Memory One-Hundred and Thirty-Seven:

Sotha Sil was in his private study, where once he fed and bathed his son, whispered to him soft lullabies that carried him into the land of dreams. He recalled a time when he would watch over his cradle, fearful of Vaermina's influence. There was always a slight relief when he woke.

But that time was past, and Aem'uvus was no longer a swaddled, helpless babe slumbering in his crib. His son was on the cusp of manhood, a master in the arcane arts and numerous fields of academia. His accolades were many – the Master of Small Wonders; the Keeper of Knowledge Known; the Chimers' Last Incarnation – but he had chosen to function more in the Basilica as Seht's intermediary when he himself was unavailable. He had served well, and brought him much pride in his conduct. It had been an honour to be his father.

It seemed as though that honour was soon to end.

Avonase swept into the room on silent feet. The door slid closed behind her with a faint click as she came to a halt before him. Sotha Sil was turned from her, admiring a painting that had been gifted to him from Vivec; a picture of Aem'uvus as a child, his hand raised to a partial silhouette of his father as he ran after him, made up of sweeping brush-strokes that added an element of nostalgia. He did not acknowledge the woman immediately. He appeared content, at least for a moment, to allow the silence to permeate the air around them.

"And so, Aem'uvus finds another piece to his puzzle," the architect shattered the still air. Avonase's head rose from her deferent position. "He comes ever closer to the truth of his existence."

"I'm sorry, my lord – I failed you," she said. "I thought his reliance on the Tarnished would ruin the robbery. I didn't expect him to go with them."

Seht turned and waved his hand for peace. "It is I who must apologise, Avonase. Aem'uvus' determination is no secret, and that he should succeed in his goals is to be expected. Perhaps I enlisted you for an impossible task."

Avonase's mouth closed. There was another apology on her tongue, but she doubted that he would accept it. He was quiet for another beat. Then he turned and looked down on her, and the expression on his face – the resignation, a half-concern she had seen him wear so rarely – put her ill-at-ease.

"He has found a confidant in you; perhaps even a friend," he observed. "I must thank you, Avonase, for being that which I could not. He will not be discouraged from his path. I see that now."

"Perhaps I could start to actively hinder him, my lord?" She ventured, but Sotha Sil merely shook his head.

"He would realise all too soon your true intentions," he replied, "and that realisation would cause more harm than good. Aem'uvus has come to consider this his most important mission. I intended once to tell him of his past when he began to seek out answers – but I find myself unable to. Perhaps out of affection…perhaps selfishness."

The architect looked once more at the portrait.

"He is…very dear to me."

He then returned his full attention to Avonase, and his expression lost that touch of melancholy in favour of a more familiar wisdom. She wished she could find comfort in it. But she had learnt much since Seht had asked her aid, and even though she thought her faith unshakeable, she had found herself once or twice questioning his motives. She made up for those moments in her devotion. She had taught her daughter the same.

"I fear this move has set the final cogs in motion," he informed her. "Aem'uvus will soon learn the truth I have kept from him. It is inevitable. I only hope that he will hear me before he renders his final judgement on the matter. He has always added an element of unpredictability to all equations."

"You're giving up?"

The words left her mouth before she could stop them. Avonase stiffened before him, her posture prone and her shoulders rigid, fearing that he would rebuke her for her insolence. But Sotha Sil, forever serene, allowed that small, knowing smile, even if there was no happiness behind it.

"No," he replied, "I'm merely allowing events to run their course. It was folly to struggle against what is to come. Whatever the storm on the horizon, I shall weather it. For my son. He deserves that much, at least."

Memory One-Hundred and Thirty-Eight: (Aem'uvus)

In each line, he found a new riddle.

Aem'uvus knew of his uncle's predilections, and he had realised long before he had the sermon that it would be difficult to interpret. But so far, he had uncovered little more than questions.

"The secret," he murmured quietly to himself as he traced the word with his finger. "What secret?"

There were a few words that sparked some faint recognition, though blurred and distant – so much so that he could not quite discern what memory it was. He was certain he had never met a 'fire-face that embodied endless darkness'. But every time he read it, that spark went off, and he found himself feeling for a split second distressed and lonely.

Yet, there was one sentence he understood; or at least, he had a suspicion for. The 'veil of fire' had reminded him for some reason of the pit his father had once shown him – the place of his birth, as he had claimed. He was smaller then, naïve, but he had felt a queer magicka pulse from it; a dormant power that was close to dead, but not quite. If the veil was in fact the lava pit, as he had decided for his working theory, he then had to contend with 'a thousand and a thousand screamers within', of which he apparently wore the skin of to hide him from the 'stars'.

Metaphors upon metaphors, he thought with a grimace as he turned the sermon over again. I should be the one screaming.

