The Epithalamium of Arimatha

Professor Taoiseach

University of Gwylim

Dearest Taoiseach,

My most profound apologies for the abruptness and length of pause in my correspondence; I was called urgently away from our debate on a matter of great academic importance. My field work in the Dwemer ruin of Rkund, which is south of Riften if you are not familiar, has unturned a find of some importance. Some months ago, my workers excavated the remains of what we believe to have been the facility’s primary meeting hall. Unfortunately, extensive Falmeri presence necessitated suspension of further efforts (although it does indicate that extensive segments of the city survived the mountain’s collapse), but the diggers were able to extract several unique items before being forced to seal off the excavation. Chief among these items were a series of personal Dwemeri notebooks of a type hitherto unknown to modern archaeology.

Since our last meeting, the restoration and translation of these notebooks has been my occupation; a most timely occurrence, for if you will recall you had only just challenged me to find an example of Dwemeri society and personal life. I must not claim all the credit, however; my colleague Aranur in the Orrery at Firsthold has been instrumental in the dating of the text’s entries. The Dwemer employed an absolute system of reckoning based on the confluence of astronomical conditions. Employment of the orrery (after calibration past the un-times of the Marukhati according to the ancient records) has allowed me to approximate a conversion of the Dwemeri dates given herein to our Imperial reckoning. Likewise, I should not have been able to complete the translation at all without your insights into the Dwemer language.

The enclosed document is what was known as an epithalamium. Epithalamia were a matrimonial practice of the Aldmeri (early Merethic period). In Dwemer society, a child past a certain age was expected to maintain a notebook written expressly for the purpose of being read by the child’s future spouse or civic partner. These notebooks, or epithalamia, recorded everything a Dwemer wished their spouse to know about their lives, and were also used for a sort of “social science”; that is, to record the status of an individual’s relationships and to elucidate solutions to interpersonal problems. On the eve of a Dwemer’s wedding, an abstract of the entire epithalamium was written and placed at the beginning of the document, after which the entire notebook (or set of notebooks, as you will see) was presented to the Dwemer’s spouse in exchange for the spouse’s own notes. As you will no doubt see, these documents were considered sublimely private, to be read only by one’s spouse, and unpermitted perusal was a serious offence.

We do not possess, unfortunately, the entire set of this particular Dwemer’s epithalamium, but I have translated the first notebook and provided both translation and a copy of the original for your perusal. Translations of the rest of the notebooks are still in progress; you will receive them shortly. Until then, enjoy the first entries of the Epithalamium of Arimatha.

I hope all is well in Gwylim, and that you are as safe and cozy as you have ever been.

All my love,

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

My Dear Dinmenel,

What an absolute treasure you have uncovered! Even now I find myself staring at your notes, still quite speechless. To my knowledge, no document of this import has been published since the Hanging Gardens controversy, late third-era. A gem – a gem! And not just for its significance as a rare personal insight into Dwemer society, but even for its own sheer beauty. Were there ever a more fascinating people?

With your permission, I intend to share this with my colleagues in hopes that it will put to rest the chorus of skeptics from the more pedestrian departments who continually try to cut our funding with their vehement insistence that any pursuit of Dwemer Anthropology is inherently doomed to failure. I’m sure you’ve heard the arguments yourself – that the whole society was so essentially alien such that no empathy or identification with their race could ever be possible. I believe you have proved them quite ignorant.

No thanks could ever suffice for the great favour of sending this to me. I am warmed you thought of me on the cusp of the greatest discovery of your career. Further updates on your progress in translating the rest of the epithalamium would be welcome. I expect you will be quite busy for the next while, but if you desire a break from the academic hysteria that’s sure to sweep over this, come pay me a visit in Gwylim. It’s been too long.

In anticipation and love,

Taoiseach

Professor mirabilia

University of Gwylim

Gwylim

Taoiseach

Professora Mirabilia

University of Gwylim

Gwylim

My Dearest Taoiseach,

Many thanks for your sweet note; I am pleased in your pleasure. Having set aside projects sundry and complex and devoted all my considerable efforts to the translation of the rest of Arimatha’s notebooks, I send to you now the enclosed package. It is, unfortunately, a rather spotty synthesis of the document as a whole – we did not recover all of the component texts during Rkund’s excavation; most notably those representing the time periods of ME 1325 – 950, ME 900 – 500, and ME 470 – 1E 130 – but still, I think it represents an interesting view into the arc of Dwemeri life. Even without the full document, however, this is a weighty tome in total, and so for this stage I have selected only passages key to Arimatha’s personal narrative to compile and present to you. I will, of course, be happy to provide you with the complete material at our next meeting; I’m sure you will notice many interesting linguistic quirks in it that I have not even suspected.

