» Tue May 08, 2012 1:38 am [The following is a transcript of a note jammed into a copy of Varieties of Faith in the Empire in the Arcanaeum of the College of Winterhold. Scribbled at the top was the word ‘Nocturne’. How it came to be in there, or who wrote it is unknown.]
On behalf of the Council of Euphoric Timbre, I am tasked with the metallic task of explaining to you in a manner you might understand as to why you should leave.
It begins with the Tall Ones. We were once like you, deaf-yet-not, born under the Great Tone’s watching gaze. We desired simple things then, we wanted our infancy back and we followed our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced to find it. We searched through the World-Above until it became too cold and too wet to continue and our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced decided we would settle there. The Tall Ones were already among us then, already souring the Great Song, but neither did we hear or did we care. We deafly obsessed over climbing as high as we could to reach the Great Tone. We sang then too, but tone-deaf, trying to imitate the modulations of the Tone. We knew our infancy lay in the measures behind us and so we sought to write a Da Capo into the Great Song to bring the measures of our Infancy back to us. We’d do it by reaching to the Great Tone with our Songs and reshape the Great Tone to reshape the Great Song so our cradle would come to us. We climbed high and imbued our old Concert Hall with the spirit of the Da Capo, but before we could finish, you Men came. You came with your Caterwauling and your New Instruments and our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced declared your song disharmonious. But you were subjects of the Meter’s Followers and your song was loud and powerful. Your Caterwauling hurt us and spurred us to war. We fought and we lost. Your Lords inhabited our old Concert Hall and made it theirs, a monument to their triumph and monolithic chrysalis. We had nowhere to go. Our brethren to the West were already like you and yet not, and to the East, they worshipped the Great Silence, which we believed at the time was inimical to our Song. Some of us spurned our Lord’s voice and relentlessly fought Man wherever they could find you. I understand they have since fallen mute. Those of us who still followed our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced though hid like Chaurus-spawn among the Tall Ones. They were strong enough to protect us, even if they didn’t care to destroy your New Instruments.
At first, the Tall Ones were charitable and put us in their choir. They convinced us that we would blend our songs together until we would be strong enough to retake our old Song.
They lied.
The Tall Ones took their metal and steam, dropped their bass, and screamed at us in their Metallic Falsettos and we quaked and shrank away from them. Our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced stood alone against them. He cried out against their Metallic Falsettos, calling them Abomination and Pandemonious. He sang as loud as he could, but they drowned him out with their Clanking Cacophony, and shackled and chained him with their metals. The Tall Ones then bound our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced by the throat so he could not breathe and sing. They ripped his voice away from him and bound it into a hand of metal. They said it was so they could manipulate the Great Song. Then they set their machines on him to eat, chains and all. They started with his eyes, then flayed his skin open and made him scream out into the void and out of the refuse sprang all of the horrible unliving-yet-living machines that exist and spawn to this day. Their terrible Centurions, the song they sing, is a horrible mocking imitation of the song that our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced sang that day against the Tall Ones.
The Tall Ones and their horrible metal and steam servants yoked us and made us sing like them. They put our ears to their machines and to the earth until all we could hear was the Great Song and their interpretation of it. It was glorious. For the first time in our existence we knew how to move on. We gladly let them change us so we could hear the Song more and better. It hurt us, but we ignored the chains. Nothing was too undignified for us then. They used us and we changed the Great Song for them. Eventually, though, we became too sensitive to the Song and we realized the error of our ways and they injustice of our captivity. Listen to it now. You’re not deaf enough to not hear that it’s wrong. Each note carries disharmonious subtones. The chords are off. It cadences where it should not. There’s too much polyphony. Too many voices thinking they are on the note, when in fact none of them are.
We refused to work. That was when the Tall Ones showed us their cruelty. They hurt us. They mocked us and repeated their unvoicings of our Lord-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced on us. We cared for the muted among us. We tried to make peace with the Tall Ones, but their Conductors kept pushing us to continue. In the Finale of their song, they took our muted among us and fed them to their Chaurus. We screamed out in anger and it resonated among the remains of the muted among us. The Chaurus joined us in our fury and we both threw off our shackles and attacked the Tall Ones. We created our own orchestra out of Falmer and Chaurus, to spite the Tall Ones and we succeeded. We besieged their stronghold and we were victorious.
Just as we opened the doors of their stronghold and just as we were breathing in to utter the Song of Change, the Tall Ones rested. We’re not certain if they were afraid of what we would do to them, or if the Great Song finally sang counterpoint and remade the Tall Ones as they remade the Song. It doesn’t matter anymore though. We conquered them. Us, the shackled and Voiceless, we did what no Man or Elf could do, we made the Tall Ones rest. But their song reverberates still through our Nation. Our Chained Castrati can hear it and they are just as deaf as you, so we know you can hear it clanking and clanging and mocking us all. It still twists the Great Song. We hate it so and therefore we work tirelessly and endlessly to dismantle their corruption and correct the notes that have been infected.
We have made great progress in the measures since the Tall Ones rested. We transformed ourselves so that we could finally listen to and hear the Great Song. New Mardayn, what used to be the heart of the Tall One’s Dominion here, and where I am dictating from lies down from where you are. It is the capital of us Falmer. Many Falmer choirs were sacrificed, but you can at last hear the Song here, uncorrupted, pure. It is wonderful and sacred. So sacred that we do not allow the Chaurus into the Temple of Somber Reflections at its center. At the top of the Temple lies the Rostrum of Remembrance, where the Councils of Euphoric and Melancholy Timbre meet, the same place where the Tall Ones’ Conductor stood, and the same place where they took the voice of our Leader-Who-Is-No-Longer-Voiced. There, all singing is forbidden. We stand as mutes so that we may only listen to the Great Song. From there we hear you enter our halls with your tone-deaf and atonal music. It hurts us and prevents us from cleansing the Great Song. And so we send trios and sixtets out to stop you from singing.
You tread on our territory. You not only threaten our songs, but you also threaten to undo our work to purge the Great Song of the Tall One’s remixes. In short you think the noise that comes from your lips and instruments is music when it is simply cacophonous din. Leave this place before we are forced to silence you. If you wish to learn how to sing, then we will purify you and make you Castrati. Our soprano sections always need more voices. If you wish to become Castrati, then sit in the dining hall of the manor you currently occupy and wait for us to come. Otherwise leave and we will let you continue singing your noise up above in the World-Above, where it makes little difference and impact. If you do not peacefully rest within the dining hall, or if you are anywhere else when we come in, we will turn you mute. You have until we finish the Elegy for the Reclaimers. We will pause slightly and then we will come in with the Concerto of the Unvoicing and that is when we will come if you are still around.
In the Name of the Council of Euphoric Timbre I do perform,
Dolphael
First Instrumentalist of the Orchestra of Euphoria
