The Dark Path: Story of a Dunmer - Part 8

  •      After a moment of life changing revelation, like I’d just had on entering the Dark Brotherhood, you might even expect all things would just click into their places and my troubles would just go away, like magic. Wrong! Magic can easily burn an undead, or make someone invisible, but it can not make your problems disappear. You will need a dagger to do that.  So a lot of my problems were still breathing out there, but I had to let them be for a while, since I got very busy taking care of our clients problems, and making some money in the process - you cannot feed just on revenge, mom. I was learning a lot about life and death, because you see - I had never killed people for money before. Sure I’d already dispatched some wagons loaded with nords souls to sovngarde, but that had been always done in self defense or in a fit of justified rage.

         But killing people for a living is an altogether different thing. Without the fear or the fury to cloud your mind, you begin to develop a finer sense of aesthetics, and other feelings arise to surface, that you had never thought as being somehow related to the art of murder – and yet they are, as I soon would discover. When I left out for my first job, I confess I still had some doubts in my mind. I went to Ivarstead to kill a man, and when I got there, I discovered it was not a man at all! - It was just the stinking empty shell of one. That Narfi guy was in an abject state, even for a nord. I gave some consideration about the possible reasons someone might have to want him removed, and I could think of only two: A citizen concerned about the sanitary conditions of the village or a family member wishing to grant him the peace of Oblivion.

         I waited for the night and, when he retreated to his shack, I watched till I was sure he was in a deep sleep. Then I sneaked up to his sack, unsheathing my dagger, but I did not use it immediately. Instead I just waited at his side as I searched things around him, trying still to make some sense of that killing. When I noticed a change on his breathing, I looked at him and his eyes were opened, fixed on the moonlit blade, but there was no hint of fear on his face – only acceptance. I slowly neared the blade to his neck till it touched him and he showed no reaction but a peaceful smile, and when I slit his carotid, he still didn’t make any gesture of defense. He died well, mom, and he was the first nord in my whole life for which I experienced some feeling of sympathy. I think I may have finally made a nord friend.

         In Riften, I met this fat redguard priest of Mara who celebrated marriages, so every happy couple in this land is into his account, or it will be when I see one. He was married to a renegade dunmer but he lived surrounded by a harem of beautiful young nord nuns. The man had more concubines than a redguard na-totambu, and I could conceive of so many reasons for someone to want him dead, but that was not really my business. I listened to his preaching in a tavern for a while – he had a deep well-modulated voice and his words of universal love gave me something to think about, mom, he was a wise man for a pagan priest. When I killed him, I looked right inside his eyes widened by surprise and horror – I bet he had some difficulty in keeping his beliefs as my rope tightened around his neck, and his breath faded away slowly, along with his life. I hope the Divine Weeper is keeping him pleased and well feed in… well, wherever the hell he is in now. And he’d better stay there, because this is no country for a conniving self righteous hypocrite like him. So, while Narfi had taught me respect, this fat priest has taught me contempt. There is so much to learn yet, mother, for a soul hungry for knowledge like mine.

         There were other jobs too, it seemed death by natural causes was a luxury few people in Skyrim could afford those days, surrounded as they were by civil war, dragons, bandits and, last but not least, my own busy blade. And yet the death of their enemies was a luxury well within the reach of their pockets - life was a good of very small value, death was cheap and there was no shortage of work for the Dark Brotherhood. The guild was prospering, but I was dissatisfied. It seemed a little unfair to kill so many unknown people, while the beasts that I’d rather be killing were safe, protected behind walls impregnable to me. So every night I prayed to Mephala, asking for an instrument, an opportunity, a breach, a weapon, a plan, a skill, a slip-up, any means to help me in my revenge, but the Spider gave me no answer at all, not even a lie. One night, when I was sleeping outdoors in a straw bed on a mountain near Falkreath, looking at a rare magnificently clear sky night above, a dream came to me, made from the very fabric of that starry night. The celestial Azura showed herself, dressed in moonlight, and vowed to intercede on my behalf with the other Gods, if only I could provide her a small service.

         So, I asked Astrid for a leave, and left immediately for Azura’s sanctuary, on the peak of a mountain near Winterhold. The shrine was almost forsaken, mother, there was nobody there but the priestess Aranea. She was a beautiful dunmer, with flaming eyes and ebony skin, resolute and wise, and I was impressed at her faith and devotion to the Queen of Dusk and Dawn - but she was alone. I was sad at the thought of our people forgetting and betraying their Gods. Too many have already been lost to apostasy, having abandoned the veneration due to our saints, our ancestors, and our true Gods to adopt the ways of the Nine Impostors. Someday the Holy Tribunal will be reunited, and the judgment will come - and while it doesn’t , my blade will grant justice and retribution for the unworthy.

Comments

1 Comment
  • Kynareth
    Kynareth   ·  March 25, 2012
    Poor Narfi!  I know that I just wanted to take him home and wrap him in a blanket and serve him venison stew!  It was actually very touching how you described Narfi's death, and now you have created another layer of complexity for your character, which I ...  more