind the desk were shelves of leather-bound books of information. I didn't dare think of what they contained, and I had no wish to investigate. Near the shelves was a single, plain door. It was made of a deep, dark red wood. For a moment, I pondered what lay behind it. The thought quickly vanished as Sheogorath ambled over to the chair, slid it out of place, and sat down. "I tire of standing," he explained simply, leaning forward in the chair. There was a weary light in his eyes. He sighed, and closed his eyes. He leaned backwards.
"I want this obstruction to be over," he told me under his breath, looking down at his desk. He sighed, and glanced at me. He said to me plainly, "Things aren't nearly as simple as they seem to be." I nodded apprehensively and approached his desk. "You know more than I do," I stated, caressing the hard surface of the desk. I made brief eye contact with him, and then looked away. The supernatural luminosity of his eyes almost had an evil quality to them. Obtaining eye contact with him for any period was unnerving.
Slowly I walked to his side of the desk. Despite his fatigue, his shame, and his depression, he still looked surprisingly, almost inappropriately, proud. I gazed over his meditative countenance. His right index finger nervously outlined his pinkish lower lip. He looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. Then he lifted them both. "Are you anticipating something from me?" he interrogated me suspiciously, his eyes thinning slightly. I shook my head slowly.
"Since we know Zarrexaij isn't here, why am I not currently on my plane of existence?" I quizzed him, narrowing my own eyes. I suppose in a way I did lie; I fully expected him to know everything that was happening. Sheogorath, for a moment, said nothing. He struggled on a few words, but finally, they came out. "Things are not that simple. They're never that simple, Walter," he replied softly, the radiance in his eyes intensifying threefold. He smiled and picked up the quill on his desk.
"This is a quill. Right?" he asked me, looking up at me with an uncharacteristic lucidity. I looked at him with uncertainty. I answered him, "Yes." Sheogorath turned it over and investigated it. His expression changed to one of playfulness. "Just a quill? Nothing less and nothing more?" he continued questioning me. I began to rethink my answer. "Well…" I replied and searched for the reply he was looking for. He emitted a soft chuckled.
"What makes this place so different," he explained calmly, "is that the true nature of things is easily revealed. If I say this is a quill, it is a quill. If I believe that it is a sword, it becomes a sword." He placed it on the desk and stared at it for a moment. The quill quivered and writhed, and it became a silver short sword. I blinked, and turned my attention back to him.
"Think about it," he said coolly, "it applies even to you. Say your name a couple of thousand times. It starts loosing its meaning. It starts sounding foreign. Even the word 'I' begins to sound strange. Your sense of self is easily altered. Illusionists are experts of altering not only theirs, but the consciousness of others." I thought about what he was trying to convince me of for a moment. "I never studied Illusion much," I replied nonchalantly. I began to whisper my name a few times. Sheogorath grinned widely. I looked at him, startled that he was actually right.
"Nothing is exactly what it seems, especially here. I suggest you keep that in mind," he told me, his eyes staring into mine. I paced behind him in thought. He had a point. If he wasn't playing mind games with me, it meant several things. It's possible that he was lying about a past life. He could also not even be Sheogorath. I brought this up. I approached the front of his desk and gazed into his eyes. I addressed him firmly, "If you're being sincere, and not playing games with me, it's quite possible you're not even Sheogorath. It's possible you've been lying to me over the course of this damned journey."
He just grinned and laughed. "What would be my motive behind that?" he asked me composedly, his wide smile still radiant and sincere. If he had questioned me with malice, I would have reacted immediately. He had given me something to ponder deeply. I bit my lower lip, and said the first logical thing that came to my mind. "You're the Mad God. It's your duty to drive people insane. Likewise, you're prone to misleading half the time," I replied coolly, leaning towards him. He leaned forward and the room seemed to sigh.
"As much as I like that response, the Guild of Mages would have subtracted points for that. You can do better, scholar," he reacted earnestly, leaning backwards in the chair. The room seemed the almost contract as he relaxed. I sighed, and replied, "It's obvious nothing here is what it seems the first time. You knew from the start my mind was already damaged. It's also easier to drive an intellectual mad. They have more substance to destroy, and their imagination? It's limitless, isn't it? If I repeated anything that happened, and it was untrue, I'd look extremely mad, wouldn't I? It's not hard to see that I'm your pawn now." Sheogorath tittered and clapped. His grin turned fierce, and his eyes burned with a terrifying fervency. I lifted an eyebrow and wrinkled my forehead. He began cackling.
He leaned forward again and said to me, "Pretentiously spoken, but nevertheless correct." His face was too close to mine for any sort of comfort. I felt his gentle, cold breath on me. His arrogant countenance made me shudder. It was equally cold and calculating. Again, he withdrew back to his chair, and again the room shivered. I felt as if he was scrutinizing me for a peculiar reason. His emerald eyes narrowed a bit, and he caressed his goatee whilst looking at me.
