Chapter Text
Since The Numidium Project's inception, reports of haunting visions and vivid dreams have spread rapidly amongst the ranks of architects. Colloquially known as “heart sickness”, these visions have been described, paradoxically, as beautiful as they are sickening, as grisly as they are resplendent. Sufferers are left restless, delirious, on the verge of slipping into a waking-dream, being without being, there but not there.
As expounded upon in the following Theses, I believe these recurrent nightmares originate from the Heart itself. With each beat, the Heart resonates an arrangement of Twelve-and-One tones – what has occurred to the other Three has yet to be determined – that speak to something ancient and primordial that awakens at its call. My hypothesis is as follows: any attempts to neutralise the effects of “heart sickness” must silence these tones at the Heart.
I am well aware, Kagrenac, that these visions are as much a personal as a political matter for you. I must confess, I too have had strange awakenings as of late. I therefore present my findings with both swiftness and discretion: I trust that of all the terrible and glittering minds of Dwemereth, yours can lead us through this darkness.
May the gods tremble in your wake,
Nchunac
They unearth it on a still night. They find it wrapped in ribbons of thick ebony, in a black pit that is miles below the surface, deep beneath the ashen shores where the Urshilaku have camped, after their last candle has been snuffed out. A weary watchwoman, who was supposed to keep an eye cracked open for their wise woman’s return has given into the comfort of a black, starless night, smoke drifting as she dreams. It is this that they call the hour of witch-fiends. Cast-off sorcerers, the mabrigash, and broken souls might gather in the quietest corner of the night to undergo ritual, to unearth things unspoken, where those who would partake in the forbidden walk in step with the shadows.
(On the surface there is a breeze, but it is a delicate one, a shawl of chills.)
But those who dwell beneath the earth make no such distinctions. An hour is an hour. And while the world slumbers, it is time to work.
They walk soundlessly in metal-capped boots, carrying heavy lanterns and unfamiliar instruments. There are few of them, in the gloom, and they speak here without voices – for such things are coveted by spinners and song-makers and spies alike – and instead follow the movements of a precise hand. A rigorous hand. A hand that knows the fires of forges and the hot-tempered in a roaring debate chamber alike. A hand that leads a score of automatons that cut and scrape and carve and tear open what lays disgraced and disavowed. A hand of a remarkable woman, who instructs them, now, to unbury something unthinkable.
To them, this is not a grave misdeed, but a magnificent accomplishment. The gravediggers are not interested in lost tongues, stolen voices, the tapestry of the past as told in rites, for they are not godly folk. They were not born in harsh places, old Velothi strongholds rinsed in ash, with Red Mountain ever-looming. They were born beneath their very foundations, where from graves sprung bubbling cities of brass song-towers and steam-pistoned carillons and twelve-tongued bells that cry out in every tone that can be struck. They are not people spun from a lineage of myth and reflection; instead, they shake the unshakable, they break what cannot be fixed. They fear no gods, no magics, they claim. Yes, they seek to profane the remnants of dead-and-dying gods. But what they are conducting in this dark corner of the earth is, in their terms, an excavation. Not an unburial.
It is in a searing tempest of heat, smoke, the soft clamour of well-oil machines, drawn from the exacting hands of the most accomplished conductor that this epoch has known, that it – it that lies buried beneath the weight of crushed empires and fallen revolts and ashen wastes and dead words and white noise – first tastes more than stale air.
The conductor signals to pause.
(that rhythm)
It still beats. It still trembles. It still quakes.
(that rhythm)
(that rhythm sounds like a memory)
It sounds like a memory from before her name was heralded like a constellation beneath great-domed debate halls, from before she would lecture on a platform sculpted from her theorems, from before wide-eyed acolytes would witness her draw being from tones - sound, at its most resonant, at its most imperfect, at its most impure - draw matter from music. From before the crown Kagrenac, Chief Tonal Architect of the Dwemer.
(and a melody swells)
From before the ferocity of the storm, from before the bitterly won debates, the intensity of a rivalling glare, from before she stowed away secrets written in false languages spoken not in tongues, before she feared they would slip through her fingers still raw from hammering a thesis into form, still bleeding from picking apart a lexicon that had no lock or key, a set of thoughts she could not crack, could not cut, could not shape, not yet.
(and it is copper and it is amber and it is brass and it is verdant green, the likes of which she’d never seen, and it is crimson and it is rust and it is rose-gold, and older still, and ebony, dark ichor between her fingers, and amaranth, clutched from a mountaintop, stolen from the gods–)
From before clamour and cacophony, contradiction, the calamity of noise, before hot metal and hissing water and burning flags and the cutting sound one’s tongue can make at the back of one’s throat. From before her hands knew that kind of heat.
(but most of all it is violet)
From before scars. From before wretched sirens that call war, before those cursed horns could call the fortress doors to shut. From before she was a small, unsightly thing who’d had her wings plucked from her back. From before she had a tongue from which to even form a name.
(the colour of light spilling beyond the bars of an old cage)
Before, a being walks, in the wild grove of caverns.
