Author's Note: Such a late update, such a slow plot progression in this chapter. I can't help it. However, I promise—promise—that I would update quicker next chapter. I couldn't really guarantee the chapter would be good, though, but it's all according to opinions—and correct usage of the English language, of course.

-~O~-

Chapter 4: Their Duties

-~O~-

"Remember, Josephus, if you get rid of the anchor for Paradise, you might return to Cyrodiil."

"Might?"

"There is always an anchor to these Oblivion planes. If you, say, kill it or destroy it by any means, you will arrive back here, where the portal opened. That was how it worked with the Oblivion Gates, yes?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then I am sure that Mankar Camoran built some sort of anchor for Paradise. You will know what it is soon enough," Martin Septim explained hurriedly. He was still casting some sort of magic to open the still nonexistent portal, whilst Josephus was standing there, tapping a foot and then another, restless. His humourous demeanor seemed lost now, as if jesting with the future emperor was centuries ago.

To be honest, as much as Josephus was prepared for another Oblivion plane, he was still nervous about this Paradise. It should stick true to its name, as Martin assured him many, many times it would stick true to its name, and Josephus hoped it did, but it must be more than that. Camoran would never leave his plane unguarded, but just what guarded it? Just the thought made him shiver.

Oblivion was fine. At least he knew that the planes were hellish and would always be like that. Paradise, however, was completely unpredictable.

When he was still a thief, back in the Imperial City, before his idiot-of-a-brother joined the guards, he was alone when sneaking around in the streets, trying to figure out the city and all its contents. He put a lot of time in it, too. Some times he never returned to their room in the Merchant's Inn until the week had turned. They didn't bring much gold and food from the 'estate' they bought in Chorrol, but the coin enough to survive for two years, maybe more if they were practical, and the food would not go bad quickly.

He observed every nook and cranny in the Market District, where people went in the mornings, when the rich folk would appear. Josephus knew their schedule, their retinues should he need more sources to reap from, and their wealth. Everything he learned, all by himself.

And soon, when winter came, almost nobody went outside to the markets, and he needed to bury his thieving life for a while. Josephus' pockets were empty for so long that his fingers itched to pickpocket the innkeeper himself. But he knew better than to get kicked out from their temporary home, especially in the cold winter. He tightened his belt and stuck with the downside of being a thief, not some lord's son, or a wealthy accountant, what his mother always wanted him to be.

Oh, dear mother, he sighed. Martin was almost finished with the spell, he could see. A few sweat drops trickled down his forehead, even in the cold evening. Nobody except for Baurus was with them. Not even a bard to see the tale of the Brave Hero of Kvatch and Saviour of Bruma entering Paradise. It could be a lot worse.

Martin exhaled loudly, the orb of light disappearing from his palm. He wiped his face dry of sweat once before stepping back from the large circular symbol on the floors of the Great Hall. Josephus did the same, taking a few steps back just in case, and he felt a gush of wind blowing at him when the stone portal rose from the ground, just like that.

"By the Nine..." He could not turn back now. He couldn't. He had been waiting for this, for the portal to open, but that moment of waiting still didn't help a bit. Deep down, he knew he must enter for the good of Tamriel, for Martin, for the whole world, if it went to that. But he was not sure if he could. "Tell me again what Paradise should be like. I think I'm starting to doubt its meaning."

"Paradise should stick to its meaning very well, Josephus," Martin stood back, his expression just as anxious as Josephus' was, "Lush grass, calm waters, flowers everywhere, if Camoran willed it."

For a moment, Josephus felt relieved, "That's better. It doesn't sound so bad." He took a step forward, forcing himself to take another, but found his feet were glued to the ground.

"You are missing the whole point, Josephus," his friend warned him, "You should be cautious. Who knows what lies beyond that portal?"

"Paradise, if what you opened was the portal to it. Was it?"

Silence took over them, and with every ticking second, Josephus knew he was losing time. Madness took over him, and he was sure without that manic feeling he would never rush in through the portal.

"The Night Mother has spoken to our... dear Listener," he said, growing grim by the end of the sentence. The Listener did nothing wrong in his eyes, yet the Speaker did not hold anything dear about him. "She has special tasks for us, one that would require an assassin of your caliber."

The Silencer did not show a hint of a smile. If she was glad that her Speaker complimented her just seconds after she earned the title, she hid it well.

Truthfully, when he had first recruited the woman, she was nothing more than an ordinary girl, forced to live with a father who denied and went against Sithis' willing. Lachance forgot who this man was that he earned his death, but he knew that he deserved it enough. Anyone who dared invoke the wrath of Sithis gets what would come to them.

