neihn gher leyrihn
THE TRUTH IN SEQUENCE
SO'T'HA SIL
The Light of Knowledge
Chapters
| | Index |
|---|---|
| 1: | Volume One |
| 2: | Volume Two |
| 3: | Volume Three |
| 4: | Volume Four |
| 5: | Volume Five |
| 6: | Volume Six |
| 7: | Volume Seven |
| 8: | Volume Eight |
| 9: | Volume Nine |
| 10: | Volume Ten |
| 11: | Volume Eleven |
| 12: | Volume Twelve |
alna’amurokam
Volume One
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
ow does one come to know the Clockwork God and Father of Mysteries?
³Our Lord Vivec and the Lady of Mercy, Almalexia, are known to us.
⁴Their faces are known to us. Their words are known to us. But what of Sotha Sil?
⁵He who is distant in both position and intent. Ever watchful, but seldom seen. Ever worshiped, but seldom heard.
⁶He is the Mainspring Ever-Wound—the unmoved mover, hidden within His Clockwork City, whose voice is the Divine Metronome.
⁷As Tourbillon, I speak His truth as I know it. I say the words in sequence so they can be known by the people.
⁸The sequence is but a shadow of the truth, but minds such as ours cannot bear the ordered unsequence.
⁹Minds such as ours cannot truly know themselves. Not yet.
¹⁰The First Truth of the Mainspring Ever-Wound is the truth of Nirn. ¹¹The soul of Nirn has two faces. The first is known to us—the Nirn-Prior, or the Nirn of Many Parts. ¹²It is a Nirn in pieces, assembled by the unsteady hand that has yet to find itself. ¹³Its oscillations irregular, its going train disrupted by fear and delusion. Its faults are not in its parts, but in its assembly. ¹⁴Each gear is a god. Each spring is a thought. But a mechanism built by many hands cannot know the precision of the master craftsman. ¹⁵The et’Ada Gears cannot bring forth a true Nirn, because they know only its parts. They cannot see the whole. ¹⁶The Eye of Sotha Sil ignores such division. ¹⁷Where the broken gods see only pieces, our Father Sotha Sil sees the whole. He sees the Second Nirn.
¹⁸The Second Nirn. The inchoate Nirn-Ensuing. The thought-form that anticipates the world to come: Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si. ¹⁹Only Sotha Sil knows its shape. Its nature lies forgotten in the before-time when Anu broke itself for wisdom’s sake. ²⁰Our lessers know the Source as two forms: Anu and Padomay, but this binary is without merit. ²¹One of Lorkhan’s Great Lies, meant to sunder us from the truth of Anuic unity. ²²Our father, Sotha Sil, would have us know the truth: there is no Padomay. ²³Padomay is the absence of value. The lack. A ghost that vanishes at first light. A Nothing. ²⁴There is only Anu, sundered and known by many names, possessing many faces. The one.
²⁵When Anu broke itself, it did so to understand its nature. ²⁶In its sundering, the values that swam in its vastness thought to know themselves. ²⁷The et’Ada Gears gave themselves many names and set their will to building. ²⁸Alas, they heeded the counsel of Lorkhan and forgot the face of Anu. ²⁹They thought themselves distinct and whole. And so, many hands assembled the world, each with separate intention and selfish purpose. ³⁰The Nirn of Many Parts was the result. A broken and leaking steam-ship that lists ever wind-ward.
³¹But rejoice, children of the Tribunal! In His wisdom, the Mainspring Ever-Wound seeks to reclaim our lost heritage. ³²His heart is oiled and calibrated, pumping dark truth as blood. ³³His mind is the God-Mortar where the fractured values of Anuic nature are ground and weighed—unified through His will alone. ³⁴From this great labor, a new Nirn will be born. Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si. ³⁵I pray that we see the fruit of His labor—a perfect world, without et’Ada Gears. Without the illusion of change. Water-tight and everlasting.
