The Journal of Saris Saryoni (Part I)

Property of SS, Tribunal Necromancer. If found, please destroy.

Ruined Godsreach, Mournhold. 4E 200, 23rd Sun’s Dusk

My last voyage from the sanctuary of Mournhold was animal. I left on instinct, hoping to find something of value, neglecting to take anything more essential than a robe with me. I vowed that on my next venture, I would leave more prepared. I am old, or older, at least, and any lack of preparation on my part could kill me. So I am keeping this journal, for a start, to map my way, to remember things forgotten, and to bide my time.

How do I feel? How does anyone feel when leaving their homeland? I am excited, nervous, anticipant. I am awake. It has been almost two years since I have chased anything, let alone the selfsame thing that keeps me turning every night.

   Let me tell you a story, and if it appeals, you may read further.

Once upon a time, I was whole. I lived here, in Godsreach, surrounded by those I loved, living and dead. The part of me that I am now is Saris Saryoni, an Indoril noble of high birth, alive in a time when that meant something. I was a child. I had no idea what I had, or how lucky I was to have it.

   The part of me I have now lost was named Ranis Athryn. I say the name now with the same reverence I did then. I loved her, and I still do, though she is gone. We were joined together by forces beyond mortal ken... Perhaps that is difficult to understand. Do you know anything of Anuriel and Padomay, those brothers whose divine battle spilt the blood of all creation? Do you know of Lorkhan, the trickster who took the soul of that creation, and split it from the divine spark? We are the children of that soul of creation, forever wandering hopelessly and lusting after the power we lost.

    To me, Ranis is the divine spark, and my soul is tortured and empty without her. She was killed by a Daedra, and as befits her lover I have been sworn to avenge her. Part of that vengeance is in finding the name and whereabouts of the Daedra in question. The other part – and this is what I now leave my home with the hopes of finding – is how to reach that Daedra and extract its heart.

    That is my story, written, yet unwritten. Half a story, I suppose, for half a mer.

 Almsivi guide me, for I stray.

Matters have been attended to. My friend and colleague Suruliin is here for awhile to plunder the lost magics of Almalexia, and more pointedly to watch over my mother until others from the temple can step in. It is good to see him again, and be reminded of my university days. Sometimes I miss the scholarly disputes, the intrigue... shadows of Ranis, and the empire she loved.

Tomorrow, I set out for Kragenmoor, then Cheydinhal, Bruma, and at last to Skyrim, where hope awaits in Winterhold. It is a path longer than it could be, but Skyrim’s border with Morrowind is never friendly and best avoided. Caution, Sera. Caution.

 24^th Sun’s Dusk

Leaving mother was not easy, despite the providence I have been sure to leave behind. She gets lonely, and talks of Solstheim, but would never leave Godsreach or the manor by choice. There is father, of course, but she is less adept at speaking with the dead than I am. She will be alright. I will return, and if I cannot – well, death has proved to be a feeble barrier, thus far.

Morrowind is healing. That much is clear. There are few dunmer on the roads – only the most stubborn, like myself, who believe the argonian occupation will not last. Their people have ties to Black Marsh, not here. This was vengeance. Balance. Even now, we are returning.

     I’ve purchased a guar for this first leg of the trip, though I will sell it once I reach the Velothi Mountains. I have grown unused to the armour I wore on my long past adventures, so the beast bears the burden of my cuirass and greaves, while I strengthen by limbs with the pauldrons and boots. It is tiring – more so than I expected. I need utter a charm under my breath now and then to aid me.

The plants here look so different to how I remember them. The swamp is creeping closer to the shore, regaining what it lost. Red Mountain looms across the sea. Ash is everywhere, nestled in the roots of creeping vines and coating the surface of undisturbed pools. It is beautiful, and I had forgotten. They call Morrowind ‘The Wasteland’ now, but ‘they’ are of course imperial propaganda who spread false word about the abysmal local governance of the provinces. Life is never extinguished. We change, and Nirn changes with us.

25^th Sun’s Dusk

’ staying at an inn near Far Watch. It’s a rundown place, pointed roof, tudor arches in the false imperial style, loud as anything. This f’lah at the bar says he recognises me, to which I reply in negative.

