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Madness!
The chamberlain was called to do many things for his lord. Deliver messages, guide weary souls to the Isles, guard his master—though he needed none—as the lords and ladies of the daedra stood before the Mad Throne.Sometimes, though the memories were lost meandering among clouded paths, he would remember glimpses of how he had met the wild daedra that so many called the Raver.His lord had found him, a daedric thrall of some unknown spawn, shivering, half-sunk in a marsh of that most loathsome plane called Mundus. A shining tower of white-gold stood tall and far across the waters, a spire of pearl in the moonlight.“Yes, I think you’ll do nicely.”Bracing monstrous claws beneath him, the thrall tried to push himself up to see who approached. A snarl bubbled in his throat, but it was weak, his whole body quivering like so many leaves buffeted by the autumn winds. His claws sank into the shallow, muddy water, marsh grasses bristling between gnarled fingers like the feathers which pushed their way between the craggy scales of his hide.“The spark of madness has caught on the kindling of your ruined existence, hasn’t it?” the voice grew nearer now.The thrall’s breaths were labored, rattling up from his chest to hiss through jagged fangs. His arms shook, and he would have collapsed back into the mire had not strong hands gripped his shoulders.Raising his eyes, the thrall saw the smiling face of the Madgod, from which gazed two golden jewels that danced and sparked in the moonlight. Hair like red flame hung in long curls about his bearded face. He knelt in the mire, heedless of the mud soaking into his fine raiment.“Raver,” the lesser daedra rasped out, his voice a guttural croak like the frogs which sounded far off in the night-cloaked marsh. “You come to take me when I am too weak to resist?”The Madgod gave a chuckle, as though observing the antics of an ignorant child. “Lad, I come now because your mind has cried out to me, though you did not know it. What happened? Did your Prince cast you off like a broken toy, perhaps?”His eyes glittered in the dark. “All broken things find their way to me in time.”“You would make me as like yourself,” the thrall hissed in defiance. “Accursed.”The Madgod reached up to run a delicate hand across the knotted horns which coiled from the thrall’s head in a twisted jumble. The lesser daedra wanted to recoil from his touch, but his limbs stiffened by the frigid water would not move.“Did your former Prince tell you to think that, I wonder?” mused the fiery-haired daedra. He blinked golden eyes, like stars in the night sky, and his expression was almost pitying. “Do not presume madness to be a curse, lad. For some, like, I suspect, yourself, it would be a great blessing indeed. A bitter blessing perhaps, but a blessing nonetheless.”The thrall shuddered, setting the reeds around him to rattling. He was masterless. Near-mindless. He could not even remember his own name. Oblivion itself had spat him out upon Mundus plane, as though it could not abide his presence.“Your mind is very nearly broken,” the Madgod whispered. He leaned closer until the glowing gold of his catlike eyes filled the thrall’s entire vision. His breath scented with the sweetness of blackberry wine washed over the lesser daedra. “Let me finish the job. Let me kiss you.”A bitter blessing could not be worse than continuing in this tormented excuse for a life. The nameless thrall raised his face.“Kiss me, then,” he said.The Madgod smiled.Blood rushed in the thrall’s veins in the wild beating of sudden panic. But he did not withdraw from the hands which encased his monstrous face on either side. He felt the searing brand of the Madgod’s kiss on his brow.For a heartbeat, the only sound was the gentle lap of the marsh waters, and the croaking of frogs far off.Then his mind split. And Madness rushed in.The thrall screamed.

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Mad! Mad! Stark, raving mad!
How strange it was to have looked at the world through a keyhole, only to suddenly have the door flung wide open to the beauty and horror which lay behind. Such was the kiss of the Madgod.A new form was granted to the thrall; one more suited to the tastes of his now-master. With it came the gift of a new name: Haskill, chamberlain to Sheogorath.No sooner were these received than the newly-christened Haskill was caught up and swept away from Mundus as one seized by the fae. So began his service to the Madgod in his demesne the Shivering Isles.Haskill learned very quickly that to know the motives of his lord at any given moment was simply impossible. Sheogorath’s mind operated at a level no creature other than himself could hope to understand. The chamberlain could only bow his head and obey, keeping his mouth clamped firmly shut, even if the look on his face did earn a laugh from the Madgod at whatever inane task was demanded of him.And laugh the Madgod did, often and loudly. Haskill learned over time that though the smile rarely left his lord’s face, it was the eyes that could be used to gauge the Prince’s mood. In high spirits, the court of madness would ring with his merriment, his eyes alight like twin glittering stars.But when he was displeased, Haskill had to fight the urge to shrink away, forcing himself to remain quiet as a mouse beside the throne and hope those burning eyes would not turn on him. For the Madgod’s wrath was swift and terrible, and above all, unpredictable. Seemingly the smallest slight could cause that glittering gaze to darken, pinning some unfortunate soul to the spot as a low chuckle preceded whatever judgment would be meted out.Haskill hoped the Madgod would never look at him in such a way, and put all his effort into being worthy of his position. Sheogorath had saved him, after all, and now he would gladly dedicate his life to servitude in repayment of such a debt. The daedra were nothing if not oath-bound.His efforts, however, were not without pain.The realm of the Madgod shivered, dust raining from the high arched ceiling and sending the court of Sheogorath scattering like mice. The Raver himself, however, did not budge from his throne, merely dusting a little debris from his silken breeches.Then the plane was torn asunder, and a Prince of Oblivion burst into the throne room in a fury of skittering arachnids, gripping by his throat a flailing Haskill.“You send this fool to bandy words with me!” Mephala screeched, flinging the chamberlain on his face before the throne. Long, spiny-haired legs like those of a spider arched from her back, eight beady eyes glaring from a face framed by lashing raven-black hair. “I should have sent him back to you in desiccated pieces!”“Forgive me, my lord,” Haskill croaked out, cowering facedown on the floor in a quivering mess as dozens of tiny spiders crawled over him. “I did only as you commanded me.”Sheogorath scarcely glanced at his chamberlain. “Oh, don’t grovel, Haskill,” he chided, his keen gaze locked on the wrathful figure of the Prince. “It’s most unbecoming. On your feet, and leave us.”Haskill did as he was bidden without a moment’s hesitation, fleeing not only the loathsome claws of Mephala, but also the molten eyes of his master. Such fury burned in them as he had not yet seen, and he hoped fervently that it was not directed at him.Once the chamberlain was gone, the Madgod stood from his throne, waving away his daedric guards who stood ready with drawn swords. Slowly, deliberately, he began rolling up the sleeves of his white silk blouse one at a time as he approached his fellow Prince, the forms of tiny spiders crunching beneath his boots with each step. The smile never left his face.“Now, my dear Mephala, there is one thing you must know,” he said, his tone as nonchalant as ever. “It is a very important thing. Perhaps the most important thing to ever enter that tangled web called your mind.”Mephala lifted her chin, staunchly refusing to step back even as the Madgod drew ever nearer. “You do not frighten me, popinjay,” she hissed out between curved mandibles.“Never said I was trying to,” Sheogorath replied easily. Now he stood directly in front of his un-kin. “But you must know that there is only one person in this or any plane who is permitted to bother my chamberlain.”His golden eyed blazed. “And that person is me!”Faster than the eye could follow, one hand flashed up and touched Mephala’s forehead right betwixt her eight eyes. Just one finger. That was all the Madgod needed.Haskill never knew what became of Mephala that day. All he knew was that the Lady of Whispers never again set foot in the Shivering Isles, and never again did a spider dare to spin its web in any dusty corner of the Madgod’s realm.Trying to keep his hands from shaking, the chamberlain poured wine into a silver chalice, which Sheogorath quaffed without a second look. Wiping dark droplets from his beard, the Prince gave a satisfied sigh.“Ahh, that’s the stuff! Haskill my lad, are you any good with a blade?”Haskill refilled the chalice. His lord spoke as though he had forgotten the entire incident with Mephala. Perhaps he had. “Passable, your grace,” he replied mildly.“Pishposh! I’ll be the judge of that,” the Madgod said decisively. “First thing in the morning, I want to see you out in the training yard, rapier in hand. Or perhaps out of hand. At any rate, today has been nothing but dreadful monotony; I could use a little excitement.”“As you wish, my lord.” Haskill bowed his head in subservience. If the wrath of Mephala was mere monotony, he almost feared to think of what the Raver’s idea of excitement was.For a moment before he turned away, the chamberlain’s eyes lingered on the faint hint of silver that scored the tips of the Madgod’s fiery hair. It was very slight—only a few strands among the wash of red. Haskill drew breath to ask about it. But he restrained himself. After all, who knew what went on in the mind of Sheogorath? Certainly not him.