³⁶By the word, I wind the gears.
asca’amurokam
Volume Two
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
he will of Sotha Sil is the chrononymic will. The Nameless Will. For what is “Name?”
³The Divine Metronome tells us that “Name” is the wedge that pries gear from pinion.
⁴The residue of Lorkhan’s Great Lie that loosens the wheel chain and corrodes the frame.
⁵The et’Ada Gears named each and each, in their way.
⁶Our lessers see this as a kindness, but the Mainspring Ever-Wound calls it a curse, rooted in selfish pride.
⁷To name is to cleave one from another.
⁸It is the death of Anuic convergence and the Nirn-Ensuing—the misassembled dragon that breathes dry falsehood and whose name is “Multitude.”
⁹There is only one name that is not Name. Seht, the convergent Clockwork God, whose will pumps like a piston into both “then” and “after.” ¹⁰Sotha Sil, Father of Mystery, whose heart drives the Wheels Eternal and whose blood oils the All-Axle. ¹¹SI, the Divine Engine, whose mind merges “they” and “we” and births the Nirn-Ensuing. ¹²Lesser wills are wisps of smoke, born and lost in a sea of endless sky. Lost children whose freedom is death.
¹³For what is freedom, child of the Tribunal? The counter-lever to slavery? No. ¹⁴Have you not heard the words in sequence? The chrononymic will is the pendulum that swings only once. ¹⁵It cannot do otherwise. To swing twice would break one intention from another and prove the blasphemy of two. ¹⁶As Padomay is illusion, so too is the named will. ¹⁷For what is “choice” if not chaos? What is “free will” if not the lack of order, vulgar and triumphant? ¹⁸The true wheels spin clockwise, ever clockwise. In the unity of Nirn-Ensuing, each belongs to all, and all belong to none—save Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si. ¹⁹So lay down your cheap burdens, child. “Shall I do thus?” Such “choice” is delusion. ²⁰Give yourself to the pursuit of unity, for in the end, you cannot do otherwise.
²¹By the word, I wind the gears.
cahna’amurokam
Volume Three
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
he Third Truth of the Mainspring Ever-Wound is the truth of the Daedra.
³In the days before the First Ignition, the Chimer people bent their knees to the False Princes:
⁴The Webspinner, the Prince of Plots, and the Queen of Dawn and Dusk. I do not use their names, as Name cleaves one from another.
⁵You know them well, child of the Tribunal, for every time you bear false witness, or make foolish boasts, you do so in their name.
⁶Their words corrode and weaken the heart. Their threats loosen the fasteners and break the seals.
⁷They are the Anti-Gears that turn counter to the Nameless Will. Servants of the Padomaic untruth whose nature is void.
⁸Of the Daedra, only the Gray Prince of Order knew his nature, and he went mad in the knowing.
⁹The Daedra fear wisdom and order, you see? And thus do they fear the Clockwork God above all others. ¹⁰Where others see dark crowns numbered ten and six, Sotha Sil sees shadows and nothing more. ¹¹For the Daedra are the lie that creation tells itself. Like their father, Padomay, they are Nothing. And in the Tamriel Final, Nothing shall hold no sway. Anuvanna’si. ¹²Their black mountain called “Oblivion” shall sink into the Furnace of Forgotten Numbers, where all lies burn and brittle multitudes turn to slag.
¹³I hear you ask: If the Daedra are of the Nothing, how do they lurk on our threshold? How do they lurk at all? ¹⁴Hear the words in sequence, child of the Tribunal! ¹⁵In the clumsily built Nirn-Prior, the et’Ada Gears left gaps and crevices where Nothing could take root. ¹⁶Imperfections born from Lorkhan’s Great Lie and the selfishness of fractured creation. ¹⁷In the glorious Anuic convergence of the Nirn-Ensuing, all gaps will be sealed. All crevices will be welded. ¹⁸The creaking and rattling of the machine shall retreat to a whisper, and the reckless chaos born from the et’Ada Gears’ folly shall shrivel and starve.
