Chapter 10 – Rise of the Deadric Prince
The atmosphere in the room was tense, to say the least. It had gone five minutes since Thanatos and Nika left, and none of the remaining three people in the room wanted to make a move. Finn was standing by the throne and Émile and Althea were ready to grab the last remaining sigil stone, but no one wanted to be the person who set the ball rolling.
"Should I do this before or after you leave?" Finn finally asked.
"I think it's better if we leave first, in case this world would become unstable. The gate might close before we leave."
Finn nodded. "I guess this is goodbye then.."
Both the men turned towards Althea, as she let out a great sob. When she joined the rebels she had thought that it would be easy. That she would stand by Émile's side, heal him sometimes and nothing more. No great dangers, no dead friends and certainly no friend left behind in another world. She quickly dried her tears, not wanting to look weak.
Émile put his hand on her shoulder and gave her an assuring smile. "It's going to be fine, I swear. This world might look horrible now, but that is only because of Mehrunes Dagon. Finn can change this world however he likes."
"Oh.. Then you can make more inhabitants too, right?" She smiled towards Finn. Maybe he wouldn't be alone for eternity.
"Maybe one day. I'll have to practise a bit first, but it's not like I haven't got time." The look Émile and Finn exchanged baffled her. It seemed.. It seemed like they were hiding something from her, but she figured it was about something else.
"Are you ready?" Émile asked.
Without saying anything she ran forward and wrapped her arms around Finn. "I hope you'll be fine."
Finn snickered. "Don't worry about me. I've lived through worse.. I think."
She stepped away. "Take care," she said before taking the stone at the same time as Émile and disappearing.
Finn was left alone in the throne room. A bit confused about what he was supposed to do next. Just sit down? Would such insignificant action really be enough to take charge? I won't know until I try, he thought and sat down. Nothing happened. Great. He tried standing up and sitting down again, but still nothing happened. If Émile had been there, he would probably had known what to do, but Émile wasn't there. Finn was alone, and no one could help him.
Finn walked around the throne room, looking for any details he might have missed. Nothing. The walls were completely blank, and so was the floor, the ceiling and the throne itself. Thee only thing he found that stood out from the rest of the throne were small blue gems, intermixed with the dark stone on the right armrest. When Finn stroked his hand over it he felt a cold sensation running through his body. Whatever it was that he had to do, it had to be something with the gems. Another riddle, maybe? he thought while hoping that it would not have anything to do with magic.
After trying everything he could come up with, he gave up. He had tried pushing, pulling, hitting and cutting them, but nothing had any effect. When he was done trying he flopped down on the throne and stared out over the huge room, lazily searching for any clue. I only Émile had been there. How am I going to last an eternity here, if I can't even do this alone?
"Give me the title of Deadric Prince!" he called out.
To Finn's great surprise, someone answered. "That is not how our kind speak." Startled he looked up and saw a dremora standing by the entrance, leaning heavily on his sword. "A weakling like you can't rule over us."
Finn smirked. He hadn't expected the ugly bastards to have the ability of speech. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"There is nothing you can do, you're too weak."
"I'm strong enough to take you down," Finn muttered. He put his hand on the cold gems. "I demand the title of Deadric Prince!" This time the gems tingled, like they were praising him. Why weren't the dremora trying to stop him? "I require the title of the Deadric Prince?"
The dremora snorted. "This is obviously going to take a while."
"Shut up!" The gems tingled again. Aggression, was that the key? "What are you hanging around for anyway?"
The dremora sighed. "I'm waiting for someone to take over, so that this word can be saved. The deadras and dremoras can not rule this world, it has to be someone from the outside."
"Oh.. Then can you give me a hint?"
"Do you want me to chop your head of? Because that's what it seems like!"
Finn quickly shook his head. "My head is perfectly fine where it is, thank you."
The dremora observed Finn impatiently while he pondered. It had to have something to do with his mood. Or was it determination? "You're to weak," the dremora muttered again.
"I'm not weak. I made it this far didn't I?" Finn sounded more confident than he really was.
"Your allies brought you this far. If you had entered that gate by yourself you wouldn't have lasted a second."
"I thought I told you to shut up?" Finn said with a dangerous voice and ha felt the blue gems tingle under his fingers. "Go away so that I can think."
The dremora frowned. "Don't try to order me around, weakling!" Finn suddenly got up and pulled his sword. If I can't become a deadric prince, I'm at least going to behead this bastard. The dremora seemed ready for such a reaction and raised his sword towards Finn. "Killing you brings me no honour," he proclaimed.
"Back at you," said Finn before slashing towards the hideous creature. His whole arm hurt when the dremora countered the attack with his own sword.
"Pitiful creature." The dremora quickly raised his sword again and swung at Finn, much like others would have swung a club. It reached its target and the bones in Finn's lower left arm made a sickening noise. The dremora laughed when Finn screamed and hastily backed away. "Give up, human, and I'll be merciful."
"Like hell I will. The throne is mine, and there is nothing you can do about it!" Finn managed to smile through the pain, because he knew that even if he lost the dremora and the rest of the deadra would lose with him.
"Prove it!" the dremora shouted while rushing forward towards him with his sword ready to strike. This time Finn parried and managed to slash at his enemy's back. The spells that Émile had but on the sword a few hours earlier worked perfectly, and enabled him to cut through the heavy armour that the dremora was wearing. The dremora didn't make the tiniest sound as he fell to the ground.
"I win," Finn muttered and carefully looked down at his arm, afraid of what he might see. He quickly looked up. It wasn't nice, far from it.
"I'm not dead yet."
"Thought I severed your spine."
