Chapter 148: Love of the goddess

"You have to admit, Edward: you and I, of all people, know that the Tribunal are largely mortal." Sirilonwe was convinced that Almalexia had indeed been hinting at a romantic relationship between her and the rogue elite guard, Salas Valor. "I would imagine that now, more than ever, they would feel the same desires as any man or mer - after what we did at Red Mountain, I mean."

We were on our way to Godsreach to confront Salas; the High Ordinators were apparently keeping a watch on him there; among the homes of the upper-class.

"Yes, you're right..." I replied, "it's just very strange to think about, that's all. And if it drove this man mad... it must be a very strange thing indeed."

Sirilonwe was quiet for a moment, and then said softly:

"Unless, obviously, he is not mad... and something happened between them."

I studied her for a moment.

"Are you saying that Almalexia would have a man killed over... a lovers' quarrel? You don't trust her, do you?" I did not speak in an accusing tone; I just wanted to know what Sirilonwe was thinking.

She simply shook her head.

"Well... I'll reserve judgement for now." I continued. "Denying the patron goddess of this city would likely be very dangerous, if nothing else. I need to be sure before doing that."


An Ordinator in Godsreach directed us to Salas Valor; telling us that the elite guardsman had been wandering the back streets, and acting strangely. The Ordinator sounded worried:

"He's scaring people. This is a residential area, after all. He's literally too close to home for the people here."

We found the rogue 'Hand of Almalexia' standing stock-still in the middle of a Godsreach back-alley, near the sewer-channel. He was fully clad in his elaborate, rouge-silver armour; every minute part of which glittered with powerful magic. I could not see his face, or even his eyes, really: he wore the masked helmet of the Ordinators. He gazed at me through the blowing ash of the storm.


"You are their pawn." He said calmly, and without preamble. "A vampiric pawn. A further sign that they are corrupted and false: how else could one explain Vivec entrusting such a relic to a fiend like you? I should have left when she was exposed - when her divinity was lost." The armoured man paused. "And now you are her favourite; I have seen it in the chapel. Do you feel for her as she does for you?" In a flash, a heavy-looking ebony scimitar was in his hand. "Would you die for her?"

Salas attacked me. The fight was quick and vicious; and I knew from the first cut he made in my skin that it could be no other way. There was a horrible draining enchantment placed on his scimitar: quite like the 'Righteousness' spell I had used during my first weeks on Vvardenfell - only much more powerful. His blade grazed the flesh of my wrist, and I felt resurrected cuts and bruises break out all over my body. My bones began to ache - as if threatening to break.

I caught hold of Salas' wrist to hold the scimitar away, and sent a new spell I had created (with Yanika's help) into his body. It was even more terrible than the Righteousness spell, or the draining magic in the elite guardsman's blade. I called it 'Wight-touch', and it drew the life out of Salas Valor in a few short seconds.

He fell to the ground in an expansive pool of blood, and I stepped back - fully healed. The spell was a considerable strain to cast, but extraordinarily effective. Several Ordinators had followed behind Sirilonwe and I to keep watch (from a distance). They now ran up and gathered around the lifeless body.

"We'll return him to the temple." One of them muttered grimly.

We went on ahead of them to report to Almalexia.


"This is a painful day for me, Edward Frost... but it was necessary, as you no doubt saw. Salas Valor will be missed." Almalexia closed her eyes for a moment before she went on: "You have both served me well, and it is in my mind to alleviate the burden I placed on you by granting a divine blessing. Come here."

The living goddess waved us closer with a languid gesture, and soon Sirilonwe and I were within arm's reach of her.

"I will make your skin as tough as iron." Almalexia rested her golden hands on us - one on Sirilonwe's shoulder, and one on mine.

Her radiance pulsed more brightly for a moment, but I did not feel anything of note after she was finished; besides a faint sense of unease at the fact that Almalexia's hand was lingering on my shoulder, but not Sirilonwe's.