He leaned back in his workshop chair and ran his hands over his face. He could not quite figure out Vivec's significance in his verse; indeed, he knew of his fanciful flourishes, but his presence permeated the tale. Yet Almalexia, whom he had never met, was mentioned only once, and he noticed it was her absence that was mentioned – 'a sky shorn of the splendour of Ayem'.

"The stars, angered at the creation of that-which-was-not-them," he recited. "The stars wept, for none could touch him under the cloak of sheared skin. 'A sentence read by stars, which fumble and turn and weep where I walk, for my beauty is unlike and engulfs them'."

Aem'uvus wondered for what reason Vivec would speak of his consort so; to cast his own association of her, the stars, in such a vulnerable light. From the few times his father had spoken of her, Almalexia had never cared to be depicted as vulnerable.

His mind returned to the lava pit. Perhaps, he wondered – perhaps that would shed some light on the mystery. But of course it resided in his father's atelier, and he sensed that Sotha Sil would not allow him to examine it alone.

Then I have to find a way to distract him. Perhaps…Avonase?

He had never put her in such a position before. She had helped him when he asked, and she had been dutiful in the tasks he offered her. But those tasks had taxed her faith. She had often paused in front of him when he asked her a new favour, an unsaid question in her eye; a question of whether or not she should break one god's confidence to warn another. Aem'uvus cursed that she was the one who had found him all those years before, when he had attempted to sneak into the Cogitum and find the files under his name. It was fortuitous that she had allowed him to explain – and even more so that she had offered her aid once he had, however reluctantly, to help him find his mother. He felt sometimes that she was the only one who truly understood the pain he experienced, being uncertain of his origins. To be aware one half of himself was forever out of reach. To stare into the mirror at times and see a reflection that set him apart, even from his own father.

And so he decided that he would ask her for one last favour; one last stretch that he hoped would lead to the end.

Memory One-Hundred and Thirty-Nine:

Sotha Sil stood on the balcony that overlooked the Loqutorium, to watch his son's lecture on Oblivion's mathematical conundrums. He committed to memory the cadence of his voice, how he commanded the attention of the apostles with an occasional flick of the hand or brush of his hair. He paused every so often, not to remember his next point, but to allow slow writers a moment to catch up.

"In Oblivion, mysteries are numerous, paradoxes that both shape and destroy aspects of every plane that exists and ever will exist," he said, "so no one need fear that Lord Seht and I will solve them all before you have the chance to."

A wave of quiet chuckles swept through the hall. Aem'uvus waited for them to die down before he continued.

"Of course, the study of Oblivion presents dangers that for most are too much to bear. To face them, one must have an unyielding control of their power – control that takes decades, even centuries to master. Those who do not, fail. Failure is, in the best-case scenario, the end of one's life. In the worst, enslavement of the soul, torture, madness, and mayhem await. Do you understand the reason I tell you this?"

The lord's eyes roved the audience before him. Seht followed where they landed, upon a young Dunmer woman with dark hair and large, ruby eyes, her mouth small and her shoulders tense when she noticed that Aem'uvus looked at her.

"Relarise?"

"Oh!" She said. "To…warn us? So that we're not overconfident in our abilities?"

He smiled. "Correct – at least in part. It's also to tell you that I will soon be conducting a series of experimental lectures; methods in which to protect yourselves against Daedric influences."

A hand rose with excited chatter from the pews, belonging to a Breton man who almost trembled when Aem'uvus nodded to him. "My lord, didn't the Congress forbid experiments and investigations involving the Daedra? Why would we need lectures to defend ourselves against them?"

"You will forgive me, Doric, if I sometimes take liberties with the status I bear in the Fortress," he replied, to which the man blushed. "No mage should be without the knowledge of how to defend themselves. Be comforted, however, that the contents of my lectures have been reviewed several times over and approved by the appropriate powers."

Sotha Sil wondered if his son would ever deliver those lectures.

Memory One-Hundred and Forty: (Aem'uvus)

Each second that ticked past felt as a knife worrying at his nerves.

Avonase had assured him that, at eight o'clock that night, she would have Lord Seht's undivided attention. She had never failed him, but the task he had set before her was monumental. Aem'uvus was uncertain she could do it. But he had no choice. Once the hour was upon him he would teleport to the atelier, and examine the pit in which he was born.

So he waited.

It seemed an age had passed once the clock struck eight. His father's invention – the one in Aem'uvus' workshop had the times for the City and important regions in Tamriel – and he had often found the chime irritating when he worked. Now he wished it were louder. As he held out his hand, he focused himself on that image of the atelier, frayed at the edges, blurred over the years that had passed, and summoned those shifting colours that would transport him to the truth.

With a deep breath, he stepped inside.

It was odd to see myself in Lord Seht's memory. I looked so…enamoured. Eager. Almost childish.

Is that how everyone sees me?