Autobiography and Selected Essays of Laurent Prevot, CH. 1.

• Posted by Laurent Prevot July 11, 2012 - 208 views

   

  Chapter One

  Beginnings

              It is odd to consider the case of a living man finding himself most comfortable in the depths of a tomb, in a place where death literally lurks around every corner. Fear of these places is folly to me for I have no trepidation about death, having been around it for almost as long as I have drawn breath. My parents were embalmers, peasants, who put their lives at risk daily to inter the deceased townsfolk into the crypts of Camlorn, a city in my home province of High Rock. I must have been seven-years-old when I first went along with my parents into the tombs, along with my older brother Francois. Francois was ten and had been going into the tombs for several years, so he knew what to expect, but on my first day in the crypts I was terrified beyond measure. I had seen dead bodies before. My father had allowed me to accompany him on trips to recover the remains of old men or widows who had died in their sleep. They always looked peaceful, their countenance at worst solemn, as if they were sleeping. I suppose my father knew it would be to my benefit to guide me into the process slowly, with less frightening — or deadly — corpses. I realized quickly upon my entrance into the Hall of the Dead in Camlorn that people often met much more painful and bitter demises than the aged grandmothers I’d seen only weeks before. One such gentleman, Mr. Alco Humbert, aged forty-three, had met his end in a duel with his brother-in-law following a disagreement over a pair of horses. His corpse was interred without its head, for it was nowhere to be found. A thief known as Scale was placed in a nearby sarcophagus, his body charred to near ash — the product of a careless misstep that triggered a deadly fire rune. The most disturbing corpse that first day was perhaps the least gruesome: a boy I knew named Marcel. His face was as pale as parchment, his eyes surrounded by black rings. The image of him in death still haunts me. He had simply contracted a severe coughing fit that killed him within a week, the only trace of his illness a tiny drop of blood on his lapel. Marcel and I had spent the colder months chasing rats through the streets and just weeks later he was dead. It was seeing Marcel lying there cold as stone that made me understand that nothing was certain, that life was dark and cruel and one day I would face the same fate.

              In the days that followed, I watched as my father delved deeper and deeper into the tombs. Neither Francois nor I were allowed to go with him. He even forbade my mother to join him in the darkest recesses of the crypts for many dangerous beings resided there. Father was a mountainous man for a Breton, standing as tall as a Nord and the sinew of his muscular arms revealed the strenuous life he had lived. Even he entered those dark halls with caution, a heavy iron mace always at the ready at his side. He taught me how to work hard at refining my skills in weapons and armor, because anyone venturing into a dangerous crypt would be foolish not to have at least a rudimentary understanding of martial tactics. My mother was a practitioner of magic, not the kind taught by court wizards, but by the tribal shamans in the Wrothgarian Mountains, her place of origin. She was most proficient in conjuration, alteration, and healing magic, which she helped foster within me. She was, like father, cautious in the tombs. I detected no real fear from either of them, but they approached their jobs as a ship’s captain might in a dangerous storm: a wrong decision might kill you and those in your care. Francois and I were always in their care. One evening when I was about nine, we were all making our way out of a tomb when a skeleton arose from a nearby sarcophagus and grabbed Francois, who, as usual, had not been paying attention. This was extremely uncommon in the entry chambers of that particular crypt and we had made that trip daily for months without any complications. My father, almost effortlessly, drew his mace and in the same motion pulverized the skeleton. The haunt was reduced to a pile of bones on the ground, the skeletal hand still around my brother’s neck. The look of absolute horror in my brother’s eyes, for some reason, brought me to laughter. It did not amuse my parents and they chastised me thoroughly for my misbehavior. My parents never discussed the incident afterward, but Francois and I could both tell they were impacted by it. They were never caught off guard again.  

              In the years that followed, my brother and I took more responsibility in the tombs, allowing my parents to get more accomplished in a shorter period of time. We were quite efficient. My brother and I would recover the body of the deceased and transport it to the tomb. My father would embalm the corpse and my mother would do her best to improve its appearance for the afterlife, if one actually existed. My mother believed something existed beyond this life and that a person should look their best as they entered, but my father thought the aesthetic process of embalming was a waste of time. This caused frequent feuds between my mother and father, a great source of entertainment for Francois and me. Father was focused on getting the job done as quickly as possible and getting out of the crypt, but my mother was fastidious and thorough. If she took too long in her work, my father would whisper something like “damned blood sucking fiends under the ground” and walk out of the chamber. She would just shrug and continue. 

              Though we had plenty of work in the business of death, we had little to show for it. My father was forbidden to keep anything he found in the crypts and items of historical or magical value had to be immediately surrendered to the local officials. Mother made healing salves and minor potions for those that could afford them and we were better off than other peasants, but there was little to spare. It was this desire to overcome poverty that ultimately tore our family apart.

              By the time Francois and I were in our teens, my brother had begun to talk about wanting a different life. He had never been too keen about spending his days in the dark tombs and breathing the dank air, all the while hoping to avoid another attack by some fiendish creature. Francois’ new revelations created a rift between he and father that would never be mended. On the 27^th of Last Seed, 4E 190 an Imperial Legion officer came to our home looking for recruits. Francois eagerly enlisted — against father’s wishes and he left the very same day. About fourteen weeks later we received a courier message that Francois had frozen to death in Skyrim north of Solitude after wondering away from his patrol and not being able to find his way back. That was Francois, always losing his way.  Father was crushed and his health deteriorated quickly. Early the following year father succumbed to a mysterious fever that mother was powerless to cure. He died in his sleep like the widows and old men we used to prepare for their final resting place.