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Aurmazl Staada prided herself on not taking anything from anyone. A tough, no-nonsense daedra, she had fought her way tooth and nail to her post as captain of Sheogorath’s guard, a position of privilege that she jealously protected. She took her duties with the utmost seriousness.Thus, it was to her increasing ire that the golden woman entered the throne room to find its galleries empty, its doors unguarded. In the distance, she could hear the cause—the ring of steel upon steel. But no battle had come upon the Shivering Isles this day.Passing through the twisted and manic halls of the Raver, Staada came to the training ground and there saw where all those under her command had disappeared to. A near-entirely female mix of golden and wine-dark daedra, they stood around the dirt arena in small groups, whispering amongst themselves and occasionally tittering as they observed the two combatants.“Keep it up, Haskill!” the Madgod barked out, his fencing rapier flashing in the light as it danced a flurry of movement. “Any chamberlain I catch letting his lord win, I’ll string his entrails above my throne like party streamers!”Haskill could not find breath to reply, puffing with exertion. The two went back and forth, pauses of tense silence as each sought an opening broken by a rapid burst of blows ringing out as steel met steel.Staada leaned on her spear, observing the chamberlain’s form. It was common knowledge that the Madgod was the best fencer in the Shivering Isles—Sheogorath was best at everything in his own realm—but the chamberlain was holding his own.In truth, the guard had grown quite fond of the reserved Haskill. Past chamberlains had irked the Madgod, whether by personality or by the form their madness took, and more than one had met a gruesome fate for it. One or two had even plotted treachery, intending to hand the Isles over to a rival Prince in exchange for being allowed to rule them, only to find out that nothing went unseen by Sheogorath in his realm.Haskill, however, displayed none of the qualities of a future traitor or otherwise doomed thrall of the Madgod. It seemed his madness took the form of unswerving devotion to a being whose ways were utterly incomprehensible. A bitter blessing indeed. Staada supposed that, with luck, he could easily go on to serve the Raver for many eons to come.Her internal musings were interrupted by the grinding of steel on steel. Sheogorath was driving his chamberlain hard.Dust rose in puffs from beneath Haskill’s feet as he sidestepped, sweat beading on his brow. Moving purely on instinct, his blade flashed, and with a flick of his wrist he caught the hilt of his opponent’s rapier and sent it spinning from his grasp into the dirt. The tip of the chamberlain’s blade nicked the Madgod’s cheek, leaving behind a thin trail of blood.A concerted gasp arose from the onlookers. No one had ever disarmed Sheogorath and lived. But to actually draw blood? Such a thing was simply unheard of. Sheet-faced, Haskill at once lowered his weapon and stepped back.“Forgive me, my lord!” he sputtered out, his eyes wide with terror. “I did not intend—that is, I did not mean to—“Sheogorath ran his thumb across the cut, then gazed at the smear of blood on his hand. When at last he spoke, his voice was dangerously level.“Lad,” he said, “Apologize one more time and I’ll give you something to be sorry about. Why did you stand back? Did I yield?”Before Haskill could process this statement, the Madgod reached down, a sgian-dubh concealed in his boot flashing into his palm. Then he lunged with lightning speed.Haskill had only half raised his sword when the Raver’s dagger crashed onto it close to the hilt, the impact sending shockwaves through the chamberlain’s arm. Sheogorath had the upper hand now—with both the element of surprise and having closed the distance between them, Haskill was at a disadvantage with the long fencing rapier. With catlike agility, the Prince hooked the basket hilt and yanked it from his opponent’s grasp, sending it to join his own rapier spinning in the dirt.Haskill found himself gazing into a smiling face, with cold steel resting against his throat.“Remember, Haskill,” said the Raver, “In my realm, all play is both fair and foul. Understand?”Haskill swallowed, his throat bobbing against the blade. “Yes, sire,” he croaked out. “There is no dishonor if honor has no meaning.”“Now you’re starting to get it!” Sheogorath gave a merry laugh, twirling his dagger expertly. “After all, what is honor but an extant form of sanity? Terribly boring, such things.”Deciding it was time to make her presence known, Staada stamped her spearbutt on the stone steps, barking out to the assorted soldiers, “Alright, you lot of loafers, you’ve had your fun. Have the streets no need of patrol, the gates no need of guards? Off with you useless rabble before I tear out your eyes and stuff them down your throats, Aureal or Mazken!”As the onlookers began to disperse, the Madgod made as if to sheath his weapon, then changed his mind and pressed the hilt into Haskill’s palm.“An unarmed chamberlain would be a disgrace,” he remarked, then plucked at the dark linen of Haskill’s sleeve in contemplation. “Keep it up and perhaps you’ll get to keep yours, eh?”With this remark, the Madgod spun on his heel and strode off, leaving his bewildered and mildly terrified chamberlain behind, a sgian-dubh clutched in his hand.

Night fell on the Isles, an illusory Masser and Secunda rising from the dark waters. The moons were not permitted to penetrate Oblivion with their lights. Stars speckled the sky, but these too were false, their constellations unknown to all but the master of the realm, the Madgod himself.Haskill trod silently through the winding halls. The knife in his boot still felt cold upon his calf. Sleep rarely came to the daedra, and even rarer to the Princes. But tonight Sheogorath had decided he would take his rest, perhaps that he might visit Vaermina in her realm and get some sport from meddling in her affairs, drawing a few of the Dreamweaver’s worshipers to himself as he did.Passing through the shadow of the arched doorway, Haskill observed the Madgod. The fiery-haired daedra shunned the big four-poster bed made especially for him, instead choosing to recline on a velvet chaise beneath the window. Thus he lay, his quick golden eyes shut in slumber, a blanket of soft hides from some unknown fauna of the Isles spread over him.It was strange to see him so still, so silent, moonlight casting a faint ethereal glow through the curtains across his unmoving form. His fiery hair spilled over the edge of the pillow like wine, though the chamberlain saw that the silver streaks were no longer so subtle as they had been. Now, they seemed to catch the light of the moons in a way otherworldly even to the Shivering Isles, as though the strands wished to expel every hint of the former color and replace it only with itself.But this was mere conjecture. Haskill stooped by the hearth, adjusting one of the logs to rekindle the dying fire. Moving silently, he drew the hem of the blanket down to cover his lord’s feet from where they had slipped out. Then turning to the Madgod’s shoulder, he gently shifted the velvety furs to more fully encapsulate the Prince.With this done, the chamberlain made to depart, only to be halted by a voice.“Do you dream, Haskill?”Turning back, the lesser daedra saw Sheogorath looking up at him through bleary amber eyes. At once kneeling by his liege’s shoulder, Haskill replied.“Not often, lord. For thralls, dreams are openings into Vaermina’s clutches.”Sheogorath fixed his chamberlain with a stare, and Haskill saw something in those sleep-clouded golden eyes that he had never seen before. It almost unnerved him.“I dreamed I saw myself,” the Madgod said. “But he was...not myself. Armored in silver, he said to me, ‘O Sheogorath, blind leader of the blind, thou shalt swiftly become me. Thou shalt swiftly be cast down, and my realm restored to me. Mine false un-self.’”The room suddenly seemed cold despite the warmth of the hearth. Haskill’s mouth felt dry, and he knew not how to respond. This vision his lord had seen spoke as though it was...sane. Sane, yet somehow worse.“He said this to me,” Sheogorath went on, “then he drew a silver blade. I wanted to flee, but I could not move. I could only stand there, waiting.”His eyes glittered in the dark, and Haskill realized what it was that so disturbed him. The Madgod was frightened. Sheogorath, whose thralls would call fear itself, was now himself afraid. But of what?Swallowing thickly, Haskill spoke. “The night can twist many thoughts, my lord. I would not heed such illusions.”Sleep again beckoned to the Raver. But as his eyelids began to droop, his hand came up and ran through the tresses of his hair, red intertwining with silver passing through his fingers. “It’s impossible, of course,” he murmured, “but I almost feel as though...as though I am cursed.”His movements stilled, and his breathing deepened, slumber claiming his once more. But this time, the Prince did not step into the realms of dreams.Haskill, for his part, remained kneeling at his lord’s side for some time more, full of troubled thoughts. Then he rose on silent feet and left the Madgod to his rest.No eye beheld the chamberlain as he passed from the halls of the Raver. Flitting past sleeping guards like a shadow, he passed through the wild places of the Isles, through twisted glade and warped meadow, to the very Fringe of the Madgod’s realm. With a glance back at the palace standing black against the night sky, Haskill breathed a silent prayer that his actions would not see him branded a traitor.A great spider at the center of his web, Sheogorath felt the breach at the borders of his realm. A sliver of burning gold pierced his face, a smile tugging at his lips before he curled deeper into his plush pelts, pulling them up to his nose. Only the empty room heard his murmured words.“That’s more like it.”