  “Impossible. I’ve spent the past century on Vvardenfell, up in Sheogorad.”

   He shakes his head, smiles to himself, “No, before that, sera, from the ‘Crisis. You came blazing through here with hell in your eyes, you and this other nasty swit, I remember...”

   “Eldebar,” I replied, surprised. Had I really been in this same hole two hundred years ago?

   “So it is you,” he said. I offered to buy him a quart of flin, and he thanked me. “Can’t be running with the same crowd, can you?” he asked.

   I shook my head, but smiled imperceptibly. No, I no longer followed that crowd. I was that crowd. “We parted ways before I reached Cyrodiil,” I said. “’Turned out he had a bounty on his head. I wonder if you remember the Cult of Worms?”

   He shivered, and I saw that he did.

I left him to his memories, as dusk was gathering behind us, I went outside, checked my guar was tethered and had a pound of flesh to gobble down. Then I walked around for a while, and under a willow I found what I was looking for – a grave marker, all too common in these times.

    I was uninterested in the contents of the grave, which were most likely the bones of a man who had died on the inn’s doorstep and been refused ritual cremation or interment. I drew a chitin dagger from my belt, pricked my finger and incanted a memorised litany from The Book of Life and Service. At once the air grew cold and Fendryn appeared, the oldest of my ancestors who kept a recognisable form. Even so he stood on the very threshold of the burning-blue passage I had created, and the edges of his body collapsed into the Afterlife.

   “Shield us,” he said. “An argonian girl is watching from the window above.”

   I muttered a word and a blanket of darkness quickly cloaked us, carefully measured to last only as long as the summoning itself.

   “Fendryn,” I said. “It is good to see you. I was starting to think you passed into the Dreamsleeve without saying goodbye.”

   “Not yet,” he smiled, echoes of flesh wrinkling his pale blue cheeks. “Soon, as I reckon things, but not yet. You are travelling?”

   “North. To Skyrim. What can you tell me of it?”

   “It’s about time,” he said. “Not much. I myself never went, but I knew of its history. It was popular to hate it, during my lifetime, though I suppose that is not so now.”

   “Hate survives everything, but the situation has changed, and I go there in peace. Ranis –”

   “Ranis,” he interrupted. “Of course. Don’t be too hopeful. Keep your eye out. You are not going for the reasons you think.”

   “Regardless, it is what drives me,” I replied.

   He paused, though the seconds counted on and I could see him begin to fade, back to his nether-existence, where the unknowable lies.

   “Then we could all do with a Ranis Athryn, I suppose,” he said. The words flickered in the air, and the ghost gate shut tight. My illusion dampened, and I looked up to the inn. The argonian child was still sitting there, staring at me. I smiled at her, put a finger to my lips, and hurried inside.

Fendryn has always been the most cryptic of my family entourage. I could hardly bear to speak with him during my first century, so desperate as I was for clear answers, measurable solutions. I leant to accept things differently during my fast in Sheogorad – a fast not from food, but from living company, from the instant demands of the mortal realm, and the instinctual reaction to danger and pain. I learnt to admire mystery for mystery’s sake, and that is who Fendryn is. So there is something else brewing in Skyrim? Very well. I will go prepared – but my oath will not be forgotten.

26^th Sun’s Dusk

It has been a long day’s march. I wore my greaves today, to try and get accustomed to the weight and limited movement. I have forgotten almost everything I learnt about moving in this infernal shell. It is good that I have started early.

For now, the name I place on my enemy is “Hyrados”. Before, it was ‘kynreeve’, and long ago, ‘Daedra’. Oblivions servants are not endless. Think of sifting through the names of every person who has ever lived. Now imagine each has spent a thousand generations hunting, killing and laying waste to mortal housings. Try to ask them, “Do you remember this kill, this single kill, of the millions to your name?” The answer is obvious. They do not.

I can be thankful for what I have learned already. When the Oblivion Crisis was recent, a dremora churl (with the help of a well placed spell) recalled which Daedric Citadel had attacked Necrom, where Ranis was stationed. Kamarlivel. Soon a scamp, Echard, who I still call to my service on occasion, told me the name of the Citadel’s master – Nyrmov. At the time such clues were vital, but I grew desperate all the more.

