Chapter 2 – Breakfast Council Of Three
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In the early hours of the 6th of First Seed, a figure in a black robe stole along the streets of Mournhold, a package tightly wrapped in a linen cloth in their arms. Contrasted against the figure’s dark cloak, the cloth was luminously visible in the moonlight; perhaps that was why the figure was hurrying.
When the figure reached a tradesmen’s entrance in the North Wing of the Palace, it disappeared inside. Reappearing after half an hour, it discarded the now empty linen and melted into the shadows.
That same night, a person in full armour, toting a gigantic Dwemer warhammer as if it weighed no more than a toothpick, was admitted quietly to the private quarters of the Queen Mother. This person did not reappear the same night. There was a lot to discuss.
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Morgiah awoke from a strangely realistic dream.
That in itself was not particularly out of the ordinary. Morgiah had been having strangely realistic dreams for a number of years. Some had more impact than others; one night she might dream of an older version of herself suffering in a vault of crushing claustrophobia, the next might merely be a vision of peasant dressed in First-Age clothes hoeing a garden.
This one, however, had involved her brother. She couldn’t quite remember what had happened, but she hoped she had imagined the dagger.
The window was open – there was a pleasant mild breeze, and the sun was gentle. A maid had fed the fire; it was crackling softly in the hearth. Parting the filmy muslin drapes, Morgiah padded across the carpet and sat cross-legged in front of the grate; it took less than a moment before her gaze was still, her thoughts far away.
She was still deep in thought as she went into the bathroom, slid into the sunken marble bath, sprinkled the herbs in, washed, wrapped a thick linen cloth around herself, went back to the bedroom, opened the wardrobe and dressed slowly, brushed her hair, slid her feet into her shoes, pulled the bed straight…
There was a knock at the door and the maid came in.
“Morning, your majesty,” said the perky Bosmer, bobbing a curtsey, pigtails peeping out from under her cap. “Don’t mind the bed, I’ll see to it. I’ve a message for you from the Queen Mother.”
Morgiah left the sheets and looked up curiously. “A message, Kippet? What is it?”
“She asks you join her for breakfast, ‘majesty. Shall I stoke the fire for when you come back?”
“No, leave it, Kippet. I’ll go to the study.”
“’Majesty,” said the maid. She bobbed and disappeared.
Morgiah ran her hand along the walls as she left the room and started down the corridor. The utterly different perceptions of ‘palace’ each race held had always fascinated her. In Wayrest, the stately granite and plush carpets. In Firsthold, the intricate decoration and sculptured glass interiors. In Mournhold, the indoor gardens, the richly polished blue-grey stone as smooth as an ice-pond. Yet they were all designed to say to their subjects: reverence me.
People are the same wherever you go, thought Morgiah. Deep down people are all the same.
She opened the door to find her mother waiting.
“Good morning,” said Barenziah.
“Good morning,” Morgiah replied, pulling the screen quietly across behind her. She was about to continue into the parlour, but Barenziah put out a hand to stop her.
“Unusual as it is, we… have a guest for breakfast. Someone I should like for you to meet, who has something very important to discuss with you.”
Morgiah looked at her mother’s expression; it was almost too calm. “Who is it?”
“The Nerevarine. After an unexpected arrival last night we have had a great deal of strange information to process.”
Barenziah’s hand moved to the door-handle. “I have been… noticing things for a while, and the time has come for me to consult my daughter, I think.”
Morgiah remained passive, but her mind spun into motion at her mother’s words. Had Barenziah, then, noticed the same things as her?
“Good,” she said directly. “There are things I need to discuss with you, too. As for the Nerevarine, I should love to finally meet him. They say he is nigh-on indestructible.”
Inexplicably, Bareziah started and her mouth twitched at Morgiah’s words. “He is anxious to meet you, too,” she said with a strange smile. “Come into the parlour, and I shall introduce you.”
She opened the inner door and gestured inside. Morgiah stepped through, and saw a figure standing by the table, decked out to the nines in armour, resting a huge warhammer on the table-leg, pulling off a helmet thick enough to be used as a weapon itself…
She blinked. The figure was very female and VERY blonde. Morgiah could tell without so much as a glance that she was about as objectively magical as a piece of wood.
“Hello, your Highness,” said the Nerevarine cheerfully.
It took a short moment for Morgiah to regain her composure.
“Forgive me,” she said, realising the woman must have heard every word of their conversation. “How dull-witted of me to assume…”
The Nerevarine waved her hand complacently and dropped the helmet to the floor with a resounding clunk. “Worry not, your majesty. No offence taken.” Abandoning the helmet and warhammer, she flumped into a chair at the table set delicately for breakfast. The modestly carved chair gave a protesting creak at the onset of quite a lot of heavy armour.
Morgiah sat down more reservedly, looking from the discarded weapon to the Nerevarine and back again. It was practically impossible to reconcile three inches of demonic-looking ebony with the careless-looking blonde creature in front of her. Not even a woman, she realised. A girl. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, if that.
“Morgiah, I’m delighted for you to meet Nenya, the Nerevarine. We have been in close contact for almost two years now, but something has recently come to my attention that I need your counsel on.” Barenziah seated herself, taking a pot of hot water and pouring it over dried kanet-flowers into three cups. “Nenya, if you could bring my daughter up to speed…?”