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The paths of Oblivion spread before Haskill. To a mortal, they were vast, uncharted ways, with no telling where they might lead, or what horrors might lurk at their end. But the chamberlain was a creature of this world. He walked the paths easily, avoiding the ones that led to danger, keeping his eyes straight ahead. Just because he was a daedra did not mean Oblivion would not devour him if given the chance.Of course, these chances increased if a traveler did not have a clear end destination in mind, forcing Haskill to decide very quickly what his goal was: to find out what troubled his Prince, and help him, if he could. And who might know the Madgod better than his fellow Princes?This notion proved easier said than done, however. As an emissary of the Raver, many of the daedric lords and ladies barred Haskill from even entering their demesnes. Some, like Mehrunes Dagon’s Deadlands and Mephala’s Spiral Skein, Haskill feared such that he would not even attempt entry. He would try the less inhospitable Princes first. But even so he often he found himself stuck at the border, flatly denied.Sanguine, to his credit, one of the few Princes not on unfriendly terms with the Madgod, did suffer Haskill’s entreaty, only to laugh in the chamberlain’s face and eject him from the Myriad Realms without giving an answer. This frustrated Haskill—the mighty ones among the daedra clearly knew what troubled their fellow Prince, and yet seemed unwilling to disclose what it was.At last, Haskill stood among the endless pathways of Oblivion, weary and lost. His list of options was running short. But there remained one—a most loathsome option that he had put off until now, but it could provide the answer, both to his problem and to any other question he might ever think to ask.Swallowing, Haskill steeled his nerves and spoke three words to the swirling mists. “I seek knowledge.”The Woodland Path opened before him. Winding deep into the dark, tall monoliths rose on either side like tree trunks...or, were they huge stacks of books? Black mist curled from the shadows, the scent of rotting paper rank in Haskill’s nostrils. Dust wafted up from each tentative footstep. There was no sky above; just an endless void. The only source of light were warped lanterns suspended in the air emitting a sickly yellow glow.Haskill had taken no more than three steps into the realm before he was already regretting his decision. But he knew that if he turned back, there would be no exit. Just more stacks of scrolls, papers, books...knowledge.“Who are you to dare set foot here?”Haskill froze like a deer in the hunter’s sights. A man melted out of the shadows—at least, Haskill assumed it was a man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he was covered from head to toe in priestly robes as black as the sky above, his face obscured by a mask that looked just as warped as the rest of this realm. He towered over Haskill, his face dead of all expression.Before the chamberlain could find his voice, the masked man hissed out a strange tongue.“Laas Yah Nir!”Haskill did not understand the words. He wondered if they were a curse, though he did not feel any different. The man however tilted his head, as though changing his opinion of this intruder.“You are no mortal,” he mused, his voice as deep as the abyss they stood in echoing between the stacked tomes. “What brings you to this place?”Terrified as he was, Haskill remembered his etiquette. He straightened, clearing his throat and hoping this strange gatekeeper would not notice him trembling. “I come to speak to the master of this realm. My business is my own.”The man sneered at this. Haskill sensed he would just as like slit his throat as continue the conversation. “No mortal and no fool, I see. Very well—I will take you to my master. Perhaps I shall be privileged to see you inscribed forward and back upon his pages.”Turning, he strode into the mists without looking to see if Haskill followed. The chamberlain kept close behind him, not wanting to get lost among the wafting lanterns and endless shelves of decaying tomes.As they pursued a twisted path, Haskill caught glimpses of the realm’s inhabitants. Strange creatures, some daedric, but some of undeniably mortal build, yet both somehow warped by the benthic forces of this netherworld. Long hands with too many fingers splayed over crumbling pages, wriggling tendrils where the face should have been. Haskill shuddered and turned away before he could look too closely.He also sensed that they were being followed. From the shadowed reaches beyond the glow of the lamps, Haskill’s keen ears heard the dry rustle of scales shifting over the ground, as of something slithering between the towering stacks. The sound of deep, deep breathing. The pinprick shine of an eye before it was swiftly obscured by the writhing mists.“Good sir,” Haskill piped up to his escort before he could think better of it, “Are we being followed?”“We are,” the man replied without looking back, as though such a conclusion should have been obvious. “Phantom-Word-Servant. Above us, though you cannot see them, are Ancient-Dominance and Sorcerer-Day-Mind. My own. My thralls.”He spoke this with fierce pride. Haskill knew not what creatures bore such strange names, and had little desire to find out. He resisted the urge to look up.It seemed an eternity passed by for the chamberlain, who kept his eyes fixed on the broad shoulders of his dubious guide and tried his best not to listen too hard to the whispers which floated like smoke from among the endless bookcases. But at last they ascended a long staircase to a stone landing. The stacks fell away, and far, far below, Haskill heard the sound of black water lapping on an unseen shore.“My master awaits,” said the masked man. “Displease him, and I look forward to reading every secret of your being as writ in your own blood.”Before Haskill could think of a response, the man melted back into the shadows as swiftly as he had come.Pages crunched beneath Haskill’s feet as he stepped forward. The sides of the wide staircase were littered with books, scrolls and papers in a random jumble. From this vantage point, he could see far away to where enormous stalactite-like shapes jutted down like teeth, and stalagmites rose up to meet them. But Haskill knew they were not formed of stone. They were formed, as everything was in this realm, by stacked tomes held together by forces unknown, suspended from a ceiling that if it existed at all, was shrouded in mist.Haskill did not like feeling so exposed on this open landing. He almost wished to flee back down the stairs and become lost among the towers of knowledge.The chamberlain turned, and found himself looking into a benthic orb glowing with an otherworldly light, like a gleam of emerald in a black abyss. The eye of Hermaeus Mora.Haskill’s scream was drowned out by the rolling voice, which emitted from maws unseen among a writhing, shivering mass of tendrils, a thousand staring eyes forming and un-forming across a monstrous shape miles tall.“A thrall of the Raver comes willingly to me,” it drawled out in a slow but inexorable rumble. “Most intriguing. Some weak-minded seekers of mine slip between the stacks into his Madhouse, but never has one returned. What brings you to my realm, my Apocrypha?”Shivering from head to toe, Haskill strove to keep his knees from buckling under him. He felt as though he would be flattened beneath the terrible presence of Hermaeus Mora.“O Prince, I come--” Haskill’s voice wavered, and he swallowed hard. Ghostly tendrils slithered from the shadows on either side of him, though the chamberlain stepped away before they could coil around his ankles. “O Prince, I come for the sake of my master, Sheogorath. He is troubled of late, and I seek to know why.”The monstrous eye blinked, a deep, thoughtful hum vibrating in Haskill’s bones. “Your master is the Fourth Corner of the House of Troubles,” Mora reminded him. “It is in the fool’s nature to be troubled one moment, then glad the next. Such is madness, in all its loathsome illogic.”He knew, Haskill thought then. Hermaeus Mora knew exactly what was wrong with the Madgod, and was hiding it.Licking his lips, Haskill spoke before he could stop himself. “Was it you who laid the curse on him?”The next moment, the chamberlain crumpled to the ground, covering his head, his mouth open in silent agony. For Hermaeus Mora laughed. Like undersea earthquakes, like endless waves rolling and breaking, it rebounded in Haskill’s skull in a thousand stunning echoes, and he thought he would be crushed beneath the suffocating weight.“Sheogorath has done his work well,” the Prince chuckled. A hundred staring eyes bloomed to surround the prone chamberlain on all sides. “You are mad indeed to dare ask such a thing of me.”Bracing his hands beneath him, Haskill could not push himself upright, but remained staring at the worn stones of the landing. “You...you have not answered my question,” he wheezed out, his head throbbing with the Prince’s voice.“Indeed,” Mora replied, his amusement fading. “But it matters not in the end. In Mundus, much is changing. For the World-Eater is cast out. We Princes saw the glow of his flame all the way from Oblivion. His fall is a sign that this age draws to a close, and thus you shall soon find out that which you seek.“But I bid you beware, thrall—you lesser creatures are prone to regretting the knowledge you have striven so desperately to attain. Yet it can never be un-learned.”Without being given a chance to reply, the chamberlain was thrust from the Prince’s realm with a sickening lurch, the endless stacks withdrawing from around him like smoke fading into the morning sky. He stood alone in the fathomless reaches of Oblivion.Haskill cursed himself and his madness. He had been so close to finding the answer, and what he done? Gone and opened his fool mouth and stuck in his fool foot, heel and all. And he knew that no matter how hard he searched, the path of Hermaeus Mora would remain closed to him.Raising his face, he saw that it would soon be dawn in the Isles. He knew he must return before he was missed, but the rays of Magnus filtering through the smoky reaches of Oblivion gave him an idea. There was yet one who might suffer his plea, and at the hour when night met day, Haskill would find no better opportunity.Crossing leagues in a stride, the chamberlain hurried along the paths until he reached the border of the realm he sought. Bracing himself, he stepped through, and was allowed passage into the Moonshadow.After the dim, benthic halls of Hermaeus Mora, this daedric realm was almost blinding to Haskill’s eyes. He stood in a garden of opal blossoms, a path of delicate silver like glass running away beneath his feet. The flowers, always blooming but never wilting, sent their perfumed fragrance into the air with each breeze that touched them. They almost seemed to shine in reflection of the sky, which arched above in a painterly wash of colors that mark the edge of day. For in Moonshadow, it was ever twilight, where shadow and light meet.Taking in all this beauty, Haskill’s gaze followed the silver path to a set of steps descending from a silver palace almost too bright to look at. And there, descending the stair like a gently floating star, was the master of the realm. Azura, Prince of the Night Sky, Lady of Twilight.As shining and beautiful as her realm was, Azura herself was almost beyond beauty. Tall and willowy, fair of face and form, sapphire eyes gazed out from a face more perfect than any mortal sculptor could even dream of. Her flowing raiment was the deep blue of the night sky, speckled with diamonds like stars that glimmered with each step. On her arm was an enormous male Khajiit as black as midnight, eyes as blue as his mistress’ set in his cat’s face framed by a lionlike mane.Haskill almost forgot his manners in the face of such stunning beauty, but remembered himself and bowed deeply. “Fair Lady of Moonshadow, I thank you for suffering my presence in your demesne.”Before Azura could speak, the Khajiit beside her flared his nostrils. Stepping before his lady, the cat-man unsheathed claws like obsidian needles.“Thrall of the Raver!” he hissed out. “My Lady, shall I rend him limb from limb for daring to set foot here?”Azura replied coolly, not taking her eyes from their study of Haskill’s face. “You shall not,” she said. “Thank you, Za’ar.”The Khajiit’s whiskers bristled with unspent hostility, but he heeded the words of his mistress. He sheathed his claws and stepped back, though not without a warning hiss at Haskill.Azura smiled then, as beautiful as roses in bloom. “Please forgive my servant. The last time Sheogorath visited this realm, he caught me up and spun me around the gardens twice before I made him stop.”Such a thing sounded exactly like something the Madgod would do, Haskill thought to himself, though refrained from saying so aloud.The Prince must have read his face, for she gave a musical laugh. “I thought Za’ar would tear him apart then and there. He often forgets that I am the master of this realm; I let dear Sheogorath have his sport.”Her gaze turned a little more calculating then. “But I have not seen you before. Has the Mad Star a new thrall?”“Haskill, O Prince,” the chamberlain bowed again. “I am but a servant to my master.”“And a most polite servant indeed.” Azura gave an approving nod. “See, Za’ar? Madness need not always forgo manners.”The Khajiit flattened his ears, but made no reply.The Lady of Moonshadow led Haskill to a delicately-carved bench of crystal that looked almost too fine to sit upon. Before them, a silver stream laughed and raced away deeper into the ever-blooming gardens. Za’ar stood back a respectful distance, though his azure eyes stayed fixed on the chamberlain’s every move.“Would you care for some refreshment?” Azura inquired, snow-white hands folded neatly in her lap. “Some tea, perhaps?”“Nay, Lady. Dawn is nearing, and I cannot tarry long,” Haskill made excuse. He knew better than to accept food or drink from a Prince not his own. “I come for the sake of my master and his realm. I seek answers.”The Prince gave a thoughtful nod. “The stench of my un-brother Hermaeus Mora hangs on you like trailing weeds. Your questions must be marvelous indeed if he denied you any answer.”Haskill wrung his hands in his lap, staring down at the merry stream, whose laughter seemed to be directed at him. “I do not understand. But my lord Sheogorath, he says he is cursed.”Azura’s smile did not waver, though her eyes did not share it, looking eerily like the Madgod in that way. “My dear Haskill, your master bears many curses. Does not every mortal who ever became inebriated curse the Raver the next day for whispering in his ear and driving him to act the fool?”Haskill had expected she would reply as much, deepening his frustration. She was not as different from Hermaeus Mora as she would like to think. “Fair Prince,” he gritted out between clenched teeth, “I do not refer to such trivialities. The curses of mortals do not touch my master. He said he dreamed of himself, but clad in silver, vowing to destroy him and his realm. If you know of what he speaks, I would pray you tell me, that I might help my master if I can.”The eyes of Azura as cold as starlight softened a hair’s breadth as Haskill spoke. She gave a small sigh, for even Princes are given to sentiment at times. “It seems Sheogorath has himself a good and loyal servant. Perhaps you will be a help him in the time to come.”“What time?” Haskill met those azure eyes, pleading with the Lady of Twilight. “What is happening to my master?”Reaching out one delicate hand, Azura touched the chamberlain’s cheek. “I forget how young you thralls are. You were not there before the breaking of the first Dawn. You did not see the Order of things.”The way she spoke sent a chill down Haskill’s spine, though he could not say why.“Order, Lady?” he whispered.Azura withdrew her hand, letting it fall to her lap. “I suppose we all knew it must be like this,” she said softly, almost to herself. “That this must be the price we pay, though we held out hope the day might never come. But the wheel keeps turning, until the day Akatosh spits out his tail.”She fixed the chamberlain once more in her stare. “Tell me, Haskill, would you do anything for your lord?”“Anything, Lady,” Haskill replied without hesitation. “I would cast myself into the Void if he commanded it.”Azura’s gaze was as intense as flame. “If he commanded you,” she said, “would you kill him?”Haskill paled. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. But no answer could form itself. What sort of question was that? Such a scenario was impossible, untenable…wasn’t it?The trill of songbirds was a welcome distraction, jarring him back to his senses. Morning was come. Haskill longed now to flee the Moonshadow, not only to return to Sheogorath before he was missed, but to escape the burning stare of Azura, and the question he could not answer. Even so, it was several moments before he could find his tongue.“I—I must away,” he stammered out, standing and only just remembering to offer his hand to the Prince. “Thank you for your hospitality, O Twilit Lady. But my master awaits.”Azura smiled, fairer than all the garden blooms. “You shall always be welcome in my demesne, dear Haskill. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay? My eyes would look quite fetching on you.”Her stare glittered a fell blue in her sculpted face. Haskill swallowed and bowed low, backing away as he did. “Perhaps another time, Lady. Fare thee well.”Speeding back through the tracks of Oblivion, Haskill’s heart pounded in his breast. Azura’s question rang in his ears, though he tried desperately to put it out of his mind.
Would you do anything for your lord?

