WHISPERS IN THE DARK
"Are we alone? Yes…yes…alone. Sweet solitude. No one will hear us, disturb us. Everything is going according to plan."
It felt like an hour of breathing in the scent of decay. She hasn't said a word, but Cicero has spoken far too many.
"The others…I've spoken to them. And they're coming around, I know it. The wizard, Festus Krex…perhaps even the Argonian, and the un-child…" He breathes in deeply through his nostrils. I feel him right outside the coffin door. Is he…sniffing the box?
"What about you? Have you…have you spoken to anyone? No… No, of course not. I do the talking, the stalking, the seeing and saying! And what do you do? Nothing! Not…not that I'm angry! No, never! Cicero understands. Heh. Cicero always understands! And obeys!" He pauses, breathing heavily. "You will talk when you're ready, wont you? Won't you…"
"Sweet Night Mother." His voice is right outside.
Poor Cicero. Dear Cicero. He's such a humble servant. But he will never hear my voice like you do. For his is not the Listener. Her milky eyes glow red.
"Oh, but how can I defend you? How can I exert your will? If you will not speak? To anyone!" He smacks a fist on the coffin door. The coffin sways slightly. Then he starts to cry. "I'm sorry, so sorry Mother! I am so frustrated…"
He is so loyal. Like you would be.
"I am." I whisper, so soft that I can barely hear what I say.
Are you sure? You share my iron tomb, warm my ancient bones.
"I am. I'll do whatever it takes to keep my friends safe. I followed your direction when I should have looked into it…" I think back to the murder site in Windhelm. I should have sought out the punk who's been using my methods.
Forget about that. All the previous contracts. Astrid has no idea what she is doing or who she should be listening to. Her voice is filled with the same frustration Cicero was displaying. I have a new task. Journey to Volunruud. Speak with Amaund Motierre.
I barely hear her words as he starts screaming again, "Poor Cicero has failed you! Poor Cicero is sorry, sweet Mother. I've tried, so very hard. But I just can't find the Listener."
Tell him. It is time for the Dark Brotherhood to know who you are.
Panic strangles my throat. I remember Kiera, her stomach flayed alive and her body stuffed in the Night Mother's coffin.
That was a mistake. She was a liar. You are not…not now at least. Tell Cicero the words he has been waiting for all this time. "Darkness rises when silence dies."
Those words are similar to what she's told me before. Except, they contradict them. Silence Reigns.
Light assaults my night vision eyesight when the coffin doors slam open. "What?! Traveler! What treachery! Defiler! Debaser and defiler! You have violated the sanctity of the Night Mother's coffin! Why? Explain yourself!" His eyes are wild.
I creep off the platform of the coffin. "Cicero…" I begin. He's practically snarling like a feral skeever. So, I let the words out faster than I intended. "I don't know how to tell you this. But she speaks to me. The Night Mother talks to me. She always has."
He blinks, like he can't understand. "She…spoke to you? More treachery! Just like the Trickster! More trickery and deceit! I had so much hope for you Traveler! The Night Mother speaks only to the Listener!"
"Don't you get it you dimwitted clown!" I throw up my hands. "I am the Listener! I always have been! I heard her when we fought the wispmother. I heard her when I saw you right outside of Whiterun. I heard her when you threw me into the Void!" The day he buried my human body.
He starts spasming, shaking with rage. "There. Is. No. Listener!"
Something about this guy makes me want to scream him into Oblivion. Good thing she gets me on track.
Tell him the phrase I told you. She is patient. These are her children. I freeze with that revelation. She's treating us like siblings. This whole time. Voice laughs.
"Cicero. She said, 'Darkness rises when silence dies.'"
He stops shaking, sweat covers his brow, makes his eyes look even more creepy. "She…she said that? She said those words…to you? 'Darkness rises when silence dies?'"
"Yes." I rub my forehead.
"Those are the words. The Binding Words. Written in the Keeping Tomes. The signal so I would know. Mother's only way of talking to sweet Cicero…" He looks down at the floor.
For a solid minute we stand there. I inch around him and towards the door when he jumps and begins to dance. His gyrating hips smack into mine. I leap so I'm near the wall. "Then…it's true! She is back! Our Lady is back! She has chosen a Listener! She has chosen you! HAHAHA. All hail the Listener!" He raises his face, so his eyes catch mine. "Traveler is now Listener. I knew I had to throw you to the Void to meet Sithis. I knew you would come back stronger."
That does it. In two seconds, I have my hands around his throat and him slammed against the far side of the wall. "Say that. Again." I grit out.
"About Sithis? She told me. She told me to do it. I told you, I hear Mother too but only in the silence!" He chokes with my grasp and begins to laugh.
