Chapter Four: Septimus Signus (Turdas, the Eleventh of Evening Star)
Aela had been grumbling since not long after they left. They'd rented a small rowboat off a merchant in Winterhold. Though the city's docks were destroyed long ago, they still had a small mooring just west of the College, and apparently this merchant made regular trips to Dawnstar to procure goods. She wasn't planning on heading out anytime soon, thanks to the weather, and was more than pleased to earn some coin from the women borrowing her boat.
The seas were choppy, and even when they weren't, the further north they traveled into the Sea of Ghosts, the more ice blocked their path. They used their oars for pushing away from and around the ice more than they did for rowing.
Aerenwen couldn't blame her lover for being less than thrilled with this endeavor, but that being said, it couldn't be put off. If this Septimus Signus fellow was the most knowledgeable on the Elder Scrolls, she needed to find where he had disappeared to and hope he was still alive, and she couldn't wait until spring brought fairer weather in a few months to do so.
After what seemed like hours, and may possibly have been, they came across what appeared to be a floating island made of ice. It could have actually been land. It was hard to tell. This far north, everything was covered in layers of ice and snow. Another rowboat was pulled up onto the ice there, and torches lit the entrance of a cave with a rough wooden door over it.
The two women steered their own boat ashore and walked carefully across the ice, making their way inside whatever this place was.
As luck would have it, Aerenwen gathered they were in the right place. They climbed down a ladder and could hear a man crazily muttering to himself as they descended into the area carved from the ice. Within the area sat a giant metal contraption that definitely had the makings of some sort of Dwemer construct. The area around it had been set up as a living space, complete with a bed, table and chairs, book shelf, and stocked pantry. Septimus may not have returned to the College in years, but he'd evidently been traveling somewhere to keep fresh supplies on hand.
"Dig, Dwemer, in the beyond," the man was muttering. "I'll know your lost unknown and rise to your depths."
The man was dressed in mage robes and was clearly an Imperial, though he wasn't as old Aerenwen had expected. His full beard was still a rich, red color, showing only slight traces of gray in it. She wondered if he had been a moth priest before traveling north or if all of his research on the Scrolls had been done independently. She also wondered if it was that research, and possibly having read one or more of the Elder Scrolls, that had caused him to begin to lose his mind.
"Excuse me, sir," she stated as she and Aela reached the bottom of the area where he stood studying the large object. "Are you Septimus Signus?"
He glanced at Aerenwen, not even seeming surprised by her appearance, and nodded.
"I heard you know about Elder Scrolls," she stated.
"Elder Scrolls, indeed," he muttered. "The Empire. They absconded with them, or so they think. The ones they saw. The ones they thought they saw."
That was in reference to the Moth Priests, Aerenwen was sure of it. They kept all of the Elder Scrolls they had found under tight security in Cyrodiil, but, from the sounds of it, they hadn't found them all yet.
"I know of one," Septimus stated proudly. "Forgotten. Sequestered." He sighed. "But I cannot go to it, not poor Septimus for I . . . I have arisen beyond its grasp."
Aerenwen glanced at Aela who was studying the man with concern. He was definitely not all right in the head. "Where is this Scroll?" Aerenwen asked, deciding she didn't need to spend too much time chit chatting with a lunatic. His wisdom had turned to madness, and she was eager to get the information she needed and move on.
"Here," he replied with a smile. "Well, here as in this plane. Mundus. Tamriel. Nearby, relatively speaking. On the cosmological scale, it's all nearby."
Aerenwen sighed and attempted to rediscover her patience. She had already lost it with this man. "Look, I need this Elder Scroll. The fate of the world depends on it. Can you tell me where it is, or not?"
"As one block raises another, perhaps ourselves can help us each," the scholar offered.
Ah, so he was willing to give the information she wanted in exchange for her help. Perhaps he wasn't so crazy after all. "What do you want?" she asked.