Would you kill him?
Dawn was come. He was surely missed by now. Sheogorath would see the signs of other Princes on him. But the chamberlain had not a clue if the Madgod would fly into a wrath and slay him on the spot, laugh off his absence, or ignore that he had ever been gone. There was simply no telling, though Haskill’s fretting thrust the first option to the forefront of the possible outcomes. Perhaps if he prostrated himself before the Raver and begged forgiveness, he might escape with a limb or two.The sun was well above the horizon as Haskill re-entered the Shivering Isles. The road from the Fringe to the palace in the capital city of Cylarne had never seemed longer. All the way, Haskill rehearsed in his mind what he might say when faced with the Raver’s fury.Stepping into the throne room, the chamberlain’s mouth went dry. Sheogorath stood there, the long locks of his fiery hair cut short. But Haskill scarcely noticed this; his eyes were fixed on the dripping, still-beating heart in the Madgod’s hand.“Haskill!” Sheogorath called, spotting his servant instantly. “You’ve missed all the fun! Come here!”Every eye in the court turned to the chamberlain. Haskill advanced down the long room, white as a sheet, hoping his knees were not knocking together too noticeably. He deliberately avoided looking at the prone figure of whatever unfortunate soul had earned the Madgod’s wrath, but he could not tear his gaze away from the grisly sight of Sheogorath himself.“Isn’t it grand?” the Raver asked when Haskill was near, golden eyes shining with a wild light. “This poor fool’s idea of madness was thinking he could cross me. Me! Alas, it was the last lesson he’ll ever learn.”Haskill’s heart beat wildly, in paradox to the one gripped in the Madgod’s hand. How easily could it become his own? “A tragedy, my lord,” he managed to squeak out.Sheogorath arched an eyebrow, a sly smile on his face. “What’s the matter, Haskill? You’re shaking like a Khajiit on too much Moon Sugar.”Unable to bear the tension any longer, the chamberlain dropped to one knee. “Lord, I meant no treachery. I did not mean to flee your realm; only to return when I gained the knowledge of how best to serve you—“The Madgod cut off his babbling. “Stand up.”Haskill did so. He could not meet those blazing yellow eyes.“Hold out your hand.”Haskill obeyed, and found deposited in his grasp a warm, dripping mass of muscle. Sheogorath patted his chamberlain’s cheek, leaving behind a bloody handprint.“Lad,” he said, smiling with more danger than any creature of Oblivion, “if I suspected treachery, you’d never have made it out of my palace. Now, clean up that mess, would you? Bloodstains on the rug are so unsightly.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sheogorath prowled the night-dark halls like a caged beast. His keen eyes darted this way and that, but no onlooker could have guessed the shapes he saw in every shadowed corner. He passed guards standing still as statues, who dared not speak but followed the Prince with their eyes, wondering in vain at what thoughts went on in his head.As for the Madgod, he spared not a glance for his subjects until he came upon Staada making her last rounds for the night. The golden woman saluted with her spear at his approach.“Captain,” Sheogorath said, “Are the borders secure?”Staada gave no visible reaction to this unusual request, not even a blink of eyes as golden as her master’s. She replied without hesitation, “Yes, sire. No one can breach the Isles without your say. Your guards keep watch day and night.”The Raver nodded, though he scarcely seemed to have heard her. His eyes burned like spent candles in the dim hall. He passed on without another word.Dawn found Sheogorath weary and disheveled. Every shadow seemed to conceal glimpses of silver, and he did not dare sleep. Not when he stalked the realm of dreams, growing nearer by the day, like a hound pursuing its quarry without ceasing.Haskill found himself unnerved by his lord’s stony silence. The Raver stared at his reflection in the vanity mirror through narrowed, bloodshot eyes, as though trying to root out something only he could see. He scarcely reacted as the chamberlain laid a vest of gold-trimmed lilac across a chair and approached with comb in hand.“The usual, my lord?” Haskill asked, trying not to sound as if tension was so thick in the room that he could almost taste it.Sheogorath gave a wordless nod. This did little to ease Haskill’s nerves. The Prince was often talkative in the mornings, musing on whatever schemes his fertile mind had spun during the long, quiet nights. Today, however, there was only silence.Haskill set to work with his comb. He tried not to glance up at the twin burning jewels watching him in the mirror and instead focused on his task. Now that the Prince’s hair was cut short, it alleviated the need to painstakingly pick apart the knots that would accumulate in the fiery tresses. This would have been a mercy to Haskill had he not suspected the true reason for his lord’s sudden change of style, one that was even now proving itself inescapable. The silence dragged on.Golden eyes flickered at the chamberlain’s pause. Haskill quickly continued, hoping, though he knew better, that Sheogorath had not noticed his scowl at the silver which was just beginning to latch hold of the fiery ends of hair. Even if Sheogorath were to shave himself bald, he would not escape that leeching away of all color.“Has there been a tally lately?”Haskill jumped at the sudden noise in the deathly quiet. Hastily smoothing his ruffled feathers, he replied. “Not for a fortnight at least, my liege.”The Raver gazed at his reflection in the mirror, running a hand over his neatly parted hair. “Go to the Point and take a tally. Report to me with your findings. Now, fetch my boots.”Haskill laid aside the comb and retreated, grateful to escape his lord’s suffocating presence for a moment. The Point—that is, Punishment Point—served as the place where those who displeased the Lord of the Shivering Isles were dropped before burial. Dropped in the most literal sense, as Haskill had made unpleasant discovery. The round trip to the hill country and back would take the better part of the day, allowing him respite from whatever unspoken pressure seemed to be crushing in all around his lord.A loud crash broke through his thoughts, causing the chamberlain’s heart to leap into his throat. Rushing back into the Raver’s quarters, he saw Sheogorath standing before the mirror, which was split in a thousand fractals. Blood dripped from his white-knuckled fist, where glass shards embedded in his skin glittered in the lamplight.“Lord!” Haskill cried, dropping his burden and hurrying to the Madgod’s side. “Your hand! What happened?”Sheogorath hardly seemed to notice his distraught servant. His eyes, blazing with golden flame, remained fixed on the mirror, which reflected back his own face dozens of times, a hundred golden eyes staring back as him. Haskill had not seen. How could he? No one but him had seen how, for a split second, the eyes looking back at him were not his. How they refracted like crystal.The dream was near. It was almost...maddeningly so.Haskill looked up at his lord. The Madgod’s fist had unclenched and lay flat in the chamberlain’s palm, but the Prince did not seem to notice the blood, nor the glass shards embedded in his knuckles. Was he not in pain?“Lord,” Haskill pressed, expecting wrath to rain upon him but feeling he must venture anyway, “may I tend to your hurts?”Sheogorath closed his eyes. A shudder passed through him, like that of a tree hewn beneath the blow of the woodcutter’s axe. Then he opened his eyes again, and Haskill could read nothing in those golden depths that were young and old at once.The Madgod drew his hand from the chamberlain’s grasp. “You have your orders. Do as I command.”Turning away, he sat again at the ruined vanity and began picking shards from his knuckles, seeming to have forgotten his servant’s existence.Haskill’s tongue failed him. He bowed and made his exit on stiff legs.Anu and Padomay, what was happening to his lord? Was Hermaeus Mora right, that he would soon learn and forever regret what he discovered? Haskill almost wished now to remain ignorant. But, if he failed his liege, what kind of servant would he be?Perhaps it was nothing, a part of him argued. Perhaps Sheogorath merely experienced a particularly foul mood, and nothing more. In a few days he would be back to his normal abnormal self.But a larger part of him knew this was not the case. The Madgod was always predictable in that he was utterly unpredictable. Now, however, Haskill found that he was almost able to know what his lord might do next, a notion that caused his maddened mind to ache. Was it merely a quirk of the ever-changing, always-permanent Raver?Or was it the deep breath before the scream?Haskill shook his head fiercely. He swore, as he had on the day he had taken the Madgod’s kiss, but now swore to himself again: to whatever end, he would serve his master faithfully. And even madness knew that a daedric oath was broken only at great price.The twisted wood welcomed the chamberlain into its reaches. Sunlight dappled the spreading flowers turned their faces towards him, but if it appeared for a moment as though it was Sheogorath’s face that looked out from them, Haskill did not notice. His mind was too full of racing thoughts, and one above all, hanging like a looming thunderstorm.
Would you kill him?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Some places in the Shivering Isles were buried so deep that the demesne itself had forgotten them. Far below twisting passageways, locked behind enchantments and illusory doors, swathed in shadows never to see the light of lamp or window again.It was into these depths the Prince plunged now. Eyes questing through all barriers and veils, no secret was hidden from him. With a sweep of his hand he cast aside enchantments and revealed the way forward, always down, deep beneath the palace. The Isle itself might forget. But its master knew every twist and turn, for he himself had created them.At last the Prince stood before a door. Featureless, without handle or latch, a wall of smooth gray stone shut tightly, never to be opened. But at a touch from the Prince, it swung open silently, perfectly balanced.And there, mounted on spikes, hung the sword. It glittered like quicksilver in reflection of the Prince’s eyes. As hard and sharp as diamond, it seemed to hum in anticipation of being reunited with the hand of its master and become once again the deadly extension of his arm.The Prince stepped forward. For a moment he paused, grimacing, for his false self summoned up one final effort, ravaging like a caged wolf. But the resistance grew weaker as he approached that blade like fire on ice. Reaching up, he grasped the black-bound hilt and lifted the weapon from its spikes.A hiss passed the Prince’s lips, but whether it was of pleasure or pain, he could not say. The blade in his hand burned his palm. But he did not loose his hold. The pain was as expected, after so long spent a wretch.The beat of his heart slowed, then stopped with a deep thudding finality. He would not need it any longer. Hearts were most illogical things.Raising his face, the Prince lifted the blade, which reflected his own eyes back at him. Crystal eyes. Hair as white and fine as gossamer, free of the mark of his curse.His lips parted, and the shadows fled in terror from the deep, satisfied sigh which emanated from him.