¹⁹By the word, I wind the gears.
cina’amurokam
Volume Four
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
ow I speak to you of Sotha Sil’s silence.
³The children of ash sometimes ask, “Where is our Clockwork God? Why does only the Tourbillon speak His truth in mortal sequence?”
⁴They ask in hushed tones, with brows creased by fear.
⁵Do not flee from such questions, child of the Tribunal. These are the little blasphemies that lead to wisdom—the faultless flame that turns ignorance to steam.
⁶For the Mainspring Ever-Wound is the Father of Curiosity, and curiosity is the joyful destroyer.
⁷Only in sundering can things be made whole. Only the disassembled engine can be scrubbed and made clean.
⁸So, smash the old machines! Topple your mind’s idols! And from the wreckage, assemble new truths—flawless and water-tight.
⁹Do you see now, child of the Tribunal? It is the silence of Sotha Sil that gives birth to the intrepid mind. ¹⁰Knowledge must be found—and to find a thing, it must be hidden. It is not enough to be told. ¹¹The whirr of the machine is as silence to the one who lives within it. ¹²A turbine ever-oiled does not know the lack of oil—does not know the purpose of oil. And so it is with truth.
¹³Now, you must know that curiosity is not without cost. ¹⁴ALM forgive this heresy! VI forgive this heresy! I speak the words in sequence only. ¹⁵Pay heed to the laws of golden masks, but know also their limits. Pay heed to the songs of dancing glass, but know also the boundaries of their scale. ¹⁶Their truth is the truth of inertia. Of gravity. Their hearts are vessels filled with liquid brass—resistant to harm, but incapable of movement. ¹⁷The Mainspring Ever-Wound spurns that which does not move. ¹⁸In the Nirn-Ensuing, that which does not move shall be fed to the Kiln-Amaranthine where Seht’s quiet wrath burns like the sun, and broken cogs are made whole. ¹⁹The Wheels Eternal must spin. The Tamriel Final must tick and tock. Anuvanna’si. ²⁰Each and each must take its place in the whole. For if even one piece is missing, the whole is not whole.
²¹By the word, I wind the gears.
arca’amurokam
Volume Five
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
peak not of Dwarves, child of the Tribunal. The simple clockworks of the Dwemer pale before the sublime machinery of Sotha Sil.
³Let Dumac’s lament be a silent one. Let his hissing tombs stay buried. Let his automata rust and crumble.
⁴For his was the greatest failure—driven by Lorkhan’s Great Lie and churlish pride.
⁵His is a tale of woe and terror, and those that pursue his ugly maths shall pay a great price in blood.
⁶“But, was Dumac not a creator?” you ask? “Were the brass-child’s hands not covered in oil? Did they not speak the words of Making, and set wheel to axle?” ⁷Hear the words in sequence, followers of Seht. Intention dictates the worth of a machine. ⁸Where the Mainspring Ever-Wound seeks the convergence of the Nirn-Ensuing, the ghosts of the Dwemer cry out: “Multitudes! Multitudes!” ⁹Mer and machine, parted. Wisdom and ambition, parted. Made and Unmade, parted. ¹⁰And from those sunderings, a thousand thousand skittering machines are made—left to wander forgotten halls, aimless and profligate. ¹¹One may twist a knob left in preparation for another to twist the same knob right. One may loosen a pipe so that another may tighten it. ¹²They exist only to maintain the brass-childrens’ folly, and so they are redundant and profane in the Eye of Sotha Sil.
¹³But most profane is this: the walking horror that bears the Name, NM. The Brass Tower of Vanity. ¹⁴The mindless guardian of the Nirn-Prior. The Antipodal-God-Thing that reigns on the darkest pole of the sacred Nirn-Sphere. ¹⁵Of all the threats to Tamriel Final, NM is the greatest. Anuvanna’si. ¹⁶The Daedra can be banished in thought, but NM must be sundered on Nirn. ¹⁷It is the welded knot at the center of Anu that must be untied. The God-Puzzle. ¹⁸The Mainspring Ever-Wound remains silent on this point. And where there is silence, there is great wisdom.