By chance, I found a new solution. While following a false lead to Vvardenfell – to no less a place than The Scathing Bay where Vivec once stood and I myself trained as an ordinator – I came across something far more helpful than a name. It was a holy relic; an ebony-black altar whose surface was scarred by a sprawling black hand. At the time, a tribe of ashlanders were trying to load it onto a cart and wheel it off, hoping to sell it to a collector. I offered to help them carry it, seeing it for what it was – none other than an altar of Black Hands Mephala, the Daedric Prince of Murder. While the ashlanders slept, I approached the altar, and under two moons, Mephala spoke to me.

She spoke long, and not always pleasantly. She wanted me to slay the ashlanders and return the altar to the Morag Tong, but I refused. One does not refuse a daedric prince without something better to offer, and so I did. I asked for the answer I sought – the name of the one who killed Ranis Athryn. She smiled at that, sensing the murder on my mind. She demanded a greater task for the answer – one I have yet to fulfil.

   “The Dark Brotherhood,” she said. “They are talented, but guided wrongly. I would lead them, if I could. They would never do so willingly – and so they must follow you. And you must follow me.”

   I nodded. It was no more impossible than what I planned to do already. Besides – this was one of the original Tribunal. Had I not served them faithfully my whole life?

   “The name,” I replied, “And the Brotherhood is yours.”

   She laughed, like a nightmare. “Four names for now. Gurdaan Kell, Korvis Tyin, Achevach Naesarkas, and Hyrados Kumal. The kynreeve generals who served at Kamarlivel – one of which is who you seek. Now, my Hand, for your knife.”

   She vanished, and the deal was done.

The Dark Brotherhood have no holdings in Morrowind, from what I can tell. To make it known that I wished to join them with a league of Morag Tong assassins wandering around would have been suicide, and so I opted for a quieter choice. I felt confident, and grew lax.

   It was a release to put aside my oath and go on my pilgrimage, even in the presence of the harsh afterbirth of Dagoth Ur. So began a hundred-year journey to the man I have become today, well versed in the scriptures, focused, and at ease where other dunmer rage at our fate. It was necessary. Before, I was a fool who was as liable to be killed as to kill. Now, with just that little bit of patience, victory is no miracle. Necessary transformation. That is all we can do to survive.

   Necessary transformation.

27^th of Sun’s Dusk:

Spines’ Meet isn’t doing too well. At one time, it was relied on as the gateway to Morrowind. Few travel this way anymore, and the town looks empty. The crooked shadow of a Velothi tower hosts a spattering of collapsing buildings and rundown shacks. A smithy, a tavern, the husk of a Mages’ Guild. Little is of interest besides the tower itself, where I hear The College of Whispers and the Oculus share residence on an imperial stipend. I would not stay in the travellers’ accommodation on the ground floor. Instead, after purchasing three kwama eggs and an ounce of bittergreen, I walked over to the Mages’ Guild and forced my way in past the hinge-less door.

   It is empty, of course, as such places of power tend to be after two centuries of looting and disrepair. The Guild did not last much longer than the empire did, once the Elder Council could no longer afford to pay for its research and holdings. We were not much affected in Morrowind, but I hear the imperial province suffered terribly, especially after the Guild of Fighters fell, too.

   I walked the empty halls, feeling the dust on the bookshelves, my feet crunching on the broken glass of potion bottles. There was nothing here. I had hoped to find a soulgem among the wreckage, or even a book. One may complain about looters having no scruples and no pride – but they do have finesse.

My contacts at the Arcane University are what afforded me the latest breakthrough in my investigation. Two of the kynreeve have been ruled out by a series of joint summoning and exact determinations. Two remain. Achevach has risen far above his rank, so much as to be named a lord of Oblivion. It is difficult to gain information about such daedra.

   Hyrados’ nature is even more heavily shrouded, if not as dangerous to pursue. Such quiet is unusual for a Dremora, and is therefore of great interest to me. From my experience, people only hide when they are being watched, or if they suspect they are. Hyrados has therefore gained my full attention, for now.