“Ahhhh, at last!”Haskill sneezed. He brushed at his nose, cursing the ticklish caresses of the peacock feather he used as a quill, then sneezed again. The sooner he was finished with this most unpleasant task, the better.Picking his way among the scattered corpses in various states of decay, he tallied them one at a time, noting their race, whether they were mortal or daedra, and what part of the Isles they hailed from. Why his lord had demanded such a mundane task of him, Haskill still had not the slightest clue, but he knew better than to ask questions.At least the view was nice, the optimistic part of him summoned up a meager defense. The point was situated on a high hilltop, a broad stone landing with only a couple crumbling pillars providing a sweeping vista of both the swamplands to the south, and the flower forests to the north. A grueling climb, but well worth the effort despite the grisly company. Whoever said madness was not beautiful?Something grabbed his ankle.Haskill’s heart nearly exploded from his chest. Looking down, he saw the desiccated corpse of what had once been a Dunmer staring up at him with ice-blue eyes.Leaping back with an undignified scream, the chamberlain wrenched his foot from the thing’s grasp. He gave the husklike body a hard kick, sending it over the edge of the landing and tumbling down the rocky hillside below. Then realizing, he jumped back several paces away from the rest of the bodies in case any others had second thoughts about their state of death. But none stirred.Haskill stared with wide eyes at the empty place where the corpse had previously occupied. He could still feel the sensation of cold fingers gripping his ankle. Un-death in various forms was, of course, common in both Oblivion and Mundus, but it was rare in the Isles. Sheogorath considered himself the sole arbiter of life and death in his realm. Had a necromancer come to the Isles? If so, Haskill knew he must report this to his lord at once—Something in him shivered. It was faint, almost unnoticeable, like the sensation of an approaching thunderstorm while the sun still shone. But it caused Haskill’s brow to furrow. He looked up, turning his gaze out over the sprawling hills, back toward Cylarne and his lord.A pillar of smoke was rising black against the sky. And there, winging before it, was a tattered golden shape. The figure of Captain Staada shed feathers as she half fell from the air to land before Haskill.“There you are!” she gasped out, her great wings slipping out of sight behind their glamour once more. Haskill saw with a shock that she was bleeding from several wounds. “You must return to the city, chamberlain. You are the only one who might talk some sense into him!”“What do you mean, Captain?” Haskill found his heart was racing, though he could not set a reason to it. A heavy dread settled in the pit of his stomach as he asked, “What has happened?”The golden daedra shook her head, her face a mask of confusion. “I do not know. None of us do. He—he simply appeared among us, and began slaying without a word. And some of those that fell rose up again, but...different.”Haskill thought of the blue-eyed corpse come alive again. He shuddered.“You must go to him,” Staada said again. “Quickly! I will gather what sisters I can and come after you.”“But how?” Haskill protested. “It is a half-day’s journey back to the city from here. How shall I reach him in time?”Staada looked at him as though he had gone sane. “Be you daft as well as male? You are chamberlain to the Prince! You are as much an extension of him as his own right hand. Speak, and the Isles will heed your command.”For a moment, Haskill could muster no response. Her words, though stunning, somehow made perfect sense in his mind. Why hadn’t he thought of such a thing before?But part of him hesitated—was he truly so valuable to his lord?Then he looked again at the rising smoke, and all doubt was cast aside. Now he must go. Now he must reach his master.Taking a trembling breath, Haskill squared his shoulders and spoke:“Open.”The Shivering Isles parted before him.He stepped through, and Staada vanished. The hilltop vanished. The Isles bent to his will, and he could catch only glimpses of trees and sunlight on the edges of his vision. Like traversing Oblivion by crossing miles in seconds, but stranger, paths the realm rarely revealed opened to allow his passage.In what seemed like mere minutes, Haskill found himself stepping from the forest on the outskirts of Cylarne. He looked back, hardly able to believe that he had covered such a distance so quickly. But his eyes did not deceive him. Turning ahead once more, he saw what lay before him.The palace was burning. Smoke spilled from shattered windows, and stone cracked beneath immense heat. All signs pointed to assault as though by a great army, yet Haskill could see few signs of life. Whether the denizens were fled or slain, he could not say. But the palace and surrounding boroughs were as silent as death.Then he came to the palace entrance and halted in his tracks. His mouth went dry, and his breath seemed to stick in his throat.The great entryway was reduced to scattered rubble, exposing the throne room to the open air. And there before it knelt an armored figure.Haskill gave a cry of recognition. The face was that of his lord’s, but his hair was pure white, falling down his shoulders like silk. Only the faintest hint of red remained at the roots, and even this was diminishing.At the sound of the chamberlain’s voice, the Prince lifted his face, and his eyes widened in horror.“What are you doing here?” he cried, gauntlet-clad hands clutching at himself as though to keep something from bursting forth out of him. “You were supposed to be gone! You were supposed to flee! He is here now!”“My lord!” Haskill dithered helplessly, wanting to rush to his master’s side but crippled by doubt at having disobeyed him unawares. “What has happened? Are you hurt? Who is here?”Sheogorath screamed. The sound ripped into the very bones of the Isles, and Haskill collapsed under the weight of horror. The Prince’s form contorted with such force that had the silver armor not braced him, his spine would have surely been snapped in two. He fell back and lay motionless in the rubble.Haskill pushed himself upright, swaying on his feet. Dust clogged his throat, and his ears rang with that horrible cry. But his master was in need. He could not fail him now.Across the field of ruin, the armored figure too slowly drew itself up. Head bowed, silver hair like a curtain obscuring the face. Like a statue come to life and unused to movement, spine straightened, shoulders drew back, head lifted.Blue eyes opened wide.“At last,” said the Prince. “I am free!”His voice was Jyggalag’s.Haskill stood petrified, his face a mask of horror. He wanted to flee. But his feet would not move. The words of Azura fell into place then. All her fears now contained perfect, terrible clarity.Order was come to the Isles.Jyggalag fixed Haskill with his eyes. His lip curled in disgust.“Is this how the Fool despoils my realm?” he hissed out, his voice like that of an adder. “Feeding his own madness with pretty veils and false faces?”He reached out a hand. Though Haskill did not move, it was as though the ground shifted, thrusting him forward until he stood just before the towering dread of the Prince.“Take that ridiculous thing off,” the silver daedra snarled.Before Haskill could react, the Prince seized the front of his doublet and yanked.Haskill gasped. For it was not only his clothing that was torn away—it was the very glamour of the chamberlain itself. He stood in his true daedra’s form once more, as he had been before Sheogorath had found him. Jagged claws, a hide of scales and feathers, horns coiling from a craggy skull.The unveiled chamberlain lurched back. All his instinct screamed to hide, to flee. Every inch of him trembled with fear. But stronger than that was devotion. His master could not be gone. There must be some remnant.“Lord,” Haskill rasped out, his voice as deep and guttural as a bullfrog, “Can you hear me? I know you are still there!”Jyggalag laughed. The sound shook Haskill to the ground, more terrible even than the laugh of Hermaeus Mora.“Thou fool!” cried the Prince, “There is no one to hear thee. The end of the age is come, and my curse is broken at last.”Haskill looked past him into the sky beyond. Jyggalag’s eyes narrowed, and he whirled just as a flash of gold dropped from the sky like a bolt of lightning.The Prince of Order snatched Staada from the air mid-flight, holding her by the throat at arm’s length. She snarled an unholy sound, her face twisted with rage, but the Prince seized her spear and wrenched it from her grasp.“I see there is much disloyalty sown in my absence,” said he. Staada’s wings beat wildly, but Jyggalag’s grip was unbreakable. “No matter. I shall remake this realm in my image, as it ever was intended to be.”With his free hand he drew his sword. Shining like pearl, it flashed in the light as he ran Staada through with a single stroke.Haskill could not even scream. He could only watch in frozen horror as Jyggalag slung the golden daedra’s lifeless husk away. This must be some nightmare. An illusion of Vaermina. None of this could be real.Then the Prince turned crystal eyes on him once more. Striding forward, the armored figure leaned down and wrapped one hand around the chamberlain’s neck, lifting him bodily from the ground. Haskill flailed weakly, but he might as well have been fighting a mountain.“Thou art a true and loyal servant,” Jyggalag observed. “A pity thy loyalty is wasted on the Fool.”“Lord!” Haskill choked out one last plea, his eyes rolling wildly, “Lord Sheogorath, I know you are not lost! Fight him! Come back to yourself!”“Wasted is thy breath, thrall!” Annoyance tightened Jyggalag’s grip on Haskill’s throat. “Sheogorath is dead. Long live Jyggalag!”The chamberlain’s struggles ceased. The fear did not diminish. But his eyes suddenly glittered with a keen light very much like that of his master’s.“Thank you,” Haskill said, “for releasing me from my oath.”Before confusion could fully manifest in the Prince’s expression, Haskill brought his hand up and plunged a sgian-dubh between the silver plating, where breastplate met pauldron.Jyggalag roared loud enough to shake the earth. He dropped the chamberlain, bellowing oaths, the handle of the dagger protruding from his chest. Despite the knowing that it was no longer his lord whose face was twisted with pain, the sight of the Prince’s agony wrenched Haskill’s heart.With a curse, Jyggalag pulled the dagger from himself. Blood poured down his breastplate in crimson rivulets. He looked at the chamberlain, and blue fire blazed in his eyes. “Thy death shalt be lingering , thrall,” he said.He took a step forward.The Shivering Isles growled.It was not an audible sound. But rather a sensation passing through cloud, water, tree, and air, from the deepest depths to the highest peak. A silent but terrible warning.Jyggalag bared his teeth. “So, that is how it is to be,” he said, and seemed not to be speaking to Haskill, but to the demesne itself. “Thou mayest reject me, but kingship does not. If removing all trace of the Fool means breaking thee, then so be it.”He looked down at his wound, then at Haskill’s trembling form. For one moment, Haskill thought he saw the tiniest seed of his lord encased in crystal. But he knew it could only be a deceit of his fear-addled mind. His lord was gone. Only Order remained.“Run, thrall,” Jyggalag said then. “Run, while ye may.”Haskill turned and fled.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Under a silver willow, a daedric thrall huddled. The beauty of the laughing stream, the gentle breeze stirring the shining leaves, the glory of the twilit sky above, all went as unnoticed as if they were not there at all.