Happy reading and much love,

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

My Dear Dinmenel,

Absorbing myself in your notes was again a pleasure, though I was affected overmuch by the contents and fear there can be no happy end. I hope you won’t think less of me for finding myself unable to maintain a professional aloofness – it is difficult to remember the author has been gone for millennia. Your treasure of a text is as captivating as ever, and I hang on your promise of a final installment.

I remain yours always,

Taoiseach

Professora Mirabilia

University of Gwylim

Gwylim

Taoiseach

Professora Mirabilia

University of Gwylim

Gwylim

My sweet ‘seach,

I hope this package finds you well, and not suffering overmuch from the cessation of your retreat’s leisure. Hopefully this will help to return you to yourself. It is my pleasure to present to you the compilation of Arimatha’s final intrapersonal notebooks, the last fruit of my efforts. I eagerly await your commentary on the views and perspectives they contain, as well as on the epithalamium as a whole.

All my love,

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

My Dearest Din,

How can I ever repay you? I remember it was not long after we first met that I expressed my frustration that no personal account of the Dwemer perspective existed, a conversation which sprang to mind many months later when I received your first translations. So closely did they match my desire, I admit I was forced to consider whether they were forgeries… but surely no amount of genius could invent such a tale.

One thing is for certain, the Rkund excavation must resume immediately. I can put together a small, provisioned team to assist your own and I’ll wager we can convince other institutions to do the same. The College perhaps. It will be vital to acquire a fair force of armed guards if the area is as infested as you indicated in your previous letters.

I admit I do not know what to expect when the ruin is unsealed, for I do not fully comprehend the intricacies of what exactly is preserved within that artificial womb – where, precisely, is the difference between Aurbical awareness and total introspection when both subjects are composed of nothing? Your final installment noted a hitherto unmarked distinction between tonal architecture and the sigil sciences, which I believe indicated the former as uncertainty given definition, and the latter as definition given uncertainty. Your thoughts or elaborations on the matter would be most welcome for the finer points of Dwemer science are lost on a linguist like myself.

It has long been known that it was the Dwemeri understanding of the fundamental unreality of the Aurbis that fueled their advancements. Our author’s innovation being – correct me if I am mistaken – in the inducement of consciousness at any level of subgradience by bringing it to the awareness of absence. The Dwemer might perhaps reverse our well-known phrase – “I am not, therefore I think.” I was surprised to see her abandon what she valued, but again I was not, for she had suffered.

Oh Arimatha, is there really only nothing to know? Must a lack of certainty indicate a vacuum? Meaninglessness? Everything in me rails against it, for I have pursued mysteries spun of nothing, riddles that were not true puzzles, anticipation without climax, and felt only the insult of empty promises. I came to recognize the hollowness of artifice, and you are not hollow. Your mystery is not without substance. You are not nothing to me.

There is nothing to understand? But what is a world where we do not try to understand each other? You did not believe this I think, though you professed it – for you presented a portion of yourself to be understood, though comprehended only imperfectly (for we are privileged only to a small sliver of your thoughts and feelings, candid though they may be). Still, it was a privilege. A privilege to share a closeness across time and space, even one of which you will never be aware. A privilege to feel a sympathetic echo of your dissatisfaction in my own chest. A privilege to love you. And I think that though the two banks of a river might never touch, still a bridge could be built to link them: though we might find things transformed as they cross from one side to another, still there can be exchange and a comfort of nearness.

But that was not what you wanted I suspect. It is not solitude that troubles you.

Not loneliness and not aimlessness either, but some inexplicable and causeless absence of satisfaction. Want runs tangential to this “Ever Method”; the two hardly touch. I cannot decide – is it the homesick longing for what was once had and perhaps forgotten? Or an anticipation of something which isn’t yet, but may one day come to pass? But that is love, which is a pursuit. And that is why I am coming for you, Arimatha. I pack for cold weather.

Ah me. Dinmenel, forgive my…hmm…humanity. It is inappropriate in professional correspondence, though I do not always think of you professionally. Thank you again so very much for your transcriptions – I cannot imagine the effort it must have taken to translate them. I remain, as always, ever yours.

Love,

Taoiseach

Professora Mirabilia

University of Gwylim

Gwylim

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

My Dear Dinmenel,

I confess to the sin of eagerness and am feeling its effects. I have not found Arimatha’s purported remains nor any sign of her cloistered children. And so I write to you Dinmenel, despite our long silence; despite all that occurred between us these past three months.

I was not hurt when you declined to respond to my offer of a joint expedition. You are free to bend your efforts to whatever you think worthwhile, and you were certainly not alone in your reluctance to join me (if that is what your silence portended). The academic community has been less than thrilled with my insistence that Rkund be reopened. In the end, my proposal appealed only to the business aspirations a man of means – Arville by name – who invested a measure of his own fortune into the endeavor in exchange for whatever artifacts we unearthed.