   If only Oblivion were as easy to reach for me as Death, my task would be much simpler. Do not think I haven’t tried that alternate avenue. I have been surrounded by the dead my whole life – cousins, uncles, a parent – my family, and my House. Even in death we are bound by blood. It is the way of the endeavour.

   But other things bind as well – or at least they should. I have called Ranis’ name across the Afterlife a thousand times, with no reply. Yet I am certain she is dead. I cradled her body in by arms when I arrived in Necrom, that great city of the dead, and heard twelve accounts of how she sacrificed herself to save a handful of Telvanni apprentices. She is dead, and yet unreachable.

   There are vile reasons to explain this thing. Chief among them is Necromancy – the darkest, corrosive kind which I myself will not touch unless driven by necessity. When an animus is held within a soulgem, it cannot wander far, if at all, and is exempt from the call of a living necromancer. This fate I fear most of all, and so I have studied all I can of soulgems, necromancy, and the enchantments borne by both.

   I spent my evening sifting through the detritus of a past age, with no success at uncovering anything of use. Sometimes, even I must deal in flesh.

28^th of Sun’s Dusk:

This road has not felt the touch of an imperial hand for a long while. As I ascend into the mountains, the cobblestones became looser, the paths windier, and the falls all the more perilous. Bandits and opportunists were a constant threat, and I kept a tight lead on my guar, lest it misstep and go rolling into the thick fens below.

   To think a nation once walked this path!

I am camping for the night. Why not? I have fire at my fingertips, a scrib roasting for an evening meal, the comforts of a branching willow – tonight I sleep in the style of the bosmer, hidden among the bows up above. My limbs ache, but as the sun sets, there are things I must still do.

The scrib’s death serves as a wedge in death’s door, which I pry open enough for my great uncle Bovyn Venim to step through. At once his form solidifies, skeletal and strong, and with not even a gesture, we begin.

His first blow almost lands, but at the last moment I catch his fist in my palms and drag it off to the side, almost throwing him off balance. He breaks free, kicks at the bend in my knee. I soften and let the blow land, falling into a crouch, pinching his leg tight between my thigh and my tibia. I swivel my boot in the dirt, free leg extended, and drop just short of kicking him in the skull.

   “Close!” he says, in good humour. “That’s a move even the Redoran would be proud of!”

   “It didn’t land,” I replied.

   “You’re forgetting your armour,” he replied, pointing a skeletal finger to my knee. “Don’t turn on your foot. You can pull your opponent in that much closer by moving one joint up.”

   I tried again, several times, and though the mechanics were correct, my leg was too heavy with bonemold to strike at the head.

   “Never mind for now,” Bovyn said hurriedly. “A blow to the chest is almost as good. Now while I’m gone, work on this,” he came in close, and I let him, curious. He grabbed my arm, gave it a tug, and in the momentary blindness of pain from a near-dislocated limb, he rolled up against my body, back towards me, and landed three smart blows with an elbow before knocking me in the chin with the back of his skull. “Your counter technique next week,” he said. “And that kick. I’m fading...”

   I made a gesture of thanks as his bones evaporated, and winced. I rested for a moment, then placed a ball of cold white magicka against my shoulder, letting the restorative energies seep in. As the adrenaline left my veins, I plotted my counterattack.

   Bovyn and I have been working on this martial form now for many years. When I was younger, we stuck to the disciplined close combat used by ordinators unlucky enough to lose their sword in melee. But as disaster piled upon Morrowind, I realised many dunmer could no longer afford a blade, and those passed down by the ancient families were lost among the ruins of the third era. With this in mind, Bovyn and I started mapping a new, more inclusive hand-to-hand discipline, melding heavy-armoured ordinator training with the marshmerrow style of the dissident priesthood and the forgotten techniques of the ashlanders. My pilgrimage through Vvardenfell set the groundwork. Now we are filling in the missing forms, adapting, refining – slow work, but rewarding. Some day I’m sure this combat style will become standard. Until then, I keep my own sword handy.

29^th of Sun’s Dusk

I encountered a Velothi priest today, and he has humbly offered to let me stay in his home, after realising I too was with the Tribunal Temple. He hardly believed me, until I showed him my robe and my pilgrimage marks (I almost had to recite Vivec’s thirty-six sermons). He has asked for my aid in renewing the wards in a nearby family tomb. It is not so much of a detour, so we are headed there tomorrow.