Haskill wept bitterly. His long frame curled in on itself, shoulders heaving with each wracking breath. Blood trickled from where his claws gouged into his own hide, as though the pain would take away the shame that weighed on him like shackles.

He had fled. He had abandoned his master, abandoned the Isles to sure destruction. What kind of chamberlain was he? No more loyal than any petty mortal, who swears fealty only to break his oath to save his own skin. He had failed his lord, failed himself.

“Oh,” said a voice with all the enthusiasm of one who has found ants in the sugar bowl. “It’s you.”

Haskill looked up. The Khajiit as black as night stood there—Za’ar, Haskill recalled. The daedra had not heard his approach, and briefly wondered if the realm of his mistress bent to his will, just as the Isles had for Haskill.

Za’ar gave the huddled thrall’s monstrous form a once-over, his whiskers pinned back in ill-hidden distaste. “My Lady felt the breach of her borders,” he said. “By her foresight she knew it was the Raver’s thrall, but I remained unsure until I scented you just now.”

Haskill could not muster much formality; his strength was spent. “Forgive the intrusion,” he croaked out, his voice even more rasping for the tears that choked it. “I know not if her words were spoken only in courtesy, but the Twilit Lady assured me that I would be welcome in her demesne. I come now only when I have no other haven.”

“Do not accuse her of falsehood,” Za’ar cautioned him. “If she says you are welcome, you are welcome, though I am loathe to bring you before her so unveiled.”

Haskill looked down at himself. He supposed his daedra’s form looked much out of place in the beauty of Moonshadow, particularly when compared to the veil of the chamberlain. He almost felt ashamed to mar so fair a realm with his ugliness. “Alas, the glamour gifted

to

me has been stripped away, and I have not the power to restore it.”

This statement caused a new wave of sorrow to wash over him. He would likely never again bear the form of the chamberlain he had grown so fond of. It was gone forever, like his master.

Za’ar saw the deepening pain on the thrall’s face, and some of the hostility left him, replaced with a resigned pity. Stepping forward, he offered forth a hand.

“Up, thrall,” he said. “Wash your face in yonder stream. The Lady awaits, and by her counsel you may yet find comfort, or perhaps not. In twilight is her wisdom, on the knife’s edge of hope and despair.”

The palace shone silver under the twilit sky, refracting the light in a thousand marvelous shades that would have blinded any mortal. Haskill almost expected the graven stairs to burn his clawed feet in rejection of his presence. But they did not, and Za’ar led the former chamberlain into the hall of his mistress.

“Haskill,” Azura greeted him, rising from her crystalline throne. She was so shining and beautiful that Haskill’s weary heart was almost moved to further tears. “I am both glad and bereaved of your coming. It is for me the foretelling of Order.”

Just the mention of that hateful force rattled Haskill’s mad soul, and he shuddered, recalling crystal eyes looking out from his lord’s face. Order, the antithesis of not just all things mad and beautiful, but of all things daedric entirely.

Azura read the pain in his face. “Sit, loyal chamberlain, and tell me all. Fear not—should all the forces of Order rally, they will not breach the Moonshadow.”

That assertion was untrue. Haskill knew it, and he knew the Prince knew it. Despite her calm exterior, Haskill knew Azura was desperate to convince herself of her own might. This thought sent a new wave of fear spiking his heart. For all her glory and power, she too feared Order.

Sitting before the Prince, Haskill recounted everything that had happened since their last encounter. The creeping silver, Sheogorath’s restlessness, and the final culmination of the dead rising in service to Jyggalag.

“And so I fled,” Haskill finished at last, gnarled claws clenched into fists before him. “Like a beaten cur, I abandoned my master to ruin and death. In what state the demesne now lies, I know not.”

Azura sat silent for a long moment, absorbing his tale. Not a glimpse of emotion passed across her sculpted face. At last Haskill could bear the silence no longer.

“Please, Lady,” he implored her, “all is now revealed, and yet I am still so lost. Who is this Prince who appeared so suddenly, and yet all Oblivion seems to know of him? What is he? Is my master truly dead?”

The Prince of Moonshadow again did not reply for some moments. She closed her eyes, thick lashes veiling the azure depths behind. Then she regarded again the pain twisting the monstrous face of the daedra before her.

“I will show you, Haskill,” she said then. “I will show you, and you will not understand. But had we not done what we did that day, neither Oblivion, Mundus, nor even Aetherius would exist as they do now. See!”

She reached out and touched the ugly ridges of his face. Haskill fell into memory.

High in the halls of Aetherius, they assemble in secret. Slithering from their besieged realms, flitting like shadows between crystal obelisks, they gather together, all rivalries and curses against one another put aside. Long they sit in deep counsel, arguing but never arriving at a decision.

“How can we face him?” hisses a horned serpent clinging to the shoulder of a woman wreathed in twilight. “His reach is grown too great, his cunning too deep. Even now he may predict our counsel and take action against it, knowing what we plan even before we decide it.”“Brother Peryite makes a prudent claim,” speaks a withered hag of a woman, and even her un-kin draw back from the stench of rotten flesh on her breath. “He is grown stronger than we imagined.”“Spoken like the worms you both are,” spits a horned creature built at once like a man and a horned beast. His long claws flex with desire. “Give him over to me, and I will dominate him. They all break in the end.”