The girl was so innocent that when he first arrived at her home to recruit her, she was scared. And was even more when he explained the next chapter of her life, should she want to open the pages. He even expected that she would decline, the way her brows were furrowed, her wide eyes, her tone of speaking.

She didn't, obviously, and here she was standing now. His Silencer.

"What would she have me do?" she asked, then, after a moment's thought, "What do you want me to carry out?"

Lucien considered his next words carefully. She might be loyal, but to whom did she really serve? The Night Mother? Him? Herself? "As I have mentioned before, the Listener has gotten a task from our Unholy Matron. I would spare the details of his meeting with the Speakers, and keep it brief. The Night Mother said to him, that in order to eliminate this traitor once and for all, we must purify the sanctuaries."

Her eyebrows raised at the word purify, and only then did Lucien remembered she was only in the Brotherhood in a short while—six years in, however, she should have known what the Rite was. He sighed, ""The Purification is a ritual where the sanctuary is cleansed of every soul that resides there, something that sadly was insisted when we were in similar situations."

"You do not agree with this decision," she stated, her eyes never leaving his, "And you want to find another solution."

In other circumstances, Lucien might have berated her for such quick assumptions, but since she was correct, and time was of the essence, he nodded once, "Yes, I think that—" He paused; his thoughts and feelings wouldn't matter now, or her opinion of him. What did matter was getting this done. "The Night Mother wishes to save the Cheydinhal Sanctuary from the Purification."

Which wasn't supposed to surprise her Silencer, but it somehow did. "But the Listener says otherwise." With a look of complete uneasiness, the Silencer backed away, "And we are not sure if this is truly what the Night Mother wishes!"

"We are also unsure if Ungolim, our dearest Listener, is right in his mind."

She scowled, "The Night Mother makes no mistakes when she chooses her servants. If the Listener says she wants the sanctuaries to be purified, I would say that we should comply with her wishes." She dropped the blade that was clutched tightly in one of her hands, "And besides, how can this be done? I know no such things of these rituals yet, and if the matter is as urgent as you claim it to be, a mistake is the last thing we could ever afford to make. If anyone suspects, or rats us out—"

"Which is why you are not working alone," interrupted Lucien, already sick of her false modesty. Cowardly was the most likely word to describe her reaction, backing out of the task and hiding behind a wall of unprofessionalism. "I assure you, your task is one of the simplest in our plan."

"Our?" she said, a look of disgust and disbelief etched on her face.

"You are my Silencer now," he snapped, "And you better act like it."

For a moment, defiance played in her eyes. She was still staring at Lucien, but he knew that she was deep in her mind. Finally, she blinked and her face loosened. "I apologise for my rashness, Speaker. Of course, I am your Silencer and I would gladly carry out this task."

Silence. She was still, not even fidgeting with any of her limbs—unlike Ungolim—and if she actually did disagree with her Speaker's plans, she didn't show it—unlike Ungolim. If it was the Night Mother's will, when this whole treachery was over, perhaps she would immediately be chosen as Listener, without even being a Speaker.

Perhaps.

"Good." Lucien went over to a small table beside his make-shift bed—he certainly cannot return to this fortress after the plan has undertaken. He took the piece of parchment that he acquired a few days ago from Arquen, a recipe of a poison. Nobody could suspect him as a traitor, however, and he was fine in the mean time, for he asked his fellow Speakers for alchemy recipes from time to time, simply because he could not really master the art. "We'll start plainly. We shall save the sanctuary by fooling the Listener that they are dead."

When he turned back to his Silencer, she did not show any emotion. Almost as if she did not catch him. "Are you listening to me?"

"Of course, Speaker. This other solution to the Purification requires me to fool the Listener that they're dead. Am I correct?" When Lucien nodded approvingly, she asked, "But how could I manage to do that? Surely a Silencer—and one who has just been promoted to the title—couldn't trick him so." Then, without even stopping, "No, it is not us who comes to the Listener, but rather him to us?"

Stunned in silence, Lucien forgot even his answer before he collected himself. "All will be explained, Silencer. For now, you must poison every resident in the Sanctuary with paralysis. I've asked one of my colleagues to write a potent one," he gave her the paper, "It is a very simple concoction, but it is powerful. They would be knocked out for three days, maximum. Enough time for the Listener to confirm their deaths."

"And when that comes, wouldn't he want to dispose the bodies? Or he would suspect something is amiss because their body hasn't rotten yet."

Lucien groaned, hanging his head in thought. He somehow left that part out. He expected that Ungolim would trust Lucien's word that the Sanctuary was purified, and they could move that branch of the brotherhood to somewhere... a place that was quite hidden and nobody would suspect anything was queer...