(and she knows this song.)
The conductor turns to her assistants. They stand mesmerised. She does not blink. A sharp gesture says: Continue. We cannot delay. The world will not wait to feast upon our discovery, no matter its magnificence.
(she knows this song from before the dawn)
As her hands move, as the heart beats, she begins to remember.
Before, a being walks, in a wild grove of caverns.
Above it, at a cross of tangled footpaths, underneath the fading glow of a dream, a many-eyed seer weaves a tapestry out of tattered wings. Hir handiwork catches the light and glints like a web of mirrors.
“Where do you wander, little spirit?” ze asks, softly.
But it simply walks on, without a glance. The tunnels twist and curl in all sorts of directions that are difficult to discern, in the gloom of glittering dust, a fading violet, beneath the luminous fungi stalks that formed canopy, ceiling, sky. The seer shakes hir head. It wouldn’t do, for it to lose itself in the colour.
“I ask out of concern,” the many-eyed seer says, again. “Since you appear to be walking in the wrong direction.”
The being stops.
“You need not concern yourself with me,” it says. It does not deign to look in hir direction.
“Perhaps. But it is quite easy to lose oneself in the gloom of this place. In the dark, many walk down slippery routes that are difficult to climb back from. That would be a sorry fate for someone who moves with such... purpose.”
At that, the being turns to hir and looks directly into hir many-eyes. It is a small thing indeed, dressed in moth-eaten scraps and weathered boots, with no wings to speak of, nor feathers, nor a set of horns. But it holds the many-eyed seer's gaze as if it is a creature thrice its size.
“I am looking for the court of the Great Scarab,” it says, without adornment.
"Are you, now?" The many-eyed seer leans down from hir perch. “The Great Scarab, is it? I wonder what he possibly could have done to merit that kind of title.”
“I hear he is very big.”
The seer chuckles softly.
“Is that why you seek him?”
“That is no business of yours,” it says.
The seer tuts softly. “As long as you are here, it is all business of mine.”
The being watches hir, unblinking.
“This criss-cross of caverns is under my eyes, as are you, little spirit,” ze continues, folding and unfolding hir many sets of limbs. “I am the watcher, the regarder, the seer of this place, all its knots and its tangles. I see what goes forward and what leads back. I know which path leads right; I know which leads to ruin. I could spin a trail to where light breaks and water sings. Or, perhaps,” and ze glances along the being’s back, from where its wings were torn. A thin distance. It would be easy to snap in half, this tattered, disgraced thing. “A wandering little spirit, without guidance, in the gloom could get caught in the web be-neath, in the clutches of the void where stranger things lurk, all tooth and nail and claw, and it might wander until it became tangled in circles, until the trails it so purposefully spun became haunted by its footsteps…”
The being does not even move, save for a slight flutter of its hand.
“... but I think it would be such a pity to send you on such a thankless task. I can tell you a whisper of a way I have heard – and even a gift or two, if you would take it. All I ask is your name.”
The many-eyed seer offers one of hir many arms with the fluidity and clever grace of one whose weapons are needles, one who understands the true price of silk. A conciliatory gesture.
The being does not take it.
“I cannot give you my name.”
“You cannot?”
"I cannot. For I have none. I tore it from my tongue when I left my last master."
The many-eyed seer blinks slowly. Ze lowers hirself down from hir perch, leaving hir loom and hir half-undone tapestry of torn wings and lost horns catching whatever remnants of light dwell in this place.
“Little spirit,” says the seer, carefully. “Who did you tear yourself from, in such a hurry, in such violence?”
At first, the being says nothing in response. The many-eyed seer leans closer, and begins to circle slowly around it.
“Perhaps I should warn you, little one.” Hir words are soft and whispered, in this place of muted colours that blur like dreams. “About creatures that dwell beneath. They are not what they seem. It is not the sharpness of their claws, or their teeth, or their nails, one should bother themselves. Where does claw begin and end, what is tooth, what is nail, is it both, is it neither? Where does one end, and another begin?”
The faintest reach of a claw appears to trace a line between the blades of the being’s shoulders. It turns to seize it – but there is nothing there.
“It is hard to discern the difference between things,” ze continues, hir voice light and soothing. “In the deepest reaches, where all is ever-changing, ever-spinning. Perhaps a pretty little spirit without a name might end up devouring themselves into tatters, thinking themselves something large and hungry. I do wonder what desperation would push such a creature to dare tread in such places, beyond the tread of the wheel, where the distinction between ‘all’ and ‘nothing’ is as thin as a fraying thread. So easy to snap.”
The being does not even bristle.
“Do you seek to frighten me, seer?”
The many-eyed seer’s face splits, then, into a smile. It is cut into many rows of jagged teeth, and it is frightening.
