Memory One-Hundred and Forty-Four: (Aem'uvus)
The memories played out within the glass, and in moments Aem'uvus' world came to shatter around him.
He saw the scarred and broken Anguish, how he tried to tear the world asunder as he wrought death and destruction across Vvardenfell. His fingers trembled in clenched fists the more he watched. Over and over he saw himself die – and Sotha Sil, the man he loved, the man he called his father, had lied to him. He was never a child, nor would he ever be a god.
He was a murderer.
As he saw his death for the hundredth time, Aem'uvus felt his mind snap. He let out a fierce howl of pain and slammed his hands against the receptacle. It cracked underneath his palms. Shards and splinters shed away, smashing against the floor until it was utterly broken. The red star that had ricocheted within was free, and the lord watched as it leapt from its prison and careened off down the halls of the Deep Deck. The memory had been loosed. The truth was revealed. But there were still more locked in their cages. Locked away by his father's hand. By Sotha Sil's hand. He could not bear the idea of an entire complex dedicated to his madness.
Aem'uvus would let them all free.
So, it wasn't factotums. It was Aem'uvus. He was the one who destroyed this place. Perhaps that's the reason Lord Seht didn't want to come down here? Because he didn't want to see what his son…his charge had done.
Only a little bit more left.
Memory One-Hundred and Forty-Five:
Sotha Sil stood at his Throne Aligned, where he foresaw that the end would take place. He recalled when his son had stormed in all of those years before, fought at the side of heroes to free him from Nocturnal's grasp. He had known in that moment that far too soon, he would lose him. The child he had raised and loved quietly in the heart of Clockwork would leave his side, and he was uncertain if he would ever find a project complex enough to entirely fill the hole that would be left in his place.
He had felt the Well's reawakening, brief though it had been. He almost wished he could have been at the lord's side, comforted him when the full force of reality hit. But it was Aem'uvus' destiny. Soon, he would confront him. Demand answers. The question remained how many of his suspicions he could reveal to him; and how upset he would be once all the knowledge of his past was known.
Sotha Sil touched the curve of his throne – the apparatus that made up the seat of his power. In a better world, he would have mentored his son to one day use it himself. Aem'uvus, his heir, the jewel of the Clockwork City, would have cut a fine figure, though he mused he would have had a time of adjustments before the device could reach down to his height. He would have preferred that to what was to come.
"My son," he said to himself; a soft, wistful sound that carried with it his stoic grief, "how terrible your power has been to you."
Alright, this is it – the final star, and then I can leave this wretched place. I've already packed up my sleeping roll in preparation, and you'd better believe I'm going to use a chunk of my coin to buy imported wine when I'm home. Then I'm having the longest, hottest bath I can, dusting my mother's urn, locking the door to my workshop and refusing to come out unless it's Lord Seht himself. And even then, if it's not for a promotion, I'd keep the door shut.
That's a joke. Sort of.
This has been the most difficult task I've ever had to do, and I've been on speaking terms with Fendne my entire life. I might never know exactly why Lord Seht chose me for it – perhaps because of my mother acting on his behalf, lying to Aem'uvus for him – perhaps because of reasons I couldn't even begin to comprehend. But it doesn't matter. I did it.
Relarise Sathler, the Clockwork God's trusted collector.
Memory One-Hundred and Forty-Six:
His entrance was sudden and loud.
Aem'uvus had not teleported; no, when he roared into the Throne Aligned he was red in the face and covered in oil, his features twisted in a snarl of rage Sotha Sil had only seen on his most fearsome opponents. For a moment he did not even recognise him as his son. But soon enough flashes of him appeared, and when he pointed at him he felt the accusation like a stab in the heart.
"You kept this from me!" He bellowed. His anger crackled as lightning around him, a bright and brilliant display of raw force. But Seht, ever serene, did not flinch from him as he stood on the stairs of his throne, hands folded, his face curiously inscrutable.
"And so you know the truth," he put his hand to his chest and dipped his head forward. "I never wanted for this day to come."
"I have lived for so long in the walls of this Fortress, believing myself to be your son. How could you? How could you have done this? Resurrected a murderer? Stolen my memories?"
Seht looked into his eyes. In the tempest around him, he seemed smaller, and for a moment he recalled him as a child, so full of life and hope. "Because I believe you to be important, Aem'uvus. Both to me and Tamriel."
"Important?!"
His rage flashed a harsh light, and Seht resisted the urge to shield his eyes. Aem'uvus took a step towards him, not to attack, but in the rigidity of his posture and the clench of his jaw none would be a fool for believing so.