His Silencer spoke in a less questioning tone, "I can say to him that I could not bear to see my fellow brothers and sister's bodies, and so I covered them with linen and put them some place... maybe the living quarters? Surely he could understand..."

Clever, he thought, but would Ungolim understand? Would he insist on checking their bodies? "There seems to be no other choice... yes, that could work."

"And then?"

"And then… we take them to where they could please the Night Mother without invoking the Listener's wrath," Lucien explained, trying to grasp his plan again, strand by strand, "An island, a continent, anywhere; as long as Ungolim believes they are dead, for so long the brotherhood will be safe and we will have enough time to investigate the treachery amongst us," he finished. Now that he had let every fiber of his plan loose, there was nothing he could do to stop it. Unless he undoes it, which seemed unlikely.

"Have you decided where the Sanctuary would reside?"

Lucien frowned, "No." Grim, he crossed his arms, "That would be taken care of in your absence, when you don't have these mindless questions to ask."

His Silencer finally showed her first sign of feelings in the minutes that passed; she frowned. "Is there anything else you need to say, then, dear Speaker?"

Lucien ignored the insult, "When you succeed in paralyzing them, immediately return to this fort and I shall retrieve the Listener."

"That would take too long, wouldn't it?" she questioned again.

"Riding to Bravil is only half a day's span, if you have a fast steed," he said, "And I happen to have Shadowmere, my trusted horse. She would prove most useful for my journey."

His Silencer only nodded, though he knew there were more things she wanted to say. Only Lucien did not have the patience to answer her questions. He went over towards the wall his back was facing. There, a rope ladder hung from a trapdoor that led outside; a shortcut that his Silencer could have used if only she were perceptive enough. He reached up for the handle of the trapdoor and it opened effortlessly.

When he looked back at the Silencer, she was still scanning the piece of parchment in her hands. And then she let out a huge sigh, "I have no knowledge of where I could obtain such powerful and rare herbs… but I will try."

"My gratitude, Silencer," Lucien said impatiently, eager for her to get out of the fort to begin her mission. "Only, do not talk of this to anyone; even Ocheeva, or that sister of yours, what was her name again?"

It was as if this whole time the Silencer forgot the existence of her sibling, for her eyes widened, "I nearly forgot about that," she said quietly, but loud enough for Lucien to hear. There was nothing in this fort that he could not hear, even the battle that raged outside in the corridors, "There is one thing your humble Silencer must ask of you, Speaker."

Lucien groaned quietly. She demands too much for a Silencer. He was almost convinced the meeting would end soon, and hoped this will not post-pone any part of his plans. When she didn't continue, he looked at her impatiently, "Well? Are you just going to stand there and gape? What is it?"

"I... you know that I have a sister, in Cheydinhal," she tried to explain as quick as she could, "I fear for her safety once we travel with the brotherhood, and—"

"Family, is it? And what does she have to do with all of this?" Lucien resisted the urge to spit, but did not continue to harass the Silencer. She did, however, wince at his tone of voice and knew better than to defend herself.

She took a deep breath and looked down once more, "Speaker, I only ask if she may come with us, become part of the Brotherhood. She is not yet of age when I was first recruited, but she is loyal, and she will obey anything you give her," she bit her lip, which was something that Lucien never saw her do, "She is not very skilled with weapons, but with time, she will be able."

Lucien did not want to deal with this matter for now—for any time, to be honest—and he had no time to see if what his Silencer said was true. He had no other saying in the matter except to reject her or accept her. The first option would probably give him more of the Silencer's convincing, and more time wasted. The last... the Dark Brotherhood was not a charity, and he could not guarantee the safety of her sister. "For the meantime, she stays with you. You take her to gather the herbs for the potions, give her the experience of being an assassin if it needs be, but I do not promise that she could be unharmed if she is capable of joining us."

The Silencer smiled gratefully, "I thank you so much, Speaker. I promise she would not—"

"Are you going to waste our time with idle formality?"

It was enough to quiet her, and she walked over to the rope ladder. She peered outside and found the dark outskirts of Cheydinhal, "I will leave through here?"

"And arrive through here, should you come back unscathed. But I am sure you will," Lucien said, completely rid of his patience, "Now go. Do not waste our time even more."

"Farewell, Speaker," she said as she climbed the ladder, taking a last look at him, a piercing gaze that she gave him just moments ago.

"And you, Silencer."

-~O~-

I just keep going on like that, eh? Posting chapters once every five or six days without even a properly proper chapter, but I think this one is slightly better than the previous version. Which was not only short, but out of character.

Heh. Anyways. Reviews are my muse. Reviews are my moose. Erm... no, not moose...