As a result, the scale of the excavation was far smaller and slower than I anticipated. Progress was impossible. My benefactor’s impatience boiled higher for every day we lingered in the picked skeleton of Rkund’s upper halls – those same levels your team explored not a year ago, for we managed to reopen not a single passage. The lower, collapsed sections resisted demolition magic, stone-empathy, and manual removal. My own doubts grew, and I began to consider that the seals you placed on the excavation were only partially mundane. Is their purpose to keep the Falmer in…or are they to keep me out? Is that why I have not heard from you in so long? What did you find here, dear friend, and why did you not tell me?

When it became apparent the ruin would offer up no treasures, Arville took most of our team and disappeared, ostensibly to prepare for a more intensive attempt. Ever since I have been stranded in Skyrim, soliciting funds from whichever academic or religious bodies to whom I could find travelers to carry my letters. Arville, I have not seen for nearly six weeks – I do not know if he will return. It has been difficult. I confess I slept several nights frosted under a fishing boat until the Witches of Riften took me for a sodden street-conjurer and fussed me warm with blankets and dubious soup.

Ah Dinmenel, weeks have turned to months and the excavation remains suspended – I find myself returning to your notes. I am not a fool – what they say at Gwylim about my fixation matters little when the evidence is there on plain paper.

A return was promised…Or do I have it all wrong?

I thought I would find Arimatha here, or at least something of her – a conviction that had me laughed out of every circle from here to the Isles. But does it really so strain belief that such a master of the nature of consciousness might find a way to cling? To reassert herself?

Perhaps these children, these constructs with minds that branch further than the Aurbis itself, can not be found here at all. Perhaps I search in the wrong place altogether. I make myself present and they remain absent. As absent as you yourself have been…

No matter, forgive my ramblings and complaints. I ask only for what new insights you might have had into the Epithalamium’s final paragraph. Forgive my unsolicited letter and unprofessional desperation. What must you think of me these days?

As Always Ever Your,

Taoiseach

Taoiseach,

Although your eagerness is admirable, your sedulousness leaves one wanting by its absence. I have been occupied these last few months by intensive research into just those questions you have raised, far from the reach of messenger or memospore – of which you may make what you will. Had you committed the novel sin of waiting for my response before investing such extensive mental and economic resources into a foredoomed project, you might now be in more favourable circumstances.

Unfortunately, my own efforts have been little more effective. Arimatha’s final words are, indeed, perplexing. What does it mean that she shall be “renewed in consciousness”? She admits to have passed from this world with her kin. What is it her children are seeding, and where are they planting it? Who is the Pneumatect she mentions so often with regards to hypnopompic enchantment? What experiment did she devise, and for what reason? And perhaps most curious of all, what is the significance of the sudden appearance of the Elder Scrolls?

I do not have the answers to these questions, although I have searched more libraries than most scholars know exist. Therefore, I suggest we open this discussion to our esteemed colleagues across Tamriel. Perhaps a congress could discover what we alone could not.

Until we meet again,

Dinmenel

Intrepid Investigator

School of Thoughts and Calculations

Alinor

My Dear Dinmenel,

The Pneumatect, I can assert with some confidence, is Kagrenac, a well-known tonal architect whose title is well-attested in surviving Dwemeri literature. I find myself alarmed to reflect on the nature of her association with that individual – I am sure you yourself have heard the speculations that he was the author of the Dwemer’s disappearance. What those two minds might have contrived together I can not imagine. As you have noted, their disciplines were of opposite nature – Arimatha, who fabricates consciousness – and Kagrenec who (we suspect) brought his entire people to the unconscious. Am I to understand from your letter that you believe Arimatha’s children to be a final and intentional experiment on the subject? Perhaps, my dear friend, we might still work together on this? You may be in as much need of me as I am of you.

Another matter:

I received a much-garbled spore snippet from a colleague of mine and I’m afraid I lack the means to send a reply through the same channels. If you manage to track down Scourgicus, could you pass him the attached letter? I feel as you do – that this mystery can only be resolved by large-scale collaboration – and I know S. is certainly capable of leading such a discussion. His input would be invaluable.

Yours ever,

Taoiseach

--enclosed--

Much of your message was lost. Are you to tell me that you have located A.’s children, and that the experiment remains untouched? I gathered that you had found evidence that Kagrenac’s project had failed! Indeed, have the Dwemer failed to remain conscious and therefore absent? What incredible news this will be to the scientific community! May we perhaps speculate that Arimatha succeeded? Please send me more information on your discovery, this is the greatest news since the Epithalmium was uncovered!

Sincerely,