"By Sithis, this ends now! Back away, fool! Whatever you've been planning is over!" As if the party could get crazier, our mistress is to the rescue. The doors burst open and Astrid races to break us free. Cicero collapses against the wall, Astrid moves to shield me.
"Are you alright? I heard the commotion. Who was Cicero talking to? Where's the accomplice? Reveal yourself, traitor!" She yells to the room at large.
"I spoke only to the Night Mother! But she spoke to her! She's been speaking to her the whole time! She is the Listener!" He points at me.
Astrid looks between us, "Listener? What are you going on about? What is this lunacy?"
"But it's true! Mother has spoken! The silence has been broken! The Listener has been chosen!" He squeals.
Astrid turns to me. "I heard the screaming and thought the worst. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
I rub my arm. "Just bad blood. I'm fine."
"Then what in the name of Sithis is going on? Cicero spoke to the Night Mother, but she spoke to you? Is this just more of the fool's ramblings?"
I swallow, this might not be pretty. "The Night Mother speaks to me. She always has. Apparently, I am the Listener. I was directed by her to follow your paper trail to Windhelm, and again, to find the Sanctuary."
Astrid pales, "Cicero was just talking to the Night Mother's body? And according to everything we know, the Night Mother chooses one Listener. And she just spoke to you. Right now. And for months before?"
"Years." I raise my eyes to her panicked ones.
"By Sithis," She whispers, "What has she said? What did she say right now?"
"Um, I'm supposed to contact a guy named…Almond Mariner."
Amaund Motierre. She corrects me. In Volunruud.
"No wait, it's Amaund Motierre. He's in Volunruud." I shake my head.
"Amaund Motierre? I have no idea who that is. But Volunruud…that I have heard of. And I know where it is."
"So, I should go there…"
"No!" She leaps forwards, making me and Cicero jump back at the outburst. "No! Listen. I don't know what's going on here, but you take your orders from me. Are we clear on that? The Night Mother may have spoken to you, but I am still the leader of this Family. I will not have my authority so easily dismissed."
"Traitor…" Hisses Cicero, but he's too quiet for her to hear. I shoot him a glare.
"I-I need to think about this. Go see Nazir- do some work for him. I'll find you when I'm ready to discuss the matter further." She turns and leaves us in the dust.
"She does not believe in the Night Mother?" Cicero stands next to me.
I have a killer headache, "Apparently not. Give her time." He looks up at me with pleading eyes. "That's an order. If I'm Listener and you are the Keeper, then you are below me and you follow what I say."
He blinks. Then his face crawls into a slow grin. "Whatever you say, Listener."
Down in the dining room I find the usually blasé Redguard with a dry sense of humor leafing through another book. I duck when I get to the end of the steps, just enough to see the title.
Nazir sneers and slams the book shut when he sees my intrusion. "No, you're good." I say, "Just checking to see if Cicero has driven you to reading something more…exciting." Usually, he reads boring books on history and the Dark Brotherhood.
The look he gives me could melt paint from a drywall. "And you think I suddenly lowered my standards? No. Even though The Lusty Argonian Maid is flying off bookshelves, I have not lost my mind enough to read bodice rippers." He sighs, "However, the lack of good contracts is driving me to my breaking point…"
I give him a pointed look. He appears serious. It's not until I see that slow-creeping smile that I realize he's pulling my leg again. "Anyways, enough about our tastes in literature, your timing couldn't be better. I have Babette fetching the vampire contract so that leaves the other one for you. Should be pretty easy. Your target is an Orc bard named Lurbuk. He's in Morthal." Nazir gives me a glowing, pearly white smile and a wave, "Happy hunting. Or should I say, shooting a fish in a barrel."
I trudge out of the cave to get this lowly bard. Who would want to kill a bard, anyways? But I don't question it. Eyes peer down from above, I see Cicero, curled up in the corner and glaring from the staircase. When I pass Astrid she just nods. I want to bestow some wisdom of dealing with deities. You can fight hard and often. But like my friend Vorstag, you just end up on the sharp side of a blade sooner or later.
Instead, I stay silent. This woman is older and way more mature than me, but I recognize the same fight I used to have. And if she's anywhere near as hardheaded as I can be, I'd have an easier time convincing the Night Mother to return to Cyrodill.
Cicero's Journal Entry
20th of Evening Star, 4E 201
How? How could she have been under our nose for so long? Oh, it does not matter. Because Mother! We have our Listener! Happy, happy day! I knew we would find her eventually, all the triumphs and failures we've all had on the long road together! It was fated, fated for Traveler to be Listener! If only I saw it earlier! But now! Now we know!
Astrid is suspicious, traitorous, misguided. There might not be a way back for her. What would it take to show her the truth?