"I killed hundreds!" He screamed. "I wiped out an entire town to resurrect my siblings! Even to raise me here, twenty-one people had to die! Twenty-one keepers, bound by my curse since their childhood. Doomed from the moment I murdered their parents. And you dare to look me in the eye and tell me it doesn't matter? That it's all…collateral?"
He shook his head. When he looked at him again it took a great effort, and in his reddened eyes were unshed tears that weighed on Seht's heart.
"Did you not consider, even for a moment," he questioned quietly, "that I wouldn't want this?"
"I have considered you in all things, Aem'uvus."
Though it was the truth, the lord turned from him with a disgusted snort. The lightning around him died, and the sudden silence it left was even more terrible. "No, you haven't."
"I have fed you, bathed you, clothed you, taught you. Have I not loved you from the moment you were born?"
"You lied to me. You made me believe I was something other – something better. You allowed me to grapple with this part of me I don't understand. You told me I could not meet my mother, and then you left me in her—his care." He turned once more. A single tear ran down his cheek. "You taught me that the Daedra were malignant; evil. What am I, then? Why would you resurrect such an abomination as me?"
Seht longed to reach out and wipe that tear from his face. "You are not an abomination, my son."
"Stop. No more lies, Seht. I am not your son. Do not act as if I am."
"You may be angry with me, but it will never change the fact in my mind that you are my boy."
"No," he said, his voice filled with ice. "I am the thousandth son of Vivec and Molag Bal. The Beauty of the Pomegranate Banquet. The man who washed Vvardenfell in a wave of blood. And even in this, my 'second chance'? It started in death. To raise me, twenty-one had to die. What makes me so important, so special, that all those lives were forfeit?"
"Aem'uvus," he took a step down. His son retreated from him. "The time will come when those questions will be answered. But I implore you, think before you act."
"No more!" The lord declared, then, once Sotha Sil had fallen silent, he said in a much quieter voice, his eyes trained on his face, "I trusted you, and all you did was lie."
He turned from him once more and stalked towards the entrance. For a moment, Seht considered calling out to him, but in truth he did not trust his voice not to quiver or choke. Aem'uvus paused once he was at the farthest point, and there was stillness. He raised his lowered head to glare at the dark shadows of the Cogitum.
"It is my burden to make this right," he told him.
"What do you plan to do?"
"First," he said, as before him a portal opened and haloed him in its ethereal light, "I will see my mother. Embrace him, as the son he lost. Comfort him for the years that have passed. Then, my work begins."
"Your work?"
"Yes," he replied. "These years in the Clockwork City have taught me one skill more than most – research. Endless, tireless research. And for what I seek, I will spend much of the next few years with my head inside a book."
"Aem'uvus, my son—"
"I am no longer your son," he told him, "nor will I be anyone's son again. For when I leave my mother's home, I will scour Tamriel's most ancient ruins, and I will find magic that will allow me to rend time. Allow me to put an end to Aem'uvus and his monstrous siblings…before he's even born."
He moved forward. Behind him, Sotha Sil felt the lump in his throat, watched his frame as it receded and became one with the light. He heard his voice carried on the air as he started to fade.
"Farewell, Seht," it said, echoing as though a memory. "May the fates be kind. Always."
In the next moment, he was gone, and his father stared at the place he had stood for minutes that felt as eons, stretching endlessly into time. His hands clasped one another more tightly, and a single, dew-drop tear tracked down his dark cheek, his heart a pain in his chest that he felt would never fade.
"Farewell, my little lord," he murmured. "May you know, one day, that I love you."
I'm not crying. I'm not crying. I'm not crying.
So, Aem'uvus left to unmake himself. To try and fix what had been broken – save all those lives that were lost. I…don't know how I feel about that, after all I've seen. One part of me, the analytical part, says that it's fair. That if he hadn't been born in the first place, so many would have lived. The other part of me, which I'm renaming my humane side, says that the Aem'uvus I know had nothing to do with the Anguish, and he shouldn't have to die because of the actions of a madman. But if he was the Anguish, and the Anguish was once Aem'uvus, can I really separate the two of them? How can I claim that the lord I followed, the friend and lecturer I admired, should be absolved of murder just because he can't remember it? Just because he died and returned?
Yet, in my heart, it makes perfect sense.
Wait—I think I saw something on the wall. It was fleeting, but—no, no, it is! A shadow! I…I hear footsteps. It's coming towards me. Is this just a hallucination? Sleep deprivation? Have I fallen asleep at my post and haven't realised it yet?
No, this is real. This is very, very real. It's not a factotum – the footfalls aren't heavy enough. I'm so terrified I can't move. I just keep scribbling away in my journal. Seht preserve me, I hope this is legible later.
I—I hear a voice. My name.
My name!