The silence between us, as usual, was not easy. His facial expressions as he thought were not at all easy to read. Occasionally his face would twitch, as if a negative pondering had reached across his mind. Personally, I was a bit afraid to ask even the simplest thing that came to his warped mind. I leaned inwards towards him. As if he read my mind, he stated, "Oh, I was merely thinking about the lack of death in this place." I blinked, and shook my head. Scrunching up my face in both confusion and mistrust, I asked him, "What?"
He groaned and looked at me with just as much perplexity. "What? I just said that I was merely thinking about the lack of tea in this place," he replied, looking at me strangely. I shook my head and blinked. I explained to him a bit hesitantly, "I thought…you said something else." Sheogorath raised his eyebrows and replied, "I see." I'm still not sure if that's what he, in truth, said. I'll never know, either, unless I ever bother to scry.
He pushed himself in the chair and I watched it slide backwards. He stood up, and wandered behind me. He laid his hands on my shoulders and whispered into my left ear sensually, "Soon." I twisted in his hands and faced him with my eyebrows raised. I didn't know at the time what he meant exactly by the statement. Later I easily deduced what it meant. He knew it was right; it was soon.
"Can we leave now?" I asked him wearily, looking up at him. He shook his head. "I have something in mind before we leave this room," he replied, looking into my eyes defiantly. I exhaled and didn't bother to argue with him. He quietly said to me, "I know you want out of this room, but as I said, I have reason to stay." Like Sheogorath, weariness had its grasp on me. I felt staggeringly tired. I found myself absent-mindedly leaning against him with my eyes closed.
"Don't fall asleep," he whispered, lifting my head from his chest. I opened my eyes lazily and looked up at him. It was hard to focus on him. I moaned and forced myself to stand up straight. I wobbled a bit before I gained perfect balance. "What are we going to do?" I asked him groggily, yawning. Sheogorath replied quickly, "Nothing much at all." He gazed at me, and asked me, "Will you search for something in the logs for me?" He tilted his head slightly and I sighed. "I shall," I replied jadedly, wandering over to the shelves.
"I want you to search for the log that has a mention of a man named Durante Varcaelin," he clarified softly. I nodded absent-mindedly and looked at the logs. They were arranged by date, starting with the Merethic Era, which had the most logs. The Merethic Era was denoted by a little "ME" on the spine. The next one, the 1st Era, was nearly as large, was signified creatively by "1E". The 2nd Era wasn't nearly as thick, and not surprisingly, its logs were marked with a "2E". Finally, I came across the right section on the bookcases: the 3rd Era, or "3E".
I chose the very last leather-bound book. The very first year listed was 3E 412. I flipped to 3E 437, which, at the time, was the current year. Several names and notes were under the first month of the year in alphabetical order. I scanned through pages of names and notes until I eyed the name "Durante". There it was, "Durante Varcaelin" in plain letters under Sun's Dusk. I read the notes beneath his name. They related to his Daedroth Zarrexaij and the investigation over the seven brothers that committed ritualistic suicide. He had realized the truth far before I did, and went mad because of it.
"I have it," I announced to Sheogorath, putting my right thumb on the page and closing it gently. I ambled over to him and opened it up. He told me plainly, "You weren't the only one to realize Zarrexaij wasn't truly real in any typical sense. He's in an asylum now. If he were younger, he probably wouldn't have gone from sane to barking mad in such a short period. His mind couldn't handle it. Now he's a shell of a person who does nothing but scream and wail." As he spoke to me, he stared off into the distance dreamily. He didn't smile, though I expected him to. He frowned, and looked at it. He flipped a couple of pages ahead and shoved it into my face.
Underneath the current month, I saw several names I didn't recognize. One I did manage to recognize was the name of my old master, Kurtis Cant. It didn't surprise me he was listed, because he was known to "revere" Sheogorath. Underneath his name was the unelaborate explanation of committed suicide after suffering violent hallucinations. I scanned the names a bit more. My mouth dried up, I felt my skin horripilate, and a cold sweat engulfed my body.
I saw my name. I swallowed the little saliva I had in my mouth. The notes on me were Paranoid delusions; also suffers from delusions of being superior to others. I sighed, and looked up at Sheogorath, who was hardly grinning at me. His countenance was gloomy. I found myself grimacing at his dark expression. "Are you shocked?" he interrogated me. His voice was lightly flavored with mirth. I wanted to scream at his sadistic enjoyment of my brash reactions.
I replied, "Yes, of course I am shocked." Sheogorath's lips peeled back into a horrible smirk. "You don't think you are mad," he stated ecstatically, his speech breathy. I nodded and made my counter, "No, I don't." I gazed into his eyes with indignation. He snickered and smiled with vile delight. He responded tauntingly, "The insane never do." I turned around and crossed my arms.
Sheogorath patted my shoulders. "Don't play deaf on me. Face me and you face yourself," he whispered huskily in an inviting tone of voice. His breath on my neck was hot. Twisting around to face him, I inquired him insolently, "What do you want"?
His face separated into a dreadful beam.