Some of his kin nod and murmur approval of this suggestion. That is, until another voice speaks.

“I notice, brother Bal, that you have not yet attempted any such action,” sneers a woman upon whose ivory shoulders perch birds as dark as night shadows. “You speak bold words indeed, but they are mere words.”

Molag Bal bares jagged teeth at her in a snarl. He makes no retort however, slinking back to his place beside the warrior-queen Boethiah, who says nothing in accordance with their uneasy alliance, but casts a smug look at her hated rival nonetheless.

“Please, brethren,” says a woman glowing with light and energy, “If we bicker amongst ourselves, Order will overtake us all the sooner. We are the sparks of Padomay—does that count for nothing? Fifteen of us there are, and but a single one of him. He cannot stand against us all.”“We must do something he would not expect,” a hart-headed man speaks up. “Something beyond the realm of his perception. Has the boar the cunning to recognize the hunter’s arm drawing back the bowstring?”“But what is beyond him?” retorts a youthful, impish man scratching a blue-eyed hound behind the ears. “What would he not expect?”

Silence falls on the assembled Princes. It seems all too impossible—Order will know their every move before they even make it. Every outcome is perfectly calculated.

“Well,” drawls a slow voice then, “he may not expect this gathering.”

All eyes turn to a shadowed corner, where a man sits. Or at least, something wearing a shape akin to that of a man. Robes of black velvet obscure all sight of skin, and even the hands folded in its lap are gloved. Its face is obscured by shadow, but none of the Princes dare look too closely, for fear they might catch a glimpse of too many eyes staring back at them out of a writhing, wretched abyss.

“You speak at last, O wise one?” growls Molag Bal, though even he averts his eyes from that black figure. “What does the Master of Fate have to say of all this? For of all of us, it is surely you who has the most reason to hate the Lord of Order.”

A deep growl reverberates in the dark, and all the Princes shiver at the sound. “A loathsome prospect,” Hermaeus Mora says then, “but sister Merida speaks truly. We are mere fragments, not a one of us strong enough to defeat him alone. But together, we may work wonders.”

Beside the impish man, the hound as black as death suddenly pricks its ears. Blue eyes stretch wide, and a warning growl sounds in its throat. Its master too comes alert.

“’Ware, brethren!” he cries, “He is—““Why, there you all are! Having a party without me?”

Jyggalag is among them, and the Princes fall back from before his presence. All save Hermaeus Mora, who remains sitting in shadow with fingers laced upon his lap. The Prince of Order addresses him first.

“How curious,” says he, “to crest the summit of Apocrypha and find it deserted. Did your foresight warn you of my coming? Did the self-styled Master of Fate flee from his own fate knocking at his door?”

Hermaeus Mora does not move, does not respond. The other Princes peek from shadowed corners.

“But of course you did,” Jyggalag sneers in answer to his own question. “I predicted it all. Even with your far sight, my un-brother, you have not the Aetherial calculus with which to order how events shall unfold themselves. Why, I could inscribe upon the very Elder Scrolls, or burn them to ash if the fancy struck!”

A smile curves his lips. He takes a step forward, his hand resting on the silver pommel of his sword.

“Have you no defense for even the desecration of knowledge? No clever words?”

“I do,” drawls Mora, the shivering of his being the only giveaway that his spirit too shrivels before the power of Order. “But wisdom is often found in restraining words as much as imparting them. Besides, I still needed you to take another step forward.”

Jyggalag’s confusion has scarcely registered upon his face when he finds himself seized in four huge arms as red as blood, caught tightly in a wrestler’s hold.

“Unhand me, simpleton!” snarls the Prince of Order, struggling for his blade against the iron grip of Mehrunes Dagon, but the blue-eyed hound bounds forth and seizes his sword arm in its jaws, digging in with razor teeth. Stag-headed Hircine charges with a bugling war cry, his antlers piercing the silver armor to gore the Prince through the heart.

Jyggalag bellows curses. All Aetherius shudders under the awful sound. But the Princes are rallied, and none can stand against their might.

Hermaeus Mora grasps his mortal-shaped vestments. With an eldritch wail he rips them from himself, freeing his form from all bounds of constraint. The sight of him drives back his kindred momentarily, for even they struggle to look upon that being to whom no words will fit shape to. Dark, writhing tendrils lash forth to ensnare the Prince of Order.

Mephala and Namira whisper enchantments, and spiders swarm from the shadows. They climb up Jyggalag’s greaves, hissing and dying on contact with the silver, but more crawl over them, rooting beneath plate and gambeson until they find flesh and bite deep. Into these wounds Peryite thrusts pestilence.

“Your reach is grown too far, Lord of Order,” Merida declares, shining like a lighthouse beacon in the dark. “For this, we cast you out.”“Foolish brethren!” Jyggalag roars, his face twisted with hatred. “A daedra can never die!”“No,” Nocturnal agrees, birds of ill omen settling on her shoulders. “But you can be killed.”

Malacath smashes the back of Jyggalag’s legs with his mighty warhammer, sending the Prince to his knees. Rose thorns from Sanguine coil up and trap him there along with the tendrils of Hermaeus Mora.

“Long has Oblivion languished, without a thought of her own,” Azura declares, and her kindred join their voices with hers. “By our might bent against yours, we curse you, Jyggalag, and overthrow you into that which you most despise.”

The Prince rages against his bindings, but they hold fast. And, too, the combined strength of his kin forces into his vision the knowing of what he is—a paradox. A daedra, the spark of change, yet one whose will is set to Order. Any other daedra would see such truth and revel in the contradiction. But not so Jyggalag.

“You will believe you have forgotten who you once were,” the voices of the Princes ring out. “But you will not forget. And all you once were shall be hateful to you. We bind this oath in the name of Anu, in the name of Padomay, and in the name of Lorkhan the Un-Hearted.”

Jyggalag screams, his fury flaming silver across Oblivion. But he suddenly seems small, so small that Molag Bal reaches down and picks him up in one clawed hand.

“Do you see now what you are, Lord of Order?” the horned Prince says, his monstrous face twisted in a cruel smile at the tiny creature writhing in his palm. “Do you see?”

Jyggalag sees. He sees it all too well.

His mind fractures.

Then he is loosed from the Prince’s grip. He streaks screaming across the sky, blazing like a meteor as he falls. The fire of his burning catches in his silver hair, turning it to the scarlet of flame.

All the way to Mundus he plunges, piercing a hole in Oblivion. He smites Nirn like a falling comet, leveling every tree within leagues, and his fire burns for days afterward. That place is called Alik’r to this day, for nothing will ever grow there again.

From the glass of that smoking crater, a new creature emerges. A man with hair as red as dragonfire and eyes like golden stars, a wild man with laughter on his lips. He believes he holds no memory of what he has been. He only knows what he is: Sheogorath, Prince of Madness.

And the Princes do not know that, in vanquishing their foe, they have perhaps created one far greater.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Haskill returned to himself with a gasp. He swayed in his seat, and only the strong hand of Za’ar clamped on his shoulder kept him upright. Azura withdrew her touch, folding her hands again in her lap. Her shining gaze was far away.

“Not even Hermaeus Mora could have forseen what we created that day,” she said, her voice soft and thoughtful. “We overthrew the lordship of Order. But Jyggalag was right; a daedra never dies. It seems his time has come again, here at the end of the age.”“So he will conquer Oblivion again?” Haskill wrung his clawed hands, the situation seeming more hopeless by the moment.“Nay.” Azura shook her head, the dark locks of her hair swaying gently about her ivory face. “Our oath was bound by those older than creation itself. The only greater thing we could have used was an Elder Scroll, and even us Princes are not so foolish as to swear upon such fickle things. No, Jyggalag will have his time, but the curse will prevail.”

Haskill thought he might pass out. His head still swam from the vision he had just experienced, but a wild rush of hope surged up in him. “Then...my master lives?”

A small smile appeared on Azura’s face for the first time since Haskill’s arrival. “Ah, you poor, mad thrall,” she gave a soft laugh to herself. “Only the kiss of the Raver could incur such foolish devotion. Yes, Haskill, when Jyggalag’s strength is spent, Sheogorath will walk Oblivion once more.”

Her eyes turned a little more curious then. Curious, and calculating. “

W

hy do you stay with him?” she inquired. “Your master is doomed, Haskill. For the rest of Time, he will be overtaken by Order at the end of the era, and you may very well suffer as you have suffered now, perhaps even perish. Why not devote your service to another, one who would not put you through such torment?”

Haskill sensed the unspoken implication in her question. He knew he must tread carefully, for this was still a Prince of Oblivion. But of course, then he opened his fool mouth.

“If you will forgive a thrall’s observation,” he said with all the politeness he could muster, “I did not see the Lady of Moonshadow dirtying her raiment, kneeling in the mud of Nirn for the sake of one who had been forsaken.”

Behind him, he sensed rather than saw the Khajiit’s lips drawing back over his teeth. But Azura herself, if she was offended, betrayed nothing save an airy laugh.

“A mad fool you are, but an honest one,” she said. “What will you do now, chamberlain?”

Haskill’s heart lurched. He had not had time to consider such a prospect. But now, knowing what he knew, the only answer was clear.

“I—” he swallowed. He almost did not want to go on, for fear of what he might find. “I must go to my master. Though...I do not know where his curse may have cast him.”

Azura’s eyes glittered as blue as the depths of a lake. “That is the first lie you have told me.”