¹⁹By the word, I wind the gears.
tahna’amurokam
Volume Six
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
ehold, the Clockwork City! The Throne Aligned! The Omni-Axle!
³The Brass-Throat Herald of Joyful Destruction! The Oil-Slick Tower of Seamless Assembly! Rejoice! Rejoice!
⁴Listen, child of the Tribunal! Do you not hear the whirr of the gears? The hiss of the pistons? ⁵It is the voice of Sotha Sil, calling you to the Nirn-Ensuing. To the Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si. ⁶Cast down your worldly maths. Loosen the chains of your selfish pursuits. ⁷Shall I describe it to you? Shall I guide your eyes to the future of Nirn? ⁸Hear the words in sequence, dark child. Close your eyes and awaken!
⁹Gaze up to behold a crystal sky, girded and bound by Seht’s bright bands. ¹⁰Look down to behold the black stone of His will, and His imagination made clay. ¹¹Drink His truth, thick as blood, from the broad black rivers. ¹²Feel His breath on your skin—let its dreamy redolence fill your nostrils and sting your eyes. ¹³You stand at the center of the wheel. The home of the Mainspring Ever-Wound.
¹⁴Obsidian towers stretch ever skyward, festooned with polished brass and godly filigrees. ¹⁵Great turbines drive memory through a thousand thousand pipes that stretch out like tangled veins, or the golden roots of an ageless tree. ¹⁶And wandering amidst the humming and hissing paradise are His second-children. The Fabri’siraynosim. The merged-ones. ¹⁷Birthed of the unsequence, and bound to the Nirn-Ensuing. They cry out in one voice: “Death to Multitudes! Woe and terror! ¹⁸Let the fragments melt in the Boiler of Unknown Angles! Let the falsehoods burn in the Furnace of Forgotten Numbers! ¹⁹Disassemble and cleanse! Dismantle and make whole!” ²⁰They are the guardians—the ever-wound key-lords. ²¹Only the Nameless heart avoids their wrath. Their hatred of discord knows no limits. ²²For the road to Tamriel Final is not a bloodless one, child of the Tribunal. Anuvanna’si. ²³Contemplate this with a pious heart. Seek a clean and well-oiled soul. It shall serve you well in His truth-to-come.
²⁴So you see the Clockwork City is like Sotha Sil Himself—rich in beauty for the faithful, and alight with sublime terror for the servants of chaos. ²⁵In which Clockwork City would you reside? Commit your small blasphemies and think on this.
²⁶By the word, I wind the gears.
sahna’amurokam
Volume Seven
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
hink now on the wheel. To all things it appertains.
³Is there anything so sacred as the wheel? Like Tamriel Final, the wheel both moves and does not move. Anuvanna’si. ⁴The axle sleeps, while the spokes make haste—round and round in reflective circles. ⁵Now, here dwells a Nameless secret, child of the Tribunal: does a thing move when it moves in circles?
⁶Motion lies at the heart of the Nirn-Ensuing, but not all motion is Nameless. Not all movement earns His blessing.
⁷The Divine Metronome calls the first motion “The Motion of Lines.” ⁸Line-motion is the motion of simple minds—the motion of weak wills and scholars’ vanity. ⁹“Forward!” it cries! Forward to the fruits of cheap ambition. Forward to the promise of everlasting kingdoms. Forward to the mirage that the sages call “progress.” ¹⁰These misguided pioneers venture out into their wild tomorrows, and the tomorrows after that, certain of their worth—their virtue. ¹¹But what profits a man or mer to gaze deep into a single future? ¹²The aims of mortals are narrow, far too narrow! ¹³To move forward is to ignore infinite angles in favor of one. It is the act of a beast or a child. ¹⁴The Clockwork God spurns vanity in the guise of courage. These explorers’ travels only lead them farther from Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si.
