[continued]

“So old Fellius is still kicking, eh?” the Captain asked. “Good. He was a fine sailor but after that fight with the smugglers off of the Deadlands it was clear he was ready to leave. Glad he found his place, even in Academia. That’s how we met: I was in Seminary studying Theology and he was at the College studying to become an ego-theologian for a ship. Wasn’t long before our conversations made me realize sailing the Void would be more fun that preaching or writing treatises only read by other scholars. Never looked back.

“So you want to know about traversing the Void. Alright. You know about the ships, right? Belief engines, ego-theologians to keep them from loss-of-Faith, the Mana sails and what-not? You can learn all that in the Encylopaedium Irritum, if you don’t. What’s the single most difficult thing? Easy question – mortal epistemology.

“See here: any yokel down on Nirn looks up at the sky and thinks he’s separated from Oblivion, that he’s safe in his little plane(t) away from all the Daedra and Aedra and whatever else. Only he’s not, because he’s not separate from Obvivion – he’s afloat in it. That’s the fault of you scholars – everyone thinks the Aurbis is a big sphere with Aetherius outside, Oblivion inside, and Nirn inside all of it. Separation from the Divines and whatever ideological guar-dung, that’s why you say it.

“Here’s the problem: it’s not a sphere because spheres aren’t infinite. Oblivion is a plane filled with planes and all of them are infinite. We can’t see them as they are because our head’s would split, but there’s the truth – they’re all infinite, and sphere’s aren’t infinite. We only think a circle or sphere is infinite because they repeat: over and over. Guar-dung. A plane (whether 2 dimensions or 16+1) is infinite because it stretches in all directions forever – and that’s Nirn, that’s Oblivion, that’s Aetherius, and that’s the Aurbis: absolute infinity.

“Oh stop your sophomore cackering and dung-spewing – Nirn is infinite. Next you’ll be starting that rubbish about Nirn’s west being the past and its east the future. That’s mysticism lad – NOT navigation. Riddle me this, scholar man: if the west is the past why is it when I fly my Voidship down to Yokuda (which ain’t sunk) just last month I’m met by Ra Gada with VOID MAGNIFIERS? Explain to me how men who should be using sticks have Thalmori weapons from the 5^th Era and I might start believing you.

“And Akavir? That’s not the future – that’s an abattoir.

“So mortal epistemology. Once you get your head sorted you’ll see that the Stars aren’t the edges of Oblivion (it goes on forever) but the spots where the Magna-ge ripped holes in the fabric of the Void to escape into Aetherius. You can sail PAST them, and I have done many times. Went right past the Lady’s eye on the way here, tell the truth. What do they look like? Magnus, only smaller. You knew the sun was a hole in Oblivion, right? That’s Aetherius lighting everything, right? Well at least the Guild is still teaching something of worth. Lotta scholars went daft after what happened with that Khajiit prophet a couple years back.

“So here’s the interesting bit – you know all those pictures of the Aurbis, all laid out nice and pretty as a Wheel? Rubbish. Oh I don’t doubt the Aurbis is Wheel shaped, not a bit. But it’s INFINITE. You really think the 60-odd days we need to traverse from Nirn to Bal One is the traversal of infinity? Pffft. Here’s the trick lad – this bit where we live: Nirn, Magnus, the Princedoms – that’s all the Hub of the Wheel. The rest out there is the Dark.

“No, I don’t suppose you’ve heard the term in that context before. Think of it like this: when you’re on a ship, sailing past Moonshadow (well, not technically past – it’s infinite – but that’s how your mind interprets it), you can look back and see Magnus growing distant – can’t even see Nirn but as ANOTHER star (more on that later). You get to Bal One? It’s all one single light – glittering in the darkness. And once you pass One there’s…nothing. No lights, no Stars; all of that’s behind you. Ahead of you is rest of the Wheel – the Dark. Out there is your spokes, and spaces and the Far Rim of the Wheel. Who was that scholar said about the Wheel being a telescope with numerous Wheel’s lining the walls getting further from the lens? He was almost right: Magnus is the lens – the Hub – and the further you go the fainter He is until there’s only a Memory of Light. And that’s a place you don’t want to be. Some theosophists say Lorkhan went outside the Wheel, I shudder to think it. No wonder he went mad.