"There is one more burden I must place on you." She said, finally removing her hand. "One more thing I must ask: and it is something only you can do. There is a continuing threat to my city; as I'm sure you must realise. I have seen that it is time to reforge an ancient weapon of power: 'Trueflame'. It will be needed. It is a fearsome blade, and it will be yours. It was broken into three pieces in ages past, but I have divined that all three reside here in Mournhold. You shall be the one to gather them together, and have Trueflame reforged." I found her words subtly mesmerising, but shook off the effect when she presented me with a small, oddly curved blade, saying: "Some of the pieces will be harder to find than others. Here is the first one."

I took the blade. It was shaped something like a hand-scythe, and its sheen was familiar to me somehow. I looked back to Almalexia. I did not really understand what she wanted - or, perhaps more accurately - I did not know why she wanted it.

"Only I can do this? Why is that?" I asked.

She only gave a small smile, and said:

"That will become clear very soon. Return once Trueflame burns brightly again."


Assuming that the threat Almalexia spoke of was the fabricants - and whoever was behind them - I began the search for the remaining two pieces of the mysterious blade. As strange - and oddly put - as Almalexia's request had been, it felt like I was finally getting somewhere.

I reasoned that if the pieces were indeed in the holy district, then the search should not be very difficult: I could think immediately of two places to look - the Museum of Artefacts, of course, and the Royal Palace. Perhaps one or both of the pieces could be found among the riches of the royal family. I could not imagine where else such items of antiquity might be found in the district; unless of course Almalexia considered the catacombs to be part of Mournhold proper. Trying to avoid that discouraging thought, we made our way to the Royal Palace, since it was closest.

King Helseth was present in the throne-room, and engaged in conversation with an Imperial man in fine robes. Mindful of Helseth's command that I not speak to him until I had information about the attacks on the city, I sought out Captain Delitian, and showed him the blade piece Almalexia had given me.

"The only thing this reminds me of is Karrod's blade. There's a similar lustre to the metal." Delitian said, after studying the piece for a moment. "Can't you see the resemblance, vampire Frost? You had quite a close look at his blade the other night!"

Laughing, the captain walked away. I turned my attention to Karrod - who was standing a little way away and watching everything that took place around the king. Of course! I knew the odd sheen of the small blade piece had been tugging at my memory for a reason: Karrod's blade had the same appearance. I stepped over to the giant Redguard, and to my surprise, he drew his large, curved blade and held it out for me to take.

"When I was a child," he rumbled, "my father gave that to me. He said none would defeat me until the rightful owner came to claim it from me. You are the one."

I held the small blade piece up to Karrod's sabre, and realised that the small piece would be a perfect fit for the hand-guard of the weapon (or part of it, at least): the sabre was indeed the second piece!


Marvelling at my good fortune, we continued on to the Museum (after I had thanked Karrod), and managed to catch the curator, Torasa Aram, just before she closed the place for the night. With a Charm spell keeping her calm, she said:

"All three pieces of the Trueflame here in Mournhold! Now that is something I would like to see! Unfortunately, I can't say that I've seen anything myself... although there is a piece I have in storage from around the same period, which is also Dwemeri in make."

Torasa went to look through a selection of crates behind the reception desk, and I glanced down at the two pieces I had already. Since she came to mention it, they did look as if they were made from Dwemeri metal.

"Ah, here we are." Torasa spoke up, hefting a Dwemer shield. "A shield, obviously - but not like any recognised type I can find a reference to."

I looked more closely at the Dwemer shield. It looked just like any other I had seen, only there was a sharp, curved lump of metal protruding from the centre, with an odd sheen to it... It looked just like the piece Almalexia had given me! It had to be the final piece; the other half of the hand-guard. It must have been obvious by my expression that I wanted that shield, because the curator shrewdly told me:

"I could let you have it - but the museum is always looking for more exhibits, so I'll propose a trade. You two look well-travelled. If you happened to have a couple of artefacts - recognised artefacts - that you would be willing to donate to the museum, I could let you have this shield. I have a popular book here somewhere, that... ah - here it is." The Dunmer woman handed me a book. "That lists a number of known magical artefacts. If you really did happen to have anything in there, we would be very happy to have it. If you have something that's not in that book, just ask me about it."