   Meanwhile, we have been debating over the Endeavour. He, like most, takes the traditional bent; “Live simply, sera. Forgive mortal harms, cry not at your suffering, but shoulder it and be renewed.” To which I reply,

   “There is more to it, I’m sure. If we are meant to wholly alienate ourselves from Mundus, what shall we learn? How shall we be different from the Daedra? Was it not the Tribunal’s interaction with the mortal realm that led them to ascension?”

   “You speak like a wizard!” the priest laughed, and I told him of my time at the Arcane University. “Ah, so you are, in a sense. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.”

   “Nothing at all,” I said. “Wasn’t Sotha Sil a wizard?”

   The priest nodded. “He was.”

   There was silence for a moment. He sat in contemplation, while I chewed some bittergreen. Finally he asked me, cautiously,

“Tell me, sera, in all your studies, have you ever heard of The Tower?”

   “The Tower?” I replied at once. “You mean the constellation, beside The Lover and The Shadow as the charges of The Thief.”

   He shook his head. “Not that tower, I think.”

   “Then Adamantium Tower? Cephora? There are many worth mention.”

   “Perhaps one of those, yes,” he admitted, “But I am not certain.”

   “You ought to explain further,” I said.

   “I will, if I can find the words. You see, I have guarded this pass for almost thirty years now. It is quiet, but there are those who stop by seeking shelter in the rain, or needing food. There are strange sorts on the roads these days... blind Khajiit, Breton flame-witches, scurrilous couples on the lam... but this one who mentioned The Tower was the strangest of all. He claimed to be of the Maruhkati Cult, of which I have heard little –”

   “And I, too much,” I interrupted. “They are known across the continent as the most terrifying madmen, obsessed with their ‘Temple Zero’ and its unknowable contents.”

   “Mad, you say? If this man was mad, he hid it very well. I listened to what he said because he used very old names, almost forgotten. He called me ‘servant of Vehk and Vehk’, which I am sure you know means –”

   “Vi Vehk,” I answered, translating directly from Old Ehlnofex. “The name given to the sainted one when it was revealed that he was, to be tactful, ‘two beings in one’.”

   The priest nodded. “He told me Vehk had climbed ‘The Tower’ and plundered its contents, and this granted him his godhood. I asked him to speak plainly, but he would not.”

   “Wait,” I begged, “So the tower is Dagoth Ur?”

   “The tower is divinity, I think, or it holds divinity. This is what I do not understand. Ah, if only the living gods still walked among us! There is so much we could have learned.”

   I nodded. “Learned, yes, but not understood. Remember that the living gods were false gods too. They broke their promise to Veloth, and so their whole path is called into question.”

We left matters there for the night, lest they draw us to one another’s throats by dawn. Some of the elder priests and priestesses still struggle with the notion of the Moon and Star Reborn.

30^th of Sun’s Dusk

We left early in the morning, before the sun rose. It was a long trek through road-less tracts of land, down the gullet of a ravine, wading amidst the rushes run wild with the recent feast of ash from Red Mountain. At the far end a low, sad doorway jutted from the mountain rock. We pulled the vines from its door, and the priest revealed a set of lock picks he had hidden beneath his robe.

   “No key.” He said, and I understood. When a dunmeri dies, their ashen remains are interred in a tomb and the key passes on to their family – but when the family dies, and there are none to hold the key, the tomb is locked from the inside.

   The priest tried to pick the lock for a minute or so without success before I offered to take over, and half a minute later the lock buckled to a patient, cautious knock to its last tumbler. Inside and down the first hall we met our first spirit, though it was weak and fading. Without hesitating, in the manner I had seen done countless times before, I said, “Hold firm in gravefast, wraithfather.”

   The spirit visibly shrank, and I felt its relief. “Too long,” it whispered, its voice an ember. “We are almost vanished.”

   “Not yet,” I said. “Take us to the hearth shrine, if you will.”

