Nobody Important

Chapter Thirty-Seven: To Hear

In which an ending marks a new beginning … and all Oblivion breaks loose.

By: N3k0

The Lucky Old Lady – the statue in Bravil where she'd murdered the Listener – was an unassuming enough place, now that the blood had been cleaned away. She should have realized there was something special about it, but she hadn't really thought much on why she'd found the Listener here.

In honesty, she hadn't spent a great deal of time on thinking at all, since the Purification itself.

Journeying to the city seemed to take an eternity in silence, which gave her plenty of time for contemplation. She absently dragged the rope forward, causing Bellamont to stumble behind her.

Let him. If the Night Mother herself didn't order his death, Lyssi fully intended to slaughter the wretch. She was sick of bloodshed, and so damned tired, but she would end his miserable existence without a second thought.

They traveled in silence, they arrived in silence. They reached the statue, and Lyssi half-expected some sort of ceremony. Instead, Arquen glanced about furtively, before quietly touching something at the base of the statue. The groan it made seemed deafening against the still air of the city at midnight – ancient stone ground against itself as a stairway opened beneath the statue.

One by one, the shattered remains of the Black Hand filed into the hidden crypt.

"Why have you come, my child?" The voice seemed ever-shifting, feminine, and yet the exact tone and pitch was never quite certain.

For a moment, everything went still, and Lyssi was achingly aware of the lingering pause between one heartbeat and the next. She couldn't move from the awkward position, one foot resting on empty air, but she knew she was being studied by something just beyond her reach. Every memory, every moment of her life was being measured, or so it seemed – she was powerless against this being.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

The world resumed, then – no one else seemed troubled, though. Lyssi caught herself on the next stair, and walked the rest of the way as though nothing was wrong. No one else's breath hitched, no one else's heart raced. Perhaps they hadn't felt it – perhaps they didn't know.

Suddenly, she was uncertain of her role in this gathering. Wearing the robes of the most junior Speaker of the Black Hand, she was to deliver Bellamnot to the Night Mother's judgment and keep her mouth shut. Both tasks were easy enough to accomplish, and yet she now felt decidedly uneasy.

The black-robed figures stood now before a coffin. "Night Mother, we beseech you for your guidance in these most troubled times." Arquen's voice held a measured cadence, a ritualistic quality in her tone. "In tribute, we bring before you a traitor, that you may pass your judgment upon him. His life is yours, Dark Lady – do with him as you will."

Lyssi dragged the cowering human forward, then shoved him to the ground before the worn stone effigy. Blinded and maimed as he was, the man couldn't help but sprawl on the ground with a grunt. She stepped back then, her role fulfilled.

"Ah, yes." This voice was strong and solid, issuing forth from the darkness somewhere behind the coffin. "Sithis has waited a lifetime to harvest this bounty – we are pleased."

Blackness pooled under Bellamont. He screamed at its touch, thrashing in a pool of black ink that crawled up across his skin. When it reached his lips, his garbled cries became muffled. When it dragged him under, the screaming stopped.

The blackness receded, leaving no trace that he'd ever been.

"And so, you seek my guidance." The spirit stepped forth from the darkness of the crypt, semi-solid, yet somehow certain. Her presence was powerful, commanding. Lyssi wasn't especially cowed – perhaps she should be. "Stripped, as you are, of your Listener, you cannot hear when mortal hearts cry out for blood." Amusement touched her tone, though her expression was hard.

Arquen opened her mouth to speak, and time simply – stopped.

This time, Lyssi half-expected it. She didn't struggle as much against the stillness that settled over her, and she felt a curious fizzing in her veins. Her blood crackled with a power that she didn't quite understand – a magic ran there, one she didn't know.

"The dragon's blood – yet, absent a draconic spirit." The voice held understanding, as it seemed to coax the power to life. "This will not be pleasant for you, little leech."

Lyssi glimpsed – things – just beyond the scope of her imagination, then. The world she knew fell away, proven false by the impossible being that stood before her. A field of ever twisting shadows blocked her view of the crypt, the rolling darkness split by a hundred, thousand strands of glittering silver. Each strand connected to each other, and each strand connected back to the goddess.

Try as she might, Lyssi couldn't quite see where the strands led, however.

"That is not for you to know, little one." She looked toward the goddess, then, not afraid of the divinity. The woman's face, in particular, was – odd. It looked feminine, yes, but the exact structure seemed always in flux. High cheekbones, gaunt cheeks – or softer, and more round, perhaps – she never looked quite the same, from one moment to the next. It was a fascinating kaleidoscope, written in flesh.

What are you?

Lyssi forced the words into being. She couldn't truly speak, frozen as she was, but in the space between asleep and awake, she tried not to think long on what was – and was not – possible. Such questions drove strong men mad.

"I am." The woman's voice echoed with certainty, the irrefutable statement holding more meaning than Lyssi could properly understand. A hint of a spark flickered in her own heart, a response to the truth of those two words.

"I exist, though a lucky mortal might never perceive My presence. I am deception and misdirection in every form – I am the truth told, omitting facts to alter perception, and I am the brazen lie. I am every hidden plot and scheme of men and women, great and small." She smiled, her face seeming all sharp lines and hard edges, for a moment. "I am."

Mephala.

Lyssi didn't pretend she was well-versed in the dealings of Daedra, but the Webspinner had often been speculated to be the greater truth behind the Night Mother.

"Your people bestow upon me that label, yes. The Night Mother serves me, and I, too, serve something greater than myself."

Sithis?

It seemed the most obvious answer, to Lyssi's mind. Sithis had always seemed an oddity – the Dread Father never quite fit the mold of the Daedra. Sithis seemed alien, unknowable.

"You touch on the barest glimmer of truth – look no further, unless you seek to spend the rest of your eternity in the Madhouse."

Why me?

She knew, without knowing exactly how she knew, that this meeting was for her alone. The others would never know what happened in this place between worlds. What she didn't know, was why. Wouldn't Arquen be better suited for leadership, if it were simply the matter of replacing the Listener?

The Prince of Secrets reached up, caressing the space just before Lyssi's cheek – never quite touching it.

"I find those rare mortals whose fate is yet unwritten – fascinating." This smile seemed softer, somehow. "And useful. So often, I must pluck gently at the weave, lest the tapestry unravel. I am not a Destroyer, to hack blindly at the threads until they disintegrate – and yet, sometimes, that is the most efficient path."

The world shifted around them, taking on a physical shape once more. The impenetrable shadows faded into the simpler darkness of the night sky – looking down, then out at her surroundings, Lyssi realized she recognized the place. It seemed busier somehow – Weynon Priory.

"Here is a place where the weave has become knotted. He who is Change has set these events in motion." The stillness eased from Lyssi's mind, her body – movement returned slowly enough that she was not startled to realize she could inhale the cool night air. Necessary or not, the habit was useful.

For instance, she smelled charred wood on the air. "Oppose Him." The voice commanded it, before fading from Lyssi's mind.

Oh. The Priory was on fire.

Author's Note: I always intended to come back and finish this up someday, but the words never quite felt right. So – there it is. It's not quite what might have been expected, and it closes on a bit of a cliffhanger.

This isn't the end of Lyssi's story, however, and I'm pleased to announce that I intend to resume the work I started all these years ago. Stay tuned for the second book, which details Lyssi's transition into the limelight, as the Champion of Cyrodiil.