Nenya took a cup and poured almost half a jar of honey into it. She didn’t seem to be one to mince words. “Vivec is gone, your Majesty.”
Morgiah paused, her hand hovering over a plate of fruit. “Gone? From the High Fane Palace?”
“Gone. Died. Wandered off. No idea. But he’s not there, and by the look of things he hasn’t been for some time.”
Thoughts were ticking behind Morgiah’s eyes.
“How long, would you estimate?”
Nenya blew out her cheeks. “Hard to say; it’s not like he makes many general living signs at the best of times. But there were weeks’ worth of spiderwebs in there, and I can’t see him liking them hanging around. Even in the state he’s been in recently.”
“Does the Archcanon know?”
“We think yes,” Barenziah broke in, “because I have been informed he came here a week ago. Agitated-looking. A very short, low-profile visit…”
Morgiah stared out of the window, at the trees blowing. “Then Helseth must know,” she said quietly. “He must have come to tell Helseth; now he’s gone back to the capital and is keeping the disappearance quiet.” She turned to Nenya. “You said there was a possibility of his being dead. And what did you mean by ‘the state he’s been in recently’?”
“Well, I was just jawing- not sure if he can die, to be honest. But as for the state he’s been in… you familiar with all this Nerevarine drama, your Highness?”
“Relatively…”
“Well,” Nenya said matter-of-factly, crossing one leg over the other and obliviously smudging mud on the tablecloth, “I got rid of Dagoth Ur a couple of years ago by killing the Heart of Lorkhan. I’m pretty sure you’ll know what that is – the Aedra-relic that gave the Tribunal its godhood in the first Era. It’s what keeps them divine.”
“You know why Almalexia went mad? You do know she went mad, don’t you, not the rubbish the public believes about her still being all serene and reposing in the temple next door?”
Morgiah glanced at her mother. “Yes, I knew.”
“Almalexia went mad because the Heart was gone, and she was losing her divinity. I haven’t got the faintest what it’s like to become a god, but to stop being one… is it any wonder she went barking? She killed Sotha Sil and almost had me, but mad people don’t have a very good right-hand parry, I found out.”
Morgiah almost put a hand to her forehead, but restrained herself. “Go on.”
“So it’s only Vivec left now, slowly going mad like Almalexia. I know because I went to see him before the Heart died; he gave me the battle-plans for defeating Dagoth-Ur. Talked me through what really happened in the First Age when the Tribunal used the Heart to make themselves gods. I saw what he was like then, and I saw what he was like after, and it wasn’t the same. Sometimes when I’d go in he’d take half an hour to notice I was there. He’s crumbling. I don’t know where he’s gone, but it’s making me jumpy, I can tell you.”
Morgiah was silent for a moment.
“So,” she said at last, “Vivec has disappeared, and if we take your word for it is on the brink of madness. We must assume that Helseth knows. Then why, in a whole week, has he not done anything about it? Has he said anything to you, Mother?”
“Not a word.”
They looked at eachother. Both could tell they were thinking the same thing. “Is it possible he would have orchestrated… but why? What would he have to gain?”
Barenziah sipped her tea, face composed.
Nenya looked from one to the other. “Are you suggesting that the King doesn’t want Vivec to be found, or even that he caused the disappearance in the first place?”
“That would be a very dangerous thing to suggest,” Barenziah said flatly.
Nenya opened her mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again.
“There is one more thing,” Barenziah continued to her daughter. “I have also been informed by various sources that unidentified black-robed persons have been entering the North Wing regularly at dark, the most recent of which visits was last night.”
“North Wing,” Morgiah said. “Helseth’s wing.”
There was a quiet interlude as all three kept to their thoughts. Then: “I think this deserves investigating,” Barenziah said suddenly. She looked at her daughter. “I am charging you with this, Morgiah. Estranged as you are, you and Helseth were close at one time. You know how he thinks, you know how he works. Nenya, can I trust you aid my daughter in any way you can?”
Nenya licked her fork clean and put it demurely back into place next to the bowl. “With pleasure, your majesty.”
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Things are stirring. Things that have lain dormant for years and years are being set in motion.
The dais of the last Tribune’s palace, bearing nothing but three long-burnt-out torches.
Orvas Dren in his comfortable mansion, directing with ease the vast network of spies in the city of Mournhold.
The head of the Dark Brotherhood in the sprawling ruined labyrinth beneath the city, preparing his report to take to the Mournhold Palace’s North Wing.
The black-robed figures gathering unobtrusively in the dead shell that was Tel Fyr, slowly taking control of the weird and rambling Corprusarium, and its inflicted inhabitants.
The same shadowy figures in the now barricaded Shedungent, teasing the century-worth of knowledge from the deranged mind of Nulfaga. Teasing away her control of Aetherius, and giving it to themselves.
For Aetherius, the magic-plane, the day-sky, the flip-side of Oblivion, is being utilised once more. This time, not by Nulfaga, but through her.
And at the centre of it all is Helseth. An invisible spider brooding in the middle of an invisible web, he is somehow the centre of all these events. How, we do not yet know. But inevitably, indefinitely, he is.
On to the next chapter