» Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:18 am
9. Phoenix and Ashes
Light and Shadow.
Moonlight being both, it discovers even in darkness, and reserves in its relevations. Visleith beside me in moonlight is reveled in beauty, yet the weak light also hides. Eyes just a shade too dark to see into, the shadow of her hair sculpting new shapes into her face. How strange the angles on her cheeks. Love's clutch clings to the familiar and shapes the strange into the serene even as the familiar slips beyond our grasp into darknesses we do not want to explore.
We walk. What she has told me has drained me of words, and now only the sound of our footfalls on the beach disturbs the soft mummur of sea and wind. The tang of sea on my lips. The kiss of breeze on my ears and cheeks. The scent of the world, carried over the bosom of the ocean, to my nostrils.
And the glow of knowledge in my heart, dark, shining, an unending call to the promise of the new. To know and do what few have done before. Or even none.
Though the night be sleepless, you can still carry on vigourously the next day, should but the surge of blood in your veins carry you through it. It seemed as if the turmoil of thoughts in my head was creating its own surge of energy. I had no need for sleep.
I had more than enough to think about.
The whole night had been a revelation for me. I now know the story behind Visleith's disappearance, and the reason why the Valleron pearls had been made. And, if my conjectures are true, I suspect there is much, much more to the story than even that?and that perhaps everybody has a hand in the game, even my taskmaster, Morkwin!
I smiled.
Ah, who was it who said "Beware for what you ask for, for in a fit of rage the Gods may grant you your wish"? He spoke so true?I have wanted to hold Venera in my arms, and kiss her, for so long, and lo and behold my wish is granted?and I discover that I nave kissed one illusion in the flesh, and more than one in my mind!
As we walk quietly, wordlessly, along the beach I look over again at Visleith. She feels my glance, and turns and half smiles at me. I shake my head. Why? Why do I still love her, even though what she has told me makes me now understand the true nature of necromancy?
Visleith's face may have been ? almost ? the exact image of Venera, but her words showed that she was indeed the two centuries and more that she claimed to be. I remembered the candlelight flickering off her face as she explained, all, while I sat cross-legged on the floor and drank in her words. I had begun a hasty explanation of what had happened, but she said she had to tell her story first.
"?I was continuing the research of my ancestors into youth, and I discovered what Morkwin has already discovered: that it was not possible to graft a youthful body to an aged mind without ill effects! My ancestors before me had tried, and all their experiments had resulted in creatures that were so damaged, either mentally or physically, that they were afraid to try out the experiments on themselves.
But I was determined. My grandfather had married a Breton, and while his son, my father, had not shown any of that heritage in him, it came out to the full in me ? and I knew that I could resist much more harmful magic than my pureblood Imperial Ancestors. I continued my researches, and as I did so an idea came to me?"
Her face is so similar to Venera's, and yet so much more mature, more refined. I could spend all day looking at her.
"?I thought, what is the use of memory? In our old age it weighs us down and hinders us more than it helps: and yet why do we not simply forget what is, for the most part, useless? I researched for a long time, and I discovered that we remember because our memories are precious to us in that it keeps us rooted in our sense of ourselves: we would not know who we were if we lost our memories.
Then I thought ? very well: we must have our memories: but what, exactly, is memory? Again I did research, and I discovered that there are two types of memories: memories of what happened, and memories of how exactly it happened. And it was the tremendous baggage of how a thing happened, especially things which happen later in life, that was causing this mismatch between the mind and the body.
For the memory of how an old body reacted, say, to the news of a friend's death a year ago, instilled in a young and fresh body, would cause a mismatch between the body-memory of the self as young, and the mind-memory of the self as old. But what, I wondered, if the fact that the friend had died was remembered, but the actual memory of how one reacted to it was deleted, or at least stored elsewhere until it was needed?
Some memories will be needed ? that is a fact. If your mind tried to acess a memory, for whatever reason, and then discovered that you could remember that the event in your memory had happened, but the actual memory of how it had happened was lost, your mind would lose its sense of identity, and you would go insane.