This was an area Sirilonwe excelled at, and she was already working at it.

"What about the Dagger of Symmachus?" She asked, pulling out the large dagger King Helseth had given to me. "You don't mind, do you?" She asked me, as an aside.

I shook my head. I honestly did care very little what happened to the blade.

"The ceremonial dagger of General Symmachus!" Torasa exclaimed. "What a local treasure! This would be most suitable." She looked to me for my decision.

I nodded, and the curator took the dagger, holding the glass blade up to the light of a lantern. I was distracted by the fascinating entries in the book on artefacts. After a few minutes of leafing through the book, I spotted a familiar-looking illustration for something called the 'Warlock's Ring'. I stabbed my finger at the page.

"I have this!" I called out. "Although... I can't remember where I found it. I never knew what it was."

"Are you sure?" Sirilonwe asked, coming across to look down over my shoulder at the entry.

I was quite sure, and teleported home and back quickly to fetch the ruby-studded ring, so that Torasa could have a look at it. The ring (which I had determined offered some protection against harmful magic, but only for short periods at a time) was the real thing, and the curator exchanged the shield for it without complaint. Before we left - again feeling spectacularly lucky - Torasa commented that the 'spike' on the shield was a little loose, and that we should probably take the thing to a smith.


A smithy was actually the next place I had intended to visit anyway: Almalexia had recommended trying the renowned Craftmen's Hall for someone to reforge the blade. And although my pocketwatch told me that there was less than an hour until midnight, the Hall was just across the way from the Museum of Artefacts, so I decided that there was no harm in trying our luck. It had been quite kind to us already that night.

The place was not locked, and inside I could hear the pounding and clanging of someone working a forge. An Orc with an impressive moustache was the only one left in the Hall - and he challenged us with his hammer, but a Charm spell calmed him down. The Orc blacksmith, named Yagak gro-Gluk, appeared to be quite gifted in his art - judging by the fine blade he was working on when Sirilonwe and I arrived.

I showed him the shield and the two blade pieces, and without hesitation, Yagak took the shield and yanked the 'spike' from it with a jarring -crack-. He then laid it next to the 'hand-scythe' piece on a table, and dropped Karrod's sabre across them, lengthways; so that the smaller pieces formed the hand-guard, as I had guessed.

"Interesting blade." He grunted. "I can do something with this. Make the best blade you've ever seen. I'll take the shield as payment, if you don't want it." I nodded in agreement, and he said: "Come back in two days."


Two uneventful days passed, in which Sirilonwe and I caught up on our Mages Guild work. Well, I did, at any rate: Sirilonwe spent most of the time studying the Dwemer books we had taken from the Bamz-Amschend ruins.

On our return to the Craftmen's Hall to see what Yagak had been able to make of the ancient pieces, we found that he had done an excellent job (the reforged Trueflame appeared superior even to my Daedric katana), but that there was a problem:

"Before you ask, I don't know why it doesn't burn. Yes - I know this is Trueflame, and what it's supposed to do." The Orc added, at my surprised expression. He seemed in a prickly mood; as if not being able to return the weapon to its full glory aggravated him. "I'm a smith, though: not an enchanter. If you want a Dwemeri enchantment on this thing, I'd need instructions of some kind. I've heard about what's down in those Dwemer ruins beneath the plaza. If you found something down there that would help, bring it here, and I'll see what I can do."

I looked to Sirilonwe: she had spent the previous two days poring over the technical manuals from the ruins. Could we have already found what was needed? Unfortunately not, as it turned out: none of the books seemed to be about pyrotechnics.

Almalexia had specified that I should only return once Trueflame 'burned brightly again', so there was nothing else for it: we would have to go down into Bamz-Amschend once more, and look to see if we had missed something in a dark corner. The place had been full of all sorts of alien blueprints and documents: there had to be something down there!