¹⁵Seht speaks of the second motion only in whispers. “The Pendulum” or “Named Oscillation” is the tic-tock motion—the motion of entropy and false hope. ¹⁶None but the Clockwork God may claim its dark power. With each wide swing it shouts Lorkhan’s lie. ¹⁷“Hail, intentions divided! Hail, cursed multitudes!” ¹⁸Do not stand in the Pendulum’s path, ash-child. Only the Mainspring Ever-Wound may bear its weight.
¹⁹Last is the reciprocating motion. “The Sublime Piston.” The lover’s embrace. ²⁰Like the Father of Mystery, it gives and takes in equal measure. ²¹As the bow upon the strings, it calls forth the sublime. As the carpenter’s saw, it wrenches back and forth, sundering the Named pursuits of lesser mer. ²²Only a Nameless heart may harness its strength. ²³The artist, the star-counter, and the engineer call it “muse.” The truth-blind multitudes call it “destroyer.”
²⁴Do you see now, child of the Tribunal? Every movement hides intent. To stray from the wheel is to abandon the Clockwork God. ²⁵In the Tamriel Final, all shall spin, and only spin. Anuvanna’si.
²⁶By the word, I wind the gears.
daskhora’amurokam
Volume Eight
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
lessed Father of Mystery, place your oil upon my tongue that I might tell the true tale of Mournhold.
³Behold the strength of untold calculation! Behold the power of the Mainspring Ever-Wound!
⁴Every Nameless soul must confess the truth of Mournhold, for many lessons hide in its ashes. ⁵Sing now the hymn of anguish and horror, child of Seht! ⁶Behold, Mehrunes Dagon, Sovereign of Destruction! Mehrunes Dagon, the Flame Tyrant! Mehrunes Dagon, Father of Cataclysm! ⁷Recall how he marched upon Almalexia’s jewel! Do you remember how his Will burned like kiln-fire, and hot pitch fell from his lips? ⁸Aloft, he held four great razors. Each sang a screeching paean to glorify him. ⁹Torrents of flame fell upon the innocent and wicked alike, shearing flesh from bone; belching forth widows and orphans in gouts of frothing screams.
¹⁰“Who dares to face me, draped as I am in fire and blood?” roared Dagon. ¹¹The dark Prince beat his breast and howled long-forgotten curses. The dead burst forth from their tombs, shrieking for mercy. ¹²The dark Prince beat his breast and howled long-forgotten curses. The dead burst forth from their tombs, shrieking for mercy. ¹³And everywhere, flames—an inferno that turned all souls to ash.
¹⁴Almalexia, Mother of Mercy, cast her eyes upon the ruins of her gemmed city and wept. ¹⁵To see such love burned and squandered turned her heart to molten brass. ¹⁶Our Clockwork God took note of her fury, sealing the memory away in his great mnemonic planisphere—a reminder of her love’s high price.
¹⁷Rising from the ground like foundry-smoke, the Tribunes confronted the Prince of Disasters. ¹⁸Ayem’s voice like a screeching steam-whistle, and Sotha Sil’s like a lurching engine.
¹⁹“ERAM VAR AE ALTADOON!”
they cried, rending their garments and donning their killing masks. ²⁰Ayem drew her bright Hopesfire and skipped over the flames like a river-stone. ²¹With a mighty scream, she plunged the blade deep into Dagon’s breast and turned it like a jailer’s key. ²²Scorching blood spewed out of the wound, scalding her hands and face. ²³As she fell, the Divine Metronome chiseled a thought-rune of infinite angles. ²⁴Do you remember how the veins of tin, copper, and orichalc erupted from the depths to break our mother’s Fall? ²⁵Through His will alone, Mighty Seht wound the veins into god-bronze whips, and lashed the Prince pitilessly. ²⁶Dagon hissed and tumbled backward. His otherworldly flesh fell like chaff before the scythe. ²⁷Alas, a Sarmissonays’um ghoul-thing emerged from every chunk.
