cahna’shoreshik
Sermon Three
eing blind the netchiman’s wife wandered into a cave on her way to the domains of House Indoril.
²It so happened that this cave was a Dwemeri stronghold.
³The Dwemer spied the egg and captured the netchiman’s wife.
⁴They bound her head to foot and brought her deep within the earth.
⁵She heard one say, ‘Go and make a simulacrum of her and place it back on the surface, ⁶for she has something akin to what we have and so the Velothi will covet it and notice if she is too long away.’
⁷In the darkness, the netchiman’s wife felt great knives try to cut her open. ⁸When the knives did not work, the Dwemer used solid sounds. ⁹When those did not work, great heat was brought to bear. ¹⁰Nothing was of any use, and the egg of Vivec remained safe within her.
¹¹A Dwemer said, ‘Nothing is of any use. We must go and misinterpret this.’
¹²Vivec felt that his mother was afraid, and so consoled her.
¹³‘The fire is mine: let it consume thee,
And make a secret door
At the altar of Padhome,
In the House of Boet-hi-Ah
Where we become safe
And looked after.’
¹⁴This old prayer made the netchiman’s wife smile and begin such a deep sleep that when Dwemeri atronachs returned with cornered spheres and cut her apart she did not awake and died peacefully. ¹⁵Vivec was removed from her womb and placed within a magical glass for further study. ¹⁶To confound his captors, he channeled his essence into love, an emotion the Dwemer knew nothing about.
¹⁷The egg said:
‘Love is used not only as a constituent in moods and affairs, ¹⁸but also as the raw material from which relationships produce hour-later exasperations, regrettably fashioned restrictions, riddles laced with affections known only to the loving couple, and looks that linger too long. ¹⁹Love is also an often-used ingredient in some transparent verbal and nonverbal transactions where, eventually, it can sometimes be converted to a variety of true devotions, some of which yield tough, insoluble, and infusible unions. ²⁰In its basic form, love supplies approximately thirteen draughts of all energy that is derived from relationships. Its role and value in society at large are controversial.’
²¹The Dwemer were vexed at these words and tried to hide behind their power symbols. ²²They sent their atronachs to remove the egg-image from their cave and place it within the simulacrum they had made of Vivec’s mother.
²³A Dwemer said, ‘We Dwemer are only aspirants to this that the Velothi have. ²⁴They shall be our doom in this and the eight known worlds, NIRN, LHKAN, RKHET, THENDR, KYNRT, AKHAT, MHARA, and JHUNAL.’
²⁵The secret to doom is within this Sermon.
²⁶The ending of the words is ASV.