“Gods! What’s out there? You damned fool, hire and ship and find out. The Khajiit could tell you…but won’t. They’ve been there. And they Know.

“Alright, you might not know the text being a mage and all. There’s a book called the Monomyth – was required reading in my day – and it says the Aedra tried to flee back to Anu but he’d already filled the space they occupied with something else. Here’s the trick – all you scholar’s talk about Anu being the myth-projection of Ald-Anu’s ego, struggling for reconciliatory individuation or some damn smut. And you’re right – that’s why Landfall happened: it’s all the Dream of some tormented mind trying to find peace…and failing. Now maybe this is too hard to think because you’re a mage and not a theologian but you tell me: when a tortured mind like that sees his children tell him to sod off and go build a new Place to live, how you think that mind will take it? Rage, guilt, self-condemnation, blame, resentment. And just what do you think a mind ruminating on all that is going to put in the Ada’s place? That’s what’s in the Dark, boy: all the feelings of a Dreamer abandoned by his children, and not a shred of hope, empathy, or love.

“You think that’s all theology, eh? Just the drunken rambling of a sailor what once sought God? Fine. Here’s a story then, and see how well you sleep after this…

“It was a bad run. Some ass out of Myth’s Way hired my ship to take a load out to Window’s Edge; I know you haven’t heard of it you damned fool, pay attention: they’re Voidstations. Or were. Anyway, headed out that way and the thing to remember is that Window’s Edge was past Bal One; totally different vector, safe. Only the Bal Cults had gotten there first and killed everyone. Just as we were getting’ ready to high-tail out they emerged from Disbelief (damned bastards) and laid on us with their mana cannons. We did the only thing we could do – we ran for the Dark. I don’t know how long they chased us, but after a while you couldn’t see anything without ‘Night’s Eye’ enchanted goggles – some Khajiit tek from the time after Landfall. They were rare in those days but I had a pair for when we’d hunt aether-eels on the edges. Nothing to see. We charted a course best we could and hoped we were heading for home.

“It was the screaming woke me. All the soul-gems were drained, not a drop of ambient light, couldn’t hear the engines. Put on my goggles and went to see what the fuss was. Maybe I should have waited in my cabin; probably sleep better if I had.

“The first was Niles; Bosmer, name was summin’ else but we called him Niles. He’d ripped his eyes right out of their sockets and was jabbing a dagger into his ears, screaming how he heard Them. Found Anarya next. She was skinning herself so They couldn’t crawl through her pores.

“Got up on deck and looked out. I don’t know why they didn’t affect me same as the others, maybe because I saw them through enchantment and not with my natural eyes. Who knows? They were these…mounds of flesh…constantly shifting. Strings shredding from the main body, becoming sheets, balls, jagged strips – legs – making their way across the hull in these…jerking motions like they were never meant for movement. It was then I heard them; Void’s tricky sometimes, you know, distorts things around you, but I heard them. They were singing to my men – singing – and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Old Buscan was next to me and I won’t tell you what he did to himself. What you scholars called ‘mimetic action.’ I ran. I ran below deck and found a dark corner and didn’t leave for…days it seems.

“Sixteen hands dead, and the ship a mound of gore. One other survived – Sispie, our Khajiit ego-theologian. She’d had the sense to hide below-deck and wait for them to pass. She’d been in the Dark before, you see. She Knew. Well, she used her alogic to waken the engine’s Faith and we got the hell out of there. Ended up marrying her you know, Sispie, twenty years this past Hearthfire.

“That’s what’s out there young scholar, and that’s why I won’t take people past the Light. Because out there? In the Dark? They’re waiting. And you damned well better pray to the Nine and Seventeen that They never look yonder and see this little speck of Light, and choose to traverse infinity so they can snuff it out.”