²⁸A multitude of the creatures gathered around Ayem, fiery tar oozing from their mouths and open sores. ²⁹They groaned and retched, speaking only Dagon’s name as they fell upon her. ³⁰The Warden hissed thrice, took up her blessed sword, and smote the beasts by the score. ³¹She severed head from neck and arm from shoulder, cleaving sin from virtue and shouting old-oaths of banishing. ³²Do you remember how the beasts fell to her on that red day? ³³You must recall the howls of Madness! How Dagon foamed and snarled beneath the lash of Sotha Sil! ³⁴“Behold!” cried the Divine Metronome as He smashed the Prince to splinters. ³⁵“Behold the wrath of lost Ald Sotha! Know death at my hands, false-son of a false-father!
³⁶KAER PADHOME VIE ALTADOON!”
³⁷Even then, at the end, the Prince of Destruction did not relent. ³⁸With the last of his four great arms, Dagon dragged the last of his four great razors across the Watchmaker’s jaw. ³⁹Tasting the blood on His tongue, our Father of Mysteries whispered a final chrononymic death-word, and Dagon exploded throughout all time. ⁴⁰The earthbones quaked and the All-Axle shook. From this word of sundering, Truth took root.
⁴¹Mehrunes’s ruin slithered between the cracks of Nirn and Oblivion, shrieking curses like a petulant child. The Mainspring Ever-Wound tightened His brass-wrought fist and slammed the gap shut— ⁴²another small step toward Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si. ⁴³So ends the true account of Mournhold’s fall. Remember this tale always.
⁴⁴By the word, I wind the gears.
enta’amurokam
Volume Nine
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
he Mainspring Ever-Wound values craft above all things.
³She who shapes and assembles, he who conceives and creates—these are the true children of the Clockwork God.
⁴Your labors need not whirr and hiss like the sublime clockworks of Sotha Sil. ⁵The brush, the auger, the tongs, the needle—each and each may honor the Father of Mysteries, so long as they speak His truth. ⁶And what is His truth, child of Seht? Perfection only? No. ⁷Hear the words in sequence! Simple precision is naught but the shadow of virtue. ⁸Even a faithless smith may fashion the blade with the keenest edge. ⁹The perfect sphere, the clearest glass, the truest angle—all fall short of His favor. ¹⁰Only through the purest incongruities and greatest doubts do we earn His blessing. ¹¹You must think with the thrice-folded mind. You must gaze upon the unsequence.
¹²No mortal may grasp the unsequence fully. We see the edges only—the liminal truths. ¹³For some, the unsequence brings despair. Others look upon it with a child’s bewilderment. ¹⁴But for the precious few, the Nameless explorers, this thin ray of understanding may serve as the Bridge of Infinite Curve. The Walking Wheel.
¹⁵Know this, ash-child: only the intrepid mind may walk this path. ¹⁶For you see, the Nameless soul is the tightrope walker that strides in circles only. ¹⁷Below and aside, waits the gaping maw of Sheogorath’s lie. Ahead and above, waits Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si.
¹⁸I hear your cries, child of Seht! “How does one walk the wheel?” you ask. ¹⁹Here lies a Nameless truth. Just as no wrench fits all bolts, no walk fits all souls. ²⁰For the sculptor, it may mean an angle inverted, or a form transposed—an abandonment of the Named resemblance and an embrace of the abstract. ²¹For the scholar of maths, it could require half-mad theorems—rooms of cubic numbers and functions only imagined. ²²For the inventor, it may demand a tool without any known use, or an answer-machine that prints only questions.
²³Craft perfected, and use obscure: this is the surest path to Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si.
