» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:05 am
I promised, so here! x
The King And I
Chapter Thirty-Three – Betrayal
The hours were crawling. The clock ticked; Morgiah chewed her lip.
In less than an hour the King of Worms would require her presence in the meeting-room. To Morgiah, the entire day had held an undercurrent of quiet expectation. It was not the kind of quiet that comes with serenity, however – it reminded her eerily of the eye of a hurricane. It would have been better if there was something to distract herself with, but she had only the beat of her heart and the tick of the clock.
She had passed most of the day in her chambers, knowing that she could not risk running into her family without betraying the nervous tension she was feeling. In less than an hour the summoning of Divyath Fyr would commence, and there she might finally be given answers to the questions that had plagued her since her arrival in Mournhold.
The trouble was, did she really want those answers? There was so much at stake. Helseth was her little brother; did she really want to hear what Fyr might say?
She tried to empty her mind of all sentimentality. Barenziah had charged her with this; she must not falter now. She owed it not only to her mother, but to Gwynabyth and Eadwyrd, and to every other innocent person whose life might be torn apart by whatever madness Helseth was planning. Whatever she discovered – if Nenya and Bomba ‘Lurrina’s fears were true, perish the thought – could be dealt with internally. They could stop it before it caused any damage. They could work it out.
Liar, said the treacherous voice in her head. Stupid, na?ve girl. Liar.
“Shut up,” she hissed at the empty room.
The walls were closing in; she had been in here all day. The feeling of dread intensified. I have to get out of here.
Throwing the door open, Morgiah strode purposefully onto the mezzanine and headed towards her personal study; at the very least, she could go over her investigation notes while she waited. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the polished stone of the walls and was satisfied to see that her face was perfectly composed, devoid of what was happening beneath the surface. Her hands, too, were steady – as she looked at them she was suddenly thrown back into the past, onto the luminous stone of the gazebo chamber in Scourg Barrow, the Ancient Liches drawing forth into the light. Her first ever visit. Her hands had been steady then, too.
That was good. Whenever her mind betrayed her, she could be sure her body would not.
As she neared the reception hall, a familiar voice caught her ear… Helseth? And someone else, someone crying?
Without even thinking, she changed direction and swept towards the sound.
The scene she came upon was dramatised by the two flame-pits that burned at either side of the hall. Near the huge entrance gates to the Palace exterior, her brother stood looming over the diminutive form of Kippet, her little Bosmer maid – and the girl was shivering, cowering in fright.
“Brother?” Morgiah’s voice rang out sharply over the marble flagstones.
Helseth jerked round; for one moment, Morgiah was shocked by the brutality in his features. In that single lapse of attention Kippet twisted and slipped from his grasp, and with a beseeching look of despair at Morgiah – an expression that the Princess was certain intended to convey some message, though she couldn’t say what – the small figure dashed through the gateway and was lost to darkness.
Morgiah stared. What in Oblivion had that been about?
“I thought we had agreed the girl was blameless, Helseth.”
Her brother straightened up. “Oh, it was nothing to do with that,” he said smoothly. “Young Kippet is taking an extended leave of absence. It seems her family in Eldenroot is not coping well without her.”
Even a halfwit could have seen through such an outrageous lie, but what could she do? Accuse him of… what? Even if he had been planning something for the girl, Morgiah had interrupted and prevented it. Kippet would be slipping through the dark streets of Mournhold by now, and even the Ordinators would be hard pressed to catch a Wood Elf in the dark.
“I should take an early night if I were you, sister,” Helseth said inscrutably. With the light of the flames licking across his face he looked almost sepulchral, and it unnerved her more than she could say. “You have not seemed yourself lately. Perhaps you are coming down with something.”
“Perhaps you are, too,” she said coldly.
He smiled – an expression that contained no warmth whatsoever, only a hint of smugness that she couldn’t account for – and then turned, disappearing into the North Wing passage.
Morgiah left too, covering the remaining distance to her study with deep foreboding.
When she arrived, she looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes. The allotted meeting-room was close, only just around the corner; she would not have far to walk when the time came. Again, Helseth’s bestial expression filled her mind. It was strange; he had looked at her slyly, almost triumphantly. And the stricken face of Kippet as she had dashed away…
Inexorably, like a mass of water pouring steadily over a cliff, the truth began to unfurl. Kippet had been forced to leave, that much was obvious. Helseth must have asked her to do something she was ashamed of. There was one thing above all others she was useful to Helseth for, Morgiah realised with a jolt: to spy.
Immediately, furiously, her eyes raked the study. Suddenly everything looked wrong, nothing seemed in its proper place; was it her imagination? What could Kippet have taken…? Her thoughts turned like lightning to her investigation notes in the desk drawer.
It was locked, of course, but now she looked, the mechanism was at a strange angle. She cursed; she should have remembered Bosmer were notoriously skilled thieves. Tugging at the handle, the drawer shot out in a rush, papers sliding in a mess to the front. She scrabbled amongst them; was anything missing? All her notes appeared to be there, but of course, Kippet didn’t need to take them to memorise their information…
She replaced the sheaf in the drawer, seething with frustration, and then she noticed. Something was missing.
She picked up the papers and rifled through them again; had she made a mistake? Was it stuck behind her notes? Stendarr, Mercy… but no, it was gone.
Kippet had taken the King of Worms’ letter.
And at that moment of terrible realisation, Hermaeus Mora gripped her so hard she almost screamed. Images burst in front of her eyes – a rending tear in the fabric of reality, a pair of mad golden eyes, and the King… in the dark shadow under his hood there was a skull, a hideous gaping emptiness that made her shudder and convulse, her lips unable to free the strangled cry behind them… and then it was over and she was back at her desk, shaking and gasping and sweating, with death everywhere.
