He that enters Paradise enters his own Mother

After months of travelling and looking like a fool, I have returned to my place of birth as if to mantle my own conception. I was impatient, rash and over exuberant. I have since studied the Mysterium Xarxes, greatest gift of the Dagon. Now I know the rituals to my own destruction. I have captured some of the faithful of Dibella and now they bend and give to my every whim.

On this day, the first of Hearthfire, the ritual will begin.

I place the required Seven and Seven tides of dreugh and the One and One draughts of Oil, forming a square. The Dibellites draw the circles within the Four Corners as I begin to chant:

“Whisper to earth and earth, where the meddlers take no stones except to blood, as blood IS blood”

A Razor forms in my left hand as blackbirds appear in the four corners of the room. I slash the throats of the Dibellites and their blood pools where it falls.

“and to the cracking of bone, as bone IS bone, and so to crack and answer and fall before the one and one, I call you Dragon as brother and king.”

As expected, my hearing blurs sideways and colors lose any significance.

“Enraptured, he who finally goes unrecorded.

Recorded, the slaves that without knowing turn the Wheel.

Enslaved, all the children of the Aurbis As It Is.”

I start to make the first cut with Mehrunes the Razor and my chest begins to glimmer. The pain! Can I bare it? I must, I believed myself ready and I must be so. I finish the cut and already the pain has become a pleasure I have never such felt before. I already feel free, able to change anything that can be uttered in a breath.

I make the next cut and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next, cutting, cutting and more cutting, he never takes leave to rest. Look at him, watching himself from one, two, even three perspectives never quite sure what he is witnessing. What are we witnessing for that matter? We see him looking at us looking back at him, even as our awareness takes form. In this eternity that is but a fleeting moment, we feel the exactitude of his cutting strokes, peeling away that which made him Mankar.

Mankar Camoran, son of Valenwood who would forsake his birthright for the favor of the Prince of Destruction, Mehrunes Dagon. We know what he hopes to accomplish and fear the end result. Is that what the sum of our existence is? The fear of the unknown? The fear of Mankar himself? A witness to that which should not be seen?

We look at our contemporary, the first and last to be shed from the aggregate. The fool of the dynasty reduced to a whimpering little boy looking for his mother. To see a warrior reduced to such is overwhelming. We try to tell him not to worry, that everything will be alright, but we know it won’t be. We all will be replaced, betrayed and forgotten left only to become a beacon unknown, drowning in the undercurrent of Mankar’s destruction.

“OATHBREAKERS!?”

There he goes again, distorting his aspect like that of a blazing sun, in unholy marriage to the husband of fire. Ald-Mankar is birthed anew, a cycle unbroken in this eternity untold. Will this ever end? Stars are beginning to form around us, staring and threatening to blind us all. This shadow choir begins to chant, nay sing a song of utter pleasure at the sight of the Mankar of multitudes. Ald-Mankar stirs, perhaps finding that spark of warrior’s courage he had in his previous life.

“I remember. I am Mankar of the Camorans. By right of birth I exist and by right of birth I will persist!”

We see the resolve forming on his face, he will not be betrayed without a fight. A multifaceted blade appears in his left hand and he walks calmly towards the center of the maelstrom like a king about to ascend to his throne.

“SCARAB AE AURBEX!”

What can only be described as Nu-Mankar screams until his voice grows hoarse, uttering the unutterable in the daybreak of eternity until he is silent, fighting his own name. The shadow choir grows brighter and brighter, the chanting grows louder and louder.

“Go! GHARTOK AL MNEM! God is come! NUMI MORA! NUM DALAE MNEM!”

A flash and a crash, it is over. Ald-Mankar’s very heart is sundered and he is no more. We are blind, deafened from the thunderous applause of the shadow aggregate. The Dawn is fading again, leaving Mankar of the stars in its wake and our own existence to rust.

“HOPE MANIFEST! I AM BECOME REBORN! NUMANTIA!”

A breath of fire and we are lost, glimmering in a pool of deluge.