"You see this masterwork of the Dwemer?" he wondered, gesturing toward the large metal object beside him. "Deep inside their greatest knowings. Septimus is clever among men, but he is but an idiot child compared to the dullest of the Dwemer. Lucky then they left behind their own way of reading the Elder Scrolls. In the depths of Blackreach one yet lies. Have you heard of Blackreach?"
Aerenwen shook her head somewhat impatiently.
"'Cast upon where Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire hidden learnings kept'," he quoted, though Aerenwen had no idea what exactly he was quoting, it was just clear he was reciting something from memory.
"Where is this Blackreach?" she asked.
"Under deep," he replied. "Below the dark. The hidden keep. Tower Mzark. Alftand, the point of puncture, of first entry, of the tapping. Delve to its limits, and Blackreach lies just beyond, but not all can enter there. Only Septimus knows the hidden key to loose the lock to jump beneath the deathly rock."
Aerenwen sighed and glanced at Aela who looked even more unimpressed than she was currently feeling. "How do I get in?"
"Two things I have for you," the man answered, wandering over to a cupboard and picking up two objects. "Two shapes. One edged, one round. The round one for tuning. Dwemer music is soft and subtle and needed to open their cleverest gates. The edged lexicon for inscribing. To us, a hunk of metal. To the Dwemer, a full library of knowings, but empty. Find Mzark and its sky-dome. The machinations there will read the Scroll and lay the lore upon the cube. Trust Septimus. He knows you can know." He handed the two objects to Aerenwen. One was an odd metal sphere. The other was a metal cube with fine carvings and etchings all over it.
She tucked the two objects into her satchel and wandered back the way she had come, eager to get away from the crazy man who had been helpful yet also unhelpful at the same time if that was possible.
"We need Glenys," she told Aela as they reached the cold surface again. "I didn't understand a thing that lunatic said, and she knows more about the Dwemer than anyone else I know."
As soon as they had returned home, Aerenwen had penned a letter to her sister, explaining briefly what was going on, making sure to mention Blackreach and the Elder Scroll, and paid a currier extra to get it to Markarth as quickly as possible.
Not even three days later, she opened her door to reveal Vorstag and Glenys standing on her doorstep. They greeted each other, and Aerenwen proudly introduced her son to the only aunt he hadn't met yet. Aela was at Jorrvaskr, and Glenys was excited to learn of what was going on.
"Your letter didn't say much," she stated as she had a seat in one of the chairs beside the fire. Vorstag glanced around the house curiously before sitting down at the small table in the corner. "Something about Blackreach, an Elder Scroll, and a crazy old man?"
Aerenwen chuckled as she sat down beside her sister. "Well, as you know, Alduin's Wall told us that a Shout was what defeated Alduin during the Dragon War. I went to the Greybeards for answers, but all I got from them was the name of the Shout, Dragonrend. They claim that no one left in Skyrim remembers the words of power needed for it. I spoke with their leader Paarthurnax."
"You mean Paarthurnax, as in the dragon Paarthurnax?" Glenys interrupted excitedly.
Aerenwen nodded. "He's actually quite pleasant to talk with. I never thought I would enjoy the company of a dragon, but I did enjoy his, immensely. Anyway, he explained that he doesn't know Dragonrend either because it was the ancient Nords that developed it as a weapon against the dragons, so basically, dragons can't comprehend that Shout enough to ever be able to use it, but he also explained to me what exactly happened with Alduin all those years ago."
Glenys inched forward in her seat eagerly.
"Apparently, Dragonrend crippled Alduin but wasn't enough to defeat him," Aerenwen explained, "so they came up with a plan to use an Elder Scroll against him. They met him at the summit of the Throat of the World and used the Scroll and, essentially, sent Alduin forward in time. They had hoped, apparently, it would mean he would just disappear, but Paarthurnax knew, and warned them, that he would come back someday."
"So basically he's just been floating in time for thousands of years and then reappeared just where he disappeared all these years later," Glenys muttered in fascination.