And that was how I conceived of the idea of the memory necklace, the necklace you call the "Valleron Pearls". They are not, of course, pearls, although I have designed them to look like pearls. They hold the detailed memories of all the things that remind the body that it is old, and therefore that leaves the mind free to remember just the facts, and not the details!
Of course, sifting and filtering the memories, and downloading them into the pearls, was neither an easy nor a quick job. And making the pearls in the first place ? now that was a job by itself! It was not possible to make the pearls without the use of life?so I had my agents go around Tamriel looking for prisoners who had been sentenced to death, and we approached the guards, who were bribed to look the other way, and the prisoners, who were offered money to give to anyone they wished ? provided we had the use of their bodies, immediately after death. We offered a sweetener, too: the executions would be carried out by our agents much more painlessly than the normal Imperial procedure. You'd be surprised how many of the prisoners accepted.
Once we had killed them, we would immediately remove their brains from their skulls, and then give the head to the Imperial Executioners to show they'd done the job. The brains were still half-alive: we kept them alive for a while, in order to infuse their memories into the inanimate stones I had designed to look like pearls. Once we had done that, they were discarded. And then we had to start the slow and delicate process of removing those memories from the now-sentient pearls?.it was quite a job, I can tell you! And even after we had finished, not all the memories were gone
But that didn't end the process ? it was only the beginning. Once we had created a necklace we then had to store all the unnecessary memories of myself into it ? when it was time for a rejuvenation. How often, do you ask? Well, I decided to do this every sixty years, so I've used up three of the fifty pearls in my necklace. After three thousand years I'll need a new necklace, of course, so I had more necklaces made. It was all going perfectly?except?"
Here her face suddenly turned harsh and, for a fleeting moment, ugly. Then it passed, and she looked down and smiled at me.
"?except that I had to spend at least a week at a time in my store casket when it was time to rejuvenate. And I had overlooked one fact ? people are both curious and greedy, and when you combine that with intelligence and cunning, you will get someone who draws up a plan to take your secrets away from you!
One of my smugglers was much more intelligent that I had thought, and he had hidden his curiosity well. He discovered the hidden chamber where I rejuvenated, but he was too cunning to loot it, or sell the information at once ? he took the time to find out as much as he could about what I was doing, so as to strike at the right moment and make a complete haul!
So the last time I went into the casket, he was ready. I was just beginning to doze off into the coma which would keep me unconscious while my memories were removed to storage, when I heard the casket open, and I saw his grinning face!
He thought that I was asleep, for he could not resist gloating out loud about how he had tricked me, and found out all my secrets?or so he thought. He said that he was going to seal my chamber and escape with the treasure he had looted, but before he did that he just had to look at "you, haughty [censored]" and gloat over what he was going to do. Then he said 'I know that there's some sort of magic in the jewels you're wearing, clever [censored], so I'm not going to risk taking anything of what you're wearing! Heh! I'm too clever for that! But I'm going to take this ? I think the Telvanni will be very, very interested?' and with that he reached down, and cut off a lock of my hair, and the tip of my left earlobe ?"
She turns her head. I see now that there is indeed some flesh missing from her left earlobe, though the wound is hidden from a casual glance by her brilliant diamond earrings. In spite of my self-control, I shudder. I instantly guessed what the smuggler did with those living souvenirs of her body ? and why the Telvanni were involved, now, in this!
" ? and then he left. I was powerless to resist or even wake myself, because the casket was now giving me a second dose of sleep, since that fool opening the casket had fooled it into thinking that one sleep session was over and another was beginning.
And that's as much as I can tell you?so now, my savior and rescuer, it's your turn. I've heard a bit from you, but I need to know much, much more. Tell me - how long have I been asleep, what's been happening, and how have you come here?"
I tell her. Many shadows pass across her face, complementing the shadows of the candles that flicker ever so slightly, even in this supposedly windless cavern. She listens intently, thinks for a long, long time ? and then leans forward and speaks.
"Well, Daryen, I think we should do this?"
I can't really nitpick with anything so mostly I didn't say anything at all, but it's so far a great read and I'm enjoying it alot. So, basically, keep up the good work and keep writing! :foodndrink: 
) and the comments were just details really.