"No proper dremora at my rank would die from such a minor blow." It was amazing that he still managed to sound snotty despite the pool under him of that seemed to grow bigger by the second.
"Shut up now, or I'll put my sword through your head. That ought to silence you."
"Take my sword."
"I prefer my own," said Finn with a critical look towards the big, ungraceful and blunt sword.
"Take it, sit on the throne and talk like you're a deadra. That's the only way. Humans really are thick." The last word was barely audible, since the ugly creature coughed up a handful of blood while saying it.
Finn reached down and took the sword. It was lighter than it looked, but other than that it was just a normal sword. The pain in his arm reminded not to thank the dremora. "Here goes," he mumbled and went over to the throne and sat down. This time the gems were much more active. It seemed almost like having a buzzing fly under ones hand. "I'm taking this throne!" he exclaimed assertively. It worked.
A mighty current of warmth flowed into him, not just through the gems but from the whole chair. It filled his entire body and made him feel like he could do anything, even conquer whole countries without blinking. After a while, when he felt that his body might explode at any second, the current died out and left him feeling surprisingly empty.
"Master," the dremora said weakly. "Use your powers to bring back stability to your land."
Finn didn't need any more instructions. He instinctively knew how to activate the power he had been given, and he let it surge through the land, changing everything according to his own will.
The old man was dressed in his usual armour with the sanguine emblem on his chest and shield. At his side hung a longsword and a mace that had seen many battles.
"Father, I do not consider this a good idea. You should leave this to the younger knights."
"As long as I can speak, I will continue to spread the message of the nine. You should do the same, my dear child."
The woman nodded and dried her eyes as she watched her elderly father set of together with his knights. She knew she wouldn't see him again, he was too old to survive such a dangerous journey. The child clinging to her leg was crying, even though she was too small to understand what was happening.
"It's okay, Althea. Lets go inside and see if Muriel has any of those sweetrolls left in the kitchen." The child smiled and ran ahead, her sorrows already forgotten.
Later, several years later, the old man still had not come back, and neither had any of his knights. So the priory was completely unprotected when a gang of Kahjiits from Elsweyr decided to raid a nearby village. The woman was, of course, there as soon as she could to help the poor villagers. She heard someone scream inside the church, so she hurried there. One of the Kahjiits were still there, and before the woman even had time to scream she was dead, bludgeoned by a huge glass mace.
After things had settled down, Althea went to look for her mother and found her. Since that day, Althea had never been able to worship the gods properly again. They had let her mother die in a church. A place where their power could've done anything and they didn't even try.
At her side another person was reliving his early clashes with the gods, and they wer in no way more positive than hers.
Yatniel was staring out through the window again, and Avinoam was violently shaking his shoulders, but to no use. As usual it was impossible to wake the boy when he fell into trance.
"Nika!" the man shouted with a hoarse voice. Of course their servant couldn't do anything but let Avinoam take out his frustration on him. That Nika didn't just snap Avinoam's neck was something Émile couldn't understand. Everything would be easier without him. Everything.
"Master, you still have one son left and he doesn't.." Avinoam hit him right in the face, and Émile could see how Nika prepared himself for another beating.
"Father, let him be. He have done nothing." Avinoam glared at Émile like he was something that didn't belong, something strange and unwanted. The big man stepped towards him, but was stopped by a slender hand on his shoulder.
"No father," mumbled Yatniel.
"Oh son, what did you see this time?"
Yatniel just shrugged. "Things that are completely irrelevant at this time. Father, you should start training Émile as your successor, I won't be able to do it, and you know it."
Avinoam shook his head violently. "I will not hear of it! You are my only true son and.."
The conversation continued, but Émile left the manor. He couldn't stand it. They were both Avinoam's sons, but Yatniel's mother was Avinoam's wife, while Émile's mother was just a whore.
"Émile, where are you going?" Nika, of course. The servant always followed him around when he had nothing else to do. He didn't bother to answer, instead he just kept on walking. "Your father is upset, normally he wou.."
"Normally he would be saying the exact same thing, or ignoring me."
"He might be a bit though, but inside he's.."
"A complete bastard. I already know who he is, so don't try to convince me of anything else. I thought vampires were supposed to be proud and noble, but your just a coward who will let anyone hit you." Émile said reproachfully.
"I owe your father a lot, and just because I'm strong it doesn't give me the right to do as I want." He took a deep breath, mostly to collect himself a bit before continuing. "Have you had any more visions?"
"Yes," said Émile truthfully. It was nice to be able to talk about it with someone, even if that someone was a servant. "I saw myself go mad and my father threw me out in the woods to die."
"He wouldn't.." This time Nika interrupted himself. "Is there no way that you can stop the sights?"
"Why do you think I'm heading towards the chapel? It sure isn't because I want to thank them for this ability."
"You found it out in a vision?"
"Yatniel did, but he didn't want to go through with it. Seems like he appreciates being mad," Émile snorted.
He pushed the wooden door open and stepped into the chapel. Nika closed the door behind them. Two priests were the only ones there, and Émile quickly told them to bugger of, which they did. When the last priest had left he knelt down by the altar an cupped his hands in prayer. Nika watched in silence, completely clueless about the sacrifice that Émile was going to make.
The boy prayed for a long time, at least an hour before standing up again. Since he looked wobbly Nika hurried forward and put his arm around Émile's back. Blood were running like tears down from his eyes, and when he met the boys empty gaze he knew what price the gods had demanded.
When Émile's thoughts finally returned to the present, he became aware that Althea was standing next to him, sobbing loudly. The smell of fresh air and the sound of chirping birds gave him the last clue of their whereabouts. They were back in Skingrad.