²⁴By the word, I wind the gears.
alnahna’amurokam
Volume Ten
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
eware blind
reverence for The Old, child of Seht. The oil of antiquity often fuels the future.
³Those who ignore the counsel of our blessed ancestors do so at their peril.
⁴But not all ruins hide wisdom within their shattered halls. Some ruins are dark and barren places—
⁵unsteady graves for lies and curses. Resting places for bent axles, stripped bolts, and the bitter silence of inertia.
⁶In the time before our Father’s rise, old and feeble knowledge ruled the hearts of mer. ⁷The children of ash entered their ancestral tombs not in search of truth, but in search of truth’s corpse. ⁸They saw their forebears not as proud and vigorous guides, but as wheezing, toothless ghosts— ⁹guardians of the musty and derelict engines that fools call deep wisdom. You must smash these old machines, child of Seht! ¹⁰The past does not rust upon the scrap pile. It hurtles toward the Mainspring Ever-Wound’s glorious and multi-angled future, whipped by the scorching tongues of our honored forebears! ¹¹Ever do their words and deeds grease the wheels of the Nirn-Ensuing! ¹²Ever do they weld the seams of Tamriel Final! Anuvanna’si.
¹³But alas! Even now, stewards of The Old feed aged truth to those who would listen. ¹⁴They are the daughters and sons of PSJJJJ who crouch like gargoyles over musty tomes, faces hidden beneath frayed and graying robes. ¹⁵They counsel caution, temperance, and equanimity—ancient virtues of the fading Nirn-Prior. ¹⁶Even so, the Father of Curiosity calls them friends. ¹⁷With a god’s patience, He teaches them. With a father’s love, He guides them; all in the hopes that one day they may see the deepest truth of The Old: ¹⁸that we must banish our feeble ghosts and give their memory new life through the thrice-folded mind. ¹⁹Toothless gears cannot be repaired—they must be melted and reforged. So it is with our people’s truth.
²⁰None will deny that the daughters and sons of PSJJJJ wield great power. ²¹Like our Clockwork City, their isle of Artaeum glides between what is and what may be. ²²Like our Clockwork Apostles, they study, strive, and create. But power without an infinite future’s courage is like an empty boiler— ²³infused with fierce heat but producing no steam. Woe upon those who recoil from Tamriel Final! Anuvanna’si. ²⁴The will of the Clockwork God turns such cowardice to slag. ²⁵But rejoice! The Father of Mysteries’ affection proves the worth of PSJJJJ. ²⁶One day these lost spellweavers will heed the words of the Divine Metronome and seek the true and noble change—the aratagnithir. ²⁷On that day we shall embrace them not as friends, but as brothers and sisters.
²⁸By the word, I wind the gears.
alnahn’alna’amurokam
Volume Eleven
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
hear your whispers—your puerile laments.
³Even here in the Clockwork City, bathed in the oil of His divine wisdom, you cry out, “Where are the soft grasses and babbling creeks?
⁴Where are the heady wines and rich fruits? Where are the gentle rains, and sighing boughs, and swaying mushrooms?”
⁵Like hungry babes you weep, “Where is the Real?”
⁶Ease your bellows and steady your gears. You must gaze now upon the brass-wrought truth.
⁷See the Real of Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si.
⁸What makes a thing real? Is it the blood, or the sap, or the beating heart? ⁹Is it the shrieking trauma of an infant’s birth? The low roar of the tides? ¹⁰The root’s thirst for water or the lazy drift of distant clouds? ¹¹No, child of Seht! Hear the words in sequence! Can you not see that your fears spring from Lorkhan’s lie? ¹²Those soft forms and gentle comforts you covet are naught but corroded lies—fractured creation’s panacea that deadens the soul’s forgotten pain.