"Exactly," Aerenwen replied. "I need to learn this Shout, but as there is no one left in Tamriel that can teach it to me, Paarthurnax has a theory that sounds worth testing. He said that by the Nords doing what they did with the Scroll on that mountain, they created a sort of Time-Break there, and he feels if I were to read an Elder Scroll in that spot, I may be able to cast myself backwards through time to the other end of the Time-Break and learn Dragonrend from the Nords who created it and used it against Alduin."
"This is fascinating!" Glenys squealed. Aerenwen wasn't sure she'd ever met anyone who got so excited over learning things as her youngest sister. "What does this have to do with Blackreach?" she asked.
"First, what exactly is Blackreach?" she wondered.
"A great land of the Dwemer," Glenys replied. "Supposedly, they delved so deep with their cities that they came across an entire new area, almost like a whole other plane of existence, deep in the depths below Skyrim. They say it spans almost the entire length of Skyrim, but underground, and it was how the Dwemer traveled from city to city without needing to access the surface. Many have sought it out, but if they've found it, they haven't lived to document their findings."
"Well, in order to find an Elder Scroll, I traveled to the College of Winterhold to see if they had any information on them," Aerenwen continued. "They didn't have much, but I learned of a man called Septimus Signus, apparently one of the forerunners of Elder Scroll knowledge."
Glenys nodded. "I've heard of him and read his works. He used to speak quite publicly against the Moth Priests' hoarding of the Scrolls. His early works are quite well done. The more recent ones are more . . . difficult."
"Lunacy," Aerenwen stated. "Anyway, Aela and I found Septimus out in the ice fields on the Sea of Ghosts north of Winterhold. He's holed up there studying some Dwemer machine he found. He wants an Elder Scroll, but for whatever reason, isn't going to get the one he claims is in Blackreach. I doubt he'd survive the trip honestly." She stood and crossed the room to the cupboard where she had placed the objects he had given her. "He gave me these. He said the sphere was a key of some sort, something about music and tuning, and then claimed that something in Blackreach would transcribe the contents of the Elder Scroll onto this cube. He wants me to return the cube to him for his research, and I can keep the Elder Scroll."
Glenys took the objects and studied them closely. "This is a lexicon," she said, holding up the cube. "The Dwemer could inscribe the equivalent of millions of books, supposedly even their own memories, onto the lexicons and somehow access them later. This sphere is used for tuning and is called an Atunement Sphere. Everything the Dwemer created, all their machines, run on electroharmonics, which is basically the music of the universe. There is an energy, a music if you will, that radiates through everything. We just can't hear it. The Dwemer found ways to tap into this music and tune it for their own uses. If this is a key, I imagine we put it in some sort of receptacle, and it will tune the electroharmonics of the door in such a way that it will open."
Aerenwen found the entire thing baffling.
"How does he claim you get to Blackreach?" Glenys wanted to know.
"Alftand," Aerenwen replied. "I looked it up, and it's a set of Dwemer ruins on the northern coast between Dawnstar and Winterhold. He says if we travel through them to the bottom and use that sphere, Blackreach is just beyond. Then when we're there, we need to find the Tower of Mzark. That's where the Elder Scroll is."
Glenys nodded. "I'd never thought to use a lexicon for reading an Elder Scroll. It makes so much sense and probably at least partially explains why the Dwemer were so much more advanced in so many things than the rest of us. They didn't succumb to madness or blindness after reading the Scrolls because they had machines that actually did the reading for them and just passed on the knowledge." She looked up from the lexicon and glanced at her sister with pleading eyes. "Can we come?"
Aerenwen glanced at Vorstag who shrugged.
"I figured we would be," he stated with a wry grin. "There's no talking her out of exploring Dwemer ruins when she has a chance. I've learned that first hand."
Aerenwen chuckled. "Of course you can," she replied. "Aela and I were just waiting on what information you could give us before we left. Septimus was informative but completely mad. I felt like I needed someone who knew more about the Dwemer to help me understand what he had to say. Would you be up for leaving in a couple of days? I've got some Companions business I would like to take care of first."
"That's fine," Glenys answered with a smile. "I haven't been to Whiterun since we first arrived in Skyrim and never had the opportunity to explore. Plus, I'd love to get to know my nephew better."