Down in the Dwemer workshops once more, we did not find any books we had missed on our last visit, but we did find something much more startling: the ghostly spectre of a bearded Dwemer man, seated at one of the desks and tinkering with something I could not see. He looked up as we entered the room.

"What?" The ghostly Dwemer snapped. "What do you want? Quickly now; I'm very, very busy here."

At something of a loss, I drew the reforged Trueflame blade and showed it to him - or it.

"Oh, that thing. Trueflame gone out, has it?" The spirit let out an expressive sigh. "Fine. Bring me some Pyroil tar and I'll fix it. It'll be in a metal bottle around so tall, and so round." He indicated the size with his pale, immaterial hands. "I saw some earlier; in the Daedric ruins down the hall." He pointed down a passage we had not explored on our last visit to Bamz-Amschend. "Just call out when you have it - but don't bother me until then, alright?"

With that, the spirit vanished - and no amount of begging and wheedling brought it back. It was quite frustrating: I had never even heard of a Dwemer spirit that would speak with the living (or - you know, vampires), rather than just attacking them. It could have made for a conversation of truly historical importance: if only the damned spirit would remain for long enough to be asked a question.

"Daedric ruins down the hall?" I echoed - puzzled.

But sure enough, down the passage the spirit indicated was an area that looked as if the Dwemer of Bamz-Amschend had broken into a series of natural caverns during their excavations; and inside those spacious caverns was a massive complex of Daedric ruins. Some of the caverns were huge, with towering spires of Daedric stones - some were cramped and dark - and all were infested with Daedric creatures that objected to our presence.


After a particularly titanic fight, we found a small passage that lead to a very tall and very steep waterfall, that crashed down a deep shaft, spilling from rock to rock on the way down. We were obviously not the first people to venture down there: bones, weapons and armour littered the jagged rocks on almost every shelf lining the deep shaft. We levitated down the treacherous waterfall carefully, and halfway down, I made a magnificent discovery: a Daedric cuirass in fine condition, with a matching pauldron hanging off it from a leather strap. It would, of course, make a fantastic addition to the small pieces of Daedric armour already in my museum at Wolfen castle.

Not that the museum really needed it: it was doing quite well, with a steady stream of visitors passing through once more; after a sharp drop when it was revealed that the master of the castle was a vampire. The groundskeeper Falorn speculated that many visitors came purely because of the intrigue and air of danger surrounding the place... especially once it became known that I was working with the Temple, and thus couldn't be all that bad. Yes, despite a renewed effort by the Imperial Legion and Imperial officials to make things difficult for us - with often outrageous fines and fees for every little thing to do with the museum and stores in the castle grounds, and patrols coming within an intrusive distance of the gates - the museum was doing very well.

Sirilonwe strapped the armour to my back so that it could be carried more easily, and we continued down the waterfall. At the very bottom, in a pile of bones and refuse, we finally found what the Dwemer spirit had asked for: a metal bottle in the shape he had described, full of a foul-smelling tar.


Once we had made our way back to the workshop rooms, the bearded spectre returned for long enough to take the sword and the bottle of tar with a heartfelt sigh, and then vanish in a blazing conflagration. When the roaring flames had died down somewhat, I realised that most of the remaining fire actually came from the blade itself: Trueflame was burning brightly once more.

I was a little apprehensive of wielding a burning blade - being a vampire - but I soon discovered that the magical flames were extinguished when the blade was pushed into the special sheath Yagak had made for it, and ignited again when I drew it out. A remarkably ugly-looking blade, I thought: but also the most devastating I had ever seen.


Almalexia was wearing an odd expression when she saw that I had returned with Trueflame successfully reforged. She glided over and laid her hands on my shoulders. The orange glow that the living goddess gave off suddenly felt uncomfortably hot, rather than warm and soothing. The strange buzzing behind her voice was unusually pronounced when she spoke:

"I knew it. I saw it... I knew it would be like this." Almalexia gave a radiant smile. "Nerevar - my groom. You have returned to me at last."