¹³“But is Sotha Sil’s sacred city not a replication?” you ask, “A Nirn in miniature?” ¹⁴Hear this, ash-child: the Clockwork City is no mere simulacrum. ¹⁵The copper leaves and sculpted hills are not Nirn’s resemblance, but Nirn’s refinement— ¹⁶worldly forms made whole by the steady hand of the Mainspring Ever-Wound. The glorious unity of Tamriel Final demands convergence. Anuvanna’si. ¹⁷Mer and machine made whole. Nature and engineering made whole. The past and the future made whole. ¹⁸In time, all of Nirn shall be pressed and fired in this forge of Seht’s blessed imaginings—weighed and measured upon the Nameless Scales! ¹⁹Is this not the Real? Is this not the redemption of the et’Ada’s sins? ²⁰Do you see now the impoverished forms of the Nirn-Prior? The cheap and hollow falsehoods that masquerade as nature’s splendor?
²¹Seek out the dry, hard places, child of Seht. Anoint your tongue with His oil. Fill your stomach with His nourishing grain. ²²Cast out what was and fix your eyes upon the Nirn-to-come—upon Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si.
²³By the word, I wind the gears.
alnahn’asca’amurokam
Volume Twelve
¹By the word, I wind the gears.
have spoken the words in sequence, child of Seht. I have guided your eyes to the glorious Nirn-Ensuing—
³to the inevitable grandeur of Tamriel Final. Anuvanna’si.
⁴I have shouted my grave admonitions and whispered the secrets of the infinite curve. Now, as my engine fails, I bestow upon you my final blessing.
⁵You who sing the song of making and set your wheels to axles—you intrepid star-counters who shatter the old machines and smelt new truths from the crude and forgotten ores of the Aurbis—you must hear this ultimate lesson.
⁶Tamriel Final shall change you in ways both grand and terrifying. Anuvanna’si. ⁷Just as molten brass cools in its mold, so too will your body take on a new and hardened shape. ⁸Just as water changes from liquid to steam, so too will the cheap preoccupations of your mind disperse and fade. ⁹Just as oil ignites and powers the engine, so too will your soul glow bright and drive the Wheels Eternal. ¹⁰The unity of Tamriel Final must wash away our selfish pursuits and jealous will, ash-child. Anuvanna’si. ¹¹In the glorious Nirn-Ensuing, we must exorcise that grinning apparition we call “I.” Only then can we know the sublime truth of the Mainspring Ever-Wound. ¹²We must walk change’s road if we seek the end of disorder—and like all roads worth walking, it fills our hearts with joy and terror.
¹³How like the et’Ada gears we are—content to live our lives in vain and sequestered sorrow, all the while oblivious to the anguished cries of our fractured souls! ¹⁴Look upon the lonely shore of Nirn. What do you see, with your broken eyes? ¹⁵One beach? One sea? Deceit and vanity! The Named illusion! ¹⁶For what is a “beach” if not a desperate agglomeration of isolated grains? ¹⁷What is a “sea” if not a churning mass of solitary tears? Separate! Broken! Arrogant and futile!
¹⁸Even after meditating upon these sermons, there are some among you who cling to the Nirn-Prior. ¹⁹You fear the loss of your thin and impoverished “self.” You must cast aside these childish fears! ²⁰What good is a “self” if it burns away at the threshold of what waits beyond time? ²¹Do you not see that the Father of Mysteries seeks to usher our world through the End? To protect us from the lies-made-flesh who seek to destroy us? ²²If you remember only one thing, let it be this: our blessed Clockwork God loves you with a fierce and awesome heart. ²³What he does, he does for you and for all who would follow his divine example.
²⁴Lasting joy. The peace of unity. The sublime satisfaction of perfect rhythm; these are the product of our honest labors—the spokes of our blessed wheel that spins eternal. ²⁵The Mainspring Ever-Wound offers perfection, child of Seht. You have but to gaze within. ²⁶Stoke your coals. Add fresh water to your boilers. Tighten your bolts, and believe. Tamriel Final awaits. Anuvanna’si.
²⁷By the word, I wind the gears.