   The spirit guided us, leaving a trail of marks behind it as we wound deeper into the tomb, watching the number of urns in each room multiply and divide in echo of the generations that preceded ours. Here and there were markers of the ancestors’ individual lives; a prayer book, a spear, a diamond, and hidden in the shadows, those ancestors themselves who offered to stay behind – grinning, mummified hunks of flesh we at the temple name ‘bonewalkers’. They let us pass, though their interest was overwhelming in its melancholy. They extended withered hands to touch our shoulders as we passed, and we let them, thankful for their ceaseless vigil.

   At last we came to the hearth shrine, sunken into the floor of a wide chamber empty of all else. The shrine was, as best described, an ash pit, where the mortal bodies of the tomb’s guardians had been cremated. The ‘door’ through to the Afterlife flung open by the presence of so many unanimated bodies was easing shut, so that now only a glimmer of ghostly light could be seen. For many of these guardian spirits, the quiet slip into the Dreamsleeve was not far off.

   The Priest cleared his throat. “It has been a long while since I have had to perform this ritual. Could you lead?”

   I nodded. “Of course. I admit, this exact duty is one I have always excelled at, to the detriment of many others. I would be glad to.” We stepped forward, and kneeled at the shrine’s rim. I began.

  “Blessed are the Bonemen, for they serve without self in spirit forever.
   Blessed are the Mistmen, for they blend in the glory of the transcendent spirit.
   Blessed are the Wrathmen, for they render their rage unto the ages.
   Blessed are the Masters, for they bridge the past and span the future.”

As I spoke these words, the spirits seeped in through the walls, chanting words of their own in return.

We die.
We pray.
To live.
We serve.

The ritual made the enchantments that followed easier. I shall not bore you with the details, more than to say I unearthed the sacred relics buried in each corner of that house of dead mer and renewed the magicka of each in turn, until the spirits grew stronger, ready for another ten years of service at least before the wards would fail again.

   When we left the bonelords to their watch, dusk had fallen, and rather than hike back to the priest’s home in the dark we chose to rest on the tomb’s doorstep, checking the shadows around us for the blight of necromancers and vampires who lurked forever as the true dead’s trespassers. I felt content. Almsivi watches over us, even now.

31^st of Sun’s Dusk

At the nearest crossroads, I split from my companion. He had bought my guar cheaply the day before (something I forgot to mention, no doubt, because of more pressing metaphysical matters), and so all I had with me was a netch-skin travel sack slung over my shoulder, holding a few books and clothes. By now I wore my full set of bonemold – except the helm, which I believe is still buried in molten rock along one of the more treacherous foyadas of Red Mountain.

   “Safe travels, sera,” the priest said to me, with the slightest bow. I offered him the same in return.

   “And to you. I hope you find this ‘Tower’ of yours, whatever it may be. ALMSIVI in every corner.”

   “In every corner,” he repeated, turned, and walked his long road home.

   The road grew rougher as I headed onwards, higher and higher the closer I came to the cyrodiilic border. The day was so clear, I could see all of Morrowind behind me, straight across the Inner Sea to the charred throat of the Star Wound. I stopped on a rocky bluff to eat a proper breakfast, cracking open my last kwama egg and feasting on the translucent knot of viscera inside. My eyes traced the lines I had taken across this country over my life. I saw the mar of Scathing Bay, the three broken spires of Almalexia’s temple, where I imagined my mother was talking Suruliin through a temple Mass at this very moment; and in the distance, past all else, I imagined Necrom, a hive of the dead, where Ranis lay in repose. Not even the Argonians would touch that place. Death is as sacred a thing to them as it is to us.

   It is a pity that I must turn away, and once again pursue that which is beyond scope. I love Morrowind – every blackened inch of it. But there is more out there; things to be learned, debts to settle, mysteries to unmask. And in all this, I am not alone.

   The dead stand with me.

After rejoining the main road, I quickly found an inn for the night and bought myself a room, with a hot bath of fresh ice melt. The muck of my journey rinsed clean, and what bruises remained burned away in painful release. I had my first taste of cyrodiilic cheese in years, and after extracting these pleasures, I turned to fitful sleep, though obviously I awoke, and wrote this. The stars are bright, and I ponder Aetherius. I am sitting on the floor by the window, counting the stars, and hoping to forget. Just one night’s sleep, free of my silent phantom of the past. Just one night...