She shoved back the chair and bolted. She was halfway along the corridor before she heard it crash to the floor.
And as she rounded the corner, some part of her ablaze with a horrific fear that clawed at her throat for release, she saw the open door of the meeting-room. She saw the patch of nothing in the air – deeper than shadow, sicker than death, a window into another plane – she saw the flash of fire, felt the blistering heat, heard the inhuman keening that was a death-knell to her heart.
She saw the figure in the red robe, and saw the same robe fall to the floor, empty. The cloak-clasp burned with the reflection of fire.
She had halted, her body paralysed with ghastly inevitability, outside the ruined door. And it was now that the mind-breaking fear took on a physical form, for there was something, something appalling, crouching half in and half out of the window of nothingness. The dreadful ill quagmire-yellow of the damp skin, the incomprehensible angle of the shaking limbs, the spiderlike fingers that clutched a pulsing livid soulgem to its wasted chest, the face… Oh god, the unfocused lunacy in those gaping lids!
She couldn’t process that this terrible face, the open mouth – that awful mask of calm, dumb madness – even as it vanished she couldn’t grasp that this sickening apparition was Vivec, the last of the Tribunal. Her thoughts were dead. Her eyes were blank, her mouth a frozen line.
The window into Aetherius disappeared without a trace. The red cloak was a smouldering heap of ash.
She knelt down, very slowly, and picked up the cloak-clasp from its smoking centre. On her knees on the floor, there was a moment – a tiniest fraction of time – when her hands may have trembled.
Then she stood and left the room.
*
Helseth had extinguished the extra candles in his study.
The steward entered. “It is time,” Helseth said. “I must leave the Palace immediately. You have the Guild Guide I requested?”
“Yes, your Majesty. She can send us as far as Vivec City.”
“Good.”
Vilerys looked carefully around the room. “Your Majesty has no luggage for me to take?”
“No,” Helseth said. “There will be no need.”
The steward snuffed out the last candle, and they locked the door behind them.
*
In the darkest hour of the night, the tall Imperial chambermaid quietly opened the door of HRH Morgiah’s quarters.
She had volunteered for this position as soon as the news of Kippet’s departure filtered through to the kitchens. It was the perfect opportunity; she had her own reasons for courting proximity to the Hlaalu royal family.
The bedchamber was extremely dark, despite the pale moonlight falling mistily through the mullioned window. The sky to the east had the faintest tinge of violet to it; dawn would be breaking within the hour.
The chambermaid tiptoed through to the sleeping area, frowning. The bed-linen was smooth, clearly undisturbed from the previous morning. Her Highness was not here. Could she have fallen asleep in her study? She did spend an inordinately long time in there. No matter – she could still stoke the fire and warm the room for her return, whenever that may be. The chambermaid balanced the coal-scuttle on her hip, and turned to approach the fireplace...
…And nearly dropped it in shock. Beside the cold grate sat Princess Morgiah, silent as a tombstone.
“I beg your pardon, your Highness,” she blurted out before she could stop herself, her usually haughty voice unintentionally rising in pitch. “I didn’t realise you’d be awake.”
The Princess seemed to become aware of her; she had been staring into the dead embers of the cold fire. Something nestled in her lap, glinting in the moonlight – a brooch? Or a clasp, perhaps?
When Morgiah turned her head into the ghostlight, however, all musings on the nature of her jewellery were forgotten. The face was a carving of ice, and the eyes were pits of Oblivion.
“Get out,” she said in a voice from which all traces of humanity had been erased.
This particular chambermaid had lived an extraordinary life; indeed, had seen a great many things, things that most normal people would not dare imagine. She did not consider herself one easily cowed.
But at those two words from Her Royal Highness Morgiah, she dropped the coal-scuttle and fled.
*
It is always quiet in this plane of Oblivion.
There is the darkness, and the dead. This is unchanging. The pouring of the waterfall, the ghostfall, the soulfall, into a sunken hole from which there is no return. The abyss.
And there is the flame, of course. We have noted its presence before. Still it clings, as if with fingertips, to the yawning precipice over which the ghostfall dizzily spirals. Still, still, ever. How long can it cling for? For how long can something endure when time does not exist?
Extraordinarily, this question may now be answered. Because there is something coming which will change the quiet waters of death forever. Something so strange and old and powerful that it warps the plane around it, souls branching to flow either side, reality curling and folding in on itself, fluttering like moth’s wings. It is not a flame, because everyone is different in Oblivion. It is not a lantern, as of Tellanaco.
It is a gem. Green, if such things matter.
Morgiah would have known something of what was happening here, observing as she had the nature of Oblivion all those years ago in Firsthold, and she may well have guessed its meaning. Life, unfortunately, is never so convenient – which is a shame, because had she been witness, a spark might have reignited in her soul.
The flame and the gem meet, and when combined, the aeons of power and experience they share make them capable of more than each individual alone. Joined, they no longer merely cling.
Together, the shapes begin to move.
*
I've read enough thrillers to know things will be explained in their own sweet time. That's what keeps me reading! 
But hm, maybe you have this confused with another plot? I know people have posited juicy theories about the two of them, but there has never been a sixual element to Morgiah and KoW's relationship in this story. Indeed, she's only ever touched him once, when she took his hand to be magically transported to Firsthold to carry out the Bargain. As for love... well, you have to interpret it as you will. There is no doubt she has strong feelings, but as for what they actually are is anyone's guess. In her unconscious mind, their relationship could be a substitute for her estrangement from Helseth. Or it could be that she simply enjoys being in connection with so much power. Again, what he feels for her depends entirely on how cynical your view is; does he genuinely like her company, or is it all a game? Is she simply an amusing diversion for him? Would he be affected if anything happened to her?