“Oh, you are a clever little insect, aren’t you? I’m fond of your sorts,” ze says, grinning. “Perhaps, you might even be clever enough to cut a way to what you seek. Although, it is long. And treacherous, in so many ways. Because you cannot fly or swim or climb, I take it? No. No claws or gills or wings, from what I can see. Such a pity.” Ze tuts, fondly. “Would you be willing to leave this forest of echoes for the deepest reaches, which do not know stillness nor light, only change, only transformation, only the terror of being without form or shape or quantifiable being? Perhaps you will be changed with it. Perhaps you will not leave at all. Perish, and fade.”
The being does not shy away from hir gaze. “'I will do what is required. If I must, I will walk.”
“So bold. So eager,” ze says, slinking behind her. “Perhaps too eager. There is another way, little spirit. It would require further assistance, on my part, however, if you would not object.
From behind hir, under the glint of light, the tapestry of wings and things that ze has spun seems to meld and shift into a wall of colour.
“You see, I could weave you a web. I could weave you a way that spins up to the upper caverns your arms cannot reach, curling up through the roots of the old, tangled woods that your princely Scarab calls his home. No need to throw yourself into the howling depths.”
“And the cost?”
The many-eyed seer lurches closer to the being. Ze is close enough to tentatively prise its eyes from its sockets.
“His name, little one. His name.”
The being does not blink. It watches with a gaze unblinking, as the many-eyed seer circles around it one last time, slow and deliberate. It almost doesn’t speak. It is only when the seer has almost drawn away that it steps closer, and whispers a rich name, thick and coarse with old power, on hir ear.
The seer seems to slink back, like a shadow in harsh light.
“Ah. You are a brave one, spirit,” ze says, softly, hir smile having faded. “He is a hard master, so I have heard. A creature of scalding light.”
“I do not need your pity."
The many-eyed seer says nothing to this. Without a sound, ze extends two long, arching foreclaws up to the being’s throat. Between, is a small, thin needle, whose eye has been pierced with a ribbon of violet.
“This will take you where you need to be. From the other end a wandering-way will unfold, that will guide you through the depths. Do be careful not to prick yourself at its end – it is sharp enough to piece.”
The being frowns. It looks at the many-eyed seer like a dagger.
“You would seek to mislead me,” it says.
“Perhaps I already have,” ze says, showing a few more teeth. “Oh, come now. No need to look at me like that. While the thought of you tangled up in my web is quite delicious, I doubt anything would delight me more than the thought of you fumbling your way through the Scarab’s court.” Ze lowers hir voice to a murmur. “I’m sure he’ll be more than fond of you. I’ve heard he has a certain proclivity for your kind.”
The being almost scoffs at that. It looks down, then, at the length of the needle. It is slight enough that it could fit quite easily inbetwixt its fingers. There would be only the slimmest chance of being sliced open. It could, perhaps, learn to spin again.
“Of course, you won’t mention of whisper of this,” and ze gestures to the silken strand of violet running through the needle, “To him. This can be just between us.”
The being looks up, doubt weighing heavy on its brow.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of a secret before. You’ll be in need of them, spirit, with the Scarab’s ilk. They’re wilder than anything carved from his light–”
At that, the being snatches the needle from the seer’s hands.
“Spirit–” ze begins.
It turns, sharply, away from the cross-roads, a needle and thread in a grazed fingers. A few droplets spill out, splatter the floor. No matter. The many-eyed seer watches as the strand of colour, dusky dreams and in-betweens, begins to sail away.
Ze says nothing as it departs.
… Kagrenac wakes suddenly. It is dark. She is alone.
She pulls at her surrounds, her fingers grasping her arms, her hair, at the warm sheets, at a bed that is missing the shape of another person. Empty.
With a less than graceful hand, a lamp flickers on, and she begins to stumble around their home in a shade of soft amber. It was once such a bare place. It's now stuffed with all kinds of trinkets and ornaments and books – a natural accumulation of stuff over two hundred plus years of cohabitation, one might suppose.
She wanders around this maze of miscellanea – sculpted tea sets and framed schematics and ugly paperweights and elaborate mosaics that are as hideous as they are delightful – until she spots a light, in the distance.
Ah. Of course.
Kagrenac’s partner – her companion, her co-conspirator, her lover – partner in all sense and significance of the word – is at her desk. Still. Poring over plans, making adjustments, making alterations, one must assume, to the preliminary designs of Anumidium. Under the constancy of a lamp, for the stars did not shine in this place.
(They are far from Nirn. An unusual circumstance. But one can accommodate to the strangest of places, if needs must).
So then, Kagrenac, The Chief Tonal Architect of the Dwemer, Esteemed Visionary that is both and neither Philosopher and Engineer, Hierophant and Heretic, here half-awake and sleepy-eyed and perhaps, even, a bit groggy, as it was before dawn, wraps her arms around her lover’s waist. She nests her head against her neck, and says, softly (though with a bit of a rasp):
“Come to bed, darling. Please. I miss you.”
Shoulders tense up. There is a sharp intake of breath.
Kagrennac lets go – immediately – and turns to face her – her partner, companion, co-conspirator, lover – concern bleeding into her voice when she asks:
“Bthemetz?”