Looking into that youthful, ancient gaze, Haskill realized she was right. He stood and offered his hand to the Prince, which she accepted, her pale hand seeming small and doll-like in his clawed grasp. The chamberlain bent and kissed her snow-white knuckles.

“Lady of Moonshadow, I am in your debt,” said he. “Let me now away, and draw no further trouble to the most fairest of Princes.”

Za’ar led Haskill through the shining gardens until they reached the borders of Moonshadow. Stopping at the edge, the Khajiit turned to him.

“I wish you luck in your endeavor, thrall,” said the cat-man, his tone only slightly begrudging. “Go back to your master, and pray discourage him from future harassment of my lady.”“I shall put in a good word for her,” Haskill assured him, though both knew that with the Raver, there was no promise of anything.

Standing before

the Khajiit, Haskill saw in many ways reflection of himself. Only in the azure eyes of Za’ar, he saw a devotion even deeper than his own, yet full of sorrow, for it was destined to be unfulfilled.

“You love her,” Haskill observed.

Za’ar stared back at him. For a moment too long, silence reigned between the two thralls.

“I have loved no one,” the Khajiit said at last. “Not since I lay upon the shore of the Sands Behind the Stars.”

Haskill took no offense at this answer. He could not presume to understand all the cat-man’s logic, for he did not love his master in the same way Za’ar did. Instead he bowed to his fellow servant.

“I hope that, should your mistress make the same observation, you will not feel compelled to lie to her as you have to me,” he said with all sincerity. “Fare thee well, Za’ar.”

The fields of Nirn flickered beneath Haskill’s feet like passing shadows. The moons shone down on the plane of mortality, and any passerby who saw the monstrous shape silhouetted by their glow would have turned and fled, certain that a demon was come among them.

Haskill sped silently through the verdant hills, long strides eating up the ground. His eyes were fixed on the tower of white-gold shining in the distant moonlight. He knew not of any precise location, but Madness called to Madness. Like a hound pursuing its quarry, he would follow.

The hills gave way, sloping gently down to the water’s edge. Reeds rustled in the night breeze, and frogs croaking blended in harmony with the gentle lap of wavelets upon the lakeshore. Haskill scanned the shallows, his daedric eyes seeing through the night’s shadows with ease. He

must

be here. He

must

. Where else could he possibly be?

Then he spotted it. A pale shape lay curled on its side, a clump of reeds being the only thing keeping its head above the water’s surface. Long silver hair flung out like silk floating upon the water.

Haskill gave a cry, lunging forward through the reeds and sending frogs and insects leaping for their lives. The daedra fell at his lord’s side with a splash, hovering trembling claws over the bruised shoulder, sudden dread rooting him to the spot. What if it was Jyggalag still?

The chamberlain swallowed back his fear. If Jyggalag was before him, at least he would die having returned to the one who had once been his lord, not fleeing from him

like a beaten cur

.

Sliding gnarled claws beneath the lean form and lifting it from the reeds, Haskill saw with a moment of nausea the ugly wound just above his lord’s heart. Not a scrap of the Raver’s fine raiment or the armor of Order remained on him, and deep scratches scored his chest, as though Jyggalag had tried to claw the mad heart from his breast with his own hands. But it was the wound which Haskill himself had inflicted that caused him the most pain at the sight.

“My lord?” Haskill whispered, cradling the limp form. “Master, can you hear me?”

No reply. The silver head lolled, not a breath stirring from lips as white as death. Haskill placed his ear to the scarred chest, desperately seeking any hint of life.

Silence.

“Prince!” the chamberlain cried with more urgency, giving the limp form a shake, each passing second of silence only serving to increase his desperation. “O Prince, awake! Do not let this cursed Order claim you!”

But only distant frogs answered him.

Haskill shook his head, his eyes burning with unshed tears. This could not be

so

. A daedra could never die. Had not Azura said

madness would prevail

, and Sheogorath would walk Oblivion once more?

And yet, what if she was wrong?

A sob rattled from the thrall’s chest. Tears fell to dampen his lord’s lifeless face. Haskill had never felt such

all-encompassing

despair, cradling the one he had vowed to serve and protect, and who he had abandoned to death. What was he to do now?

“You are chamberlain to the Prince! You are as much an extension of him as his own right hand.”

Through his grief, the words of Staada returned to his mind unbidden. Haskill almost cast them away as a reminder of his failure, but something gave him pause.

Looking up, he saw the tower of white-gold glimmering in the moonlight far across the water. The last time he had seen that shining anchor of mortality had been when he lay a forsaken thrall in this very marsh.

The Raver had found him here.

The chamberlain looked down again at his lord. There was nothing else but to try.

Encasing the side of the Madgod’s face in one monstrous claw, Haskill vowed to beg forgiveness if he overstepped himself by his next actions.

“Sheogorath,” he whispered, “come back!”

Haskill leaned down and pressed his lips to the

cold

brow.

As soon as he did, he felt something go out from him, like an exhaled breath. Whether it was a fragment of madness, the aspect of Sheogorath imparted to him, or aught else, Haskill did not know, but it left him dizzy and swaying.

Sheogorath gasped. He surged up, nearly headbutting the chamberlain, rolling onto his side and retching violently. Foul gray sludge flecked with crystal splashed into the water.

“My lord!” Haskill shook the spots from his vision, all his instincts surging to protection. “My lord, you live!”

The Madgod did not reply, another spasm of vomiting overtaking him. Haskill pulled back the silver hair from his lord’s face, knowing the only solution was to let the

dregs of

Order expel fully.

At last the heaving subsided. Sheogorath spat, his hands trembling as though he was truly as old and frail as his appearance spoke to. Haskill knelt at his side, a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“My liege?” he ventured.

Sheogorath squinted at him through watery eyes. Not blue eyes, but as golden and shining as bright fire.

“Haskill,” he croaked out, “you look terrible.”

A lump formed in Haskill’s throat at the sound of his lord’s voice, but he swallowed it back, managing a smile.

“If my lord will forgive a mere kettle’s opinion,” he replied, “the pot is not looking his best either.”

Sheogorath almost laughed, but a fit of coughing came instead. When it passed, the Madgod gazed about them at the night-dark marsh.

“Mundus,” he guessed. “I was wondering why I felt so confined.”

He made to stand, but his legs buckled under him, and he collapsed in the shallows. Haskill put an arm about him for support.

“You are much weakened, my lord,” the chamberlain reminded him as the Madgod tried again, his feet as unsteady as a newborn fawn’s. “I passed a mortal inn while searching for you. Perhaps we might lodge there until your strength returns.”

Sheogorath did not object to this suggestion, though his attention was focused on putting one foot in front of the other, leaning heavily on his servant. Haskill assisted him through the treacherous marsh until they reached the solidity of the shoreline. As they did, a new thought came to Haskill’s mind.

“I am loathe to ask it of you, lord,” the chamberlain said, “but if we are to sojourn among mortals, a glamour will be most essential. I do not think the mortals would take kindly to my foul form, or you in such a state of undress.”

The Madgod looked down at himself, then at Haskill. “Bah, mortals and their cursed sensibilities,” he muttered.

Despite his complaint, he laid a hand on Haskill’s chest, and enchantment shrouded them both. By Oblivion’s standards, it was quite a flimsy disguise, and no daedra would have been fooled for a moment, but mortal eyes did not see so deeply. To the races of Nirn, they appeared as mere travelers, hooded and cloaked to stave off the night chill. An elderly noble and his servant were much less conspicuous than the Prince of Madness and his daedric chamberlain.

Progress was slow up the grassy hill, and Sheogorath paused frequently, his breathing still ragged. It pained Haskill to see his lord in such a state. The Prince whose energy had seemed boundless could now not even crest a hill by his own strength.

The moons were at their zenith by the time lights appeared through the trees. Approaching the inn, Haskill felt his

hackles

rising at the stench of mortality. But there was no other haven to be had.

The fire was well stoked, though the innkeeper drowsed at the counter and stifled a yawn as the two disguised daedra approached. Haskill, still in a mode of fierce protectiveness, took it upon himself to do the talking, both to spare his lord the effort and to prevent the Madgod’s silver tongue from getting them into any trouble.

Fortunately, the disguises worked, and a room was procured for a travel-weary noble leaning heavily on the arm of his dutiful servant, as well as a skin of wine. Haskill had a moment of panic when the subject of payment arose, only to feel a small sack of coins pressed into his palm. He did not look at Sheogorath, but wondered which patron would awaken the next morning to find himself relieved of his purse.

The moment the door

closed and they were away from prying eyes

, Sheogorath’s knees buckled. The glamour fell from both daedra, and Haskill was barely able to ensure his lord collapsed upon the worn mattress and not the hard wooden floor. The Madgod’s chest heaved with labored breaths, ugly red streaks spreading from the wound Haskill had inflicted upon Jyggalag.

“My lord,” Haskill pressed cautiously, “how do you feel?”

With difficulty, the Madgod pushed himself into a sitting position. “Lad, I’d answer that, but even your mad mind would not be able to take it.”

Haskill shivered. He could not begin to comprehend what the Raver had been through—to have his entire being simply

replaced.

Nodding wordlessly, he offered forth the wineskin.

Sheogorath took a sip and scowled. “Wine,” he muttered, passing the skin back to his chamberlain. “Vinegar, more like. What I’d give for a draught of the Isles’ finest blackberry right about now.”

Ripping a corner from the blanket, Haskill soaked

it

in the rejected beverage. At least it could serve to bathe the Raver’s wounds before they festered.

Haskill bit his tongue before asking his next question, recalling what had happened the last time he had made such an inquiry. “Lord, may I tend to your hurts?”

Sheogorath looked down at the stab wound on his