A Confession of Annana Rathen, Temple Priestess (Part 2)
I first met Lord Vehk in Vivec. I arrived that morning off the Silt Strider with a party of five other Acolytes, ready to be officially recognized as a priestess. An escort from High Fane met us at the docks and led us down to a gondola. Though the sounds of the water were gentle, the sounds of the city were anything but.
I had been to the holy city before on pilgrimage, but I still felt uneasy about it. The Cantons towered above my head and the city was roaring. The streets and bridges were filled with people going this way and that, the golden helmed Ordinators pushing through the crowds. Residents in one Canton called across the water to residents in another. Levitating mages filled the sky, crisscrossing in the air as they flew between the Foreign and Telvanni Cantons. Children sat on the parapets, dangling their feet over the water and waving to us as we passed. Balmora was busy, but it was never like this.
For my part, I tried to keep calm and focus on the music that seemed to float throughout the city. It was not a song that made sense, for it was made of many threads. From the roofs echoed the flutes and chants of devotional pilgrims, from the bridges came the love poetry of street performers and their lutes. I even saw a line of Argonian slaves beating rhythmically upon guar-skin drums, evidently advertising their skills to potential buyers.
Upon the walls of the canals, the events of the life of the Lord were depicted in relief. His conception in the egg within the netchiman's wife; his lessons from the Barons of Move Like This; his copulation with Molag Bal; the building of the Provisional House; the slaying of his children. These stories are outlined in coats of green algae. The events are either real or symbolic, but with Lord Vivec it doesn't matter which one.
As we passed under the bridges, I heard snatches of conversation, "Praise be the Thrice-Great Three, they who...you have skooma...I said he was no good her but she...we're always watching...I've heard House Hlaalu and this Tiber Septim...the shipment will be in next week...decent fighter, could win the whole thing...do you think Lord Vivec prefers spears?"
This chaos, this conversation, this whirling city on water is intimately tied with our Lord. When I was in Balmora, I was a Representation of Vivec. Perhaps the city is simply a larger version of that role. It is the greatest icon, one that captures the god's complexity like no other. But perhaps that is the wrong way to look at it. Perhaps the city is an extension of Vivec himself. After all, he calls himself "the walking city." A certain cantata of his says, "If I ever ceased to exist, my city would cease as well. For its power is mine, power by faith, faith by Love. We are together, for better or worse. I do not forget my people and they will not forget me."
We reached the Temple Compound at the time when I find it most beautiful. The sun was high over the Palace of Vivec in the distance, spilling light over the whole complex, breaking the looming shadow cast by The Ministry of Truth. The two statues of the Lord caught my attention. One shows him in repose, the other show him in action (the slaying of the giant mudcrab). In each state, his expression is the same, though it is difficult to describe. Half kindness, half cruelty.
As we disembarked from the gondola, a priest clothed in fabulously ornate robes came out to greet us.
"Welcome Acolytes. There is no time to waste. You have duties to attend to and I have a meeting with some rather impatient House councilors to get to." He handed us papers signed in the tiny handwriting of Arch-Canon Brethan.
"These documents place you under the category of Scared Initiates. They show that you have been approved as priests. But the final trial awaits you: The Prayers of Sealing."
He explained that only after we had spent three days in fully in prayer we would go through the ceremony of consecration. On the first day we would pray to Almalexia to cultivate kindness and courage within us, on the second to Sotha Sil for wisdom, and on the third to Vivec for the charisma to inspire others and the cunning to outwit the schemes of the Four Corners.
At that moment, flanked by guards in glass, an elf (for he was indeed an elf, like any other elf, which surprised me most) walked into the room. His skin-tone was divided in half and his head crowned with fire. He wore little; a loin cloth and shoulder armor of differing weights. He was slender, short even. I was taller than him, if not for the fire. Yet, despite this, the room seemed to be filled with him, an overwhelming presence that made my knees shake.
"Lord Vivec, your visit is a welcome surprise," said the priest bowing.
"I come to see the new initiates, for they are the future guides of the Dunmer people." His voice was like two people whispering at the same time, but it was clear and terrifying, like a star too close to earth.
We stood at attention and he went down the line asking us questions.
"And your name is?"
"Nina Darvo, Lord, from Suran."
"Ah Suran, I was there only a year ago, are there any more ogre attacks?"
"No Lord, not since then."
"Good to know. And you?"
"Orvance Sadris, Malog Mar mi'Lord."
"Sadris... Ayem told me of a Sadris that was a great warrior from Malog Mar."
"My father."
"Ah I see."
I thought this strange; he asked us questions, but he already knew the answers. Perhaps he was trying to put us at ease. Finally, he turned to me.
"And what is your name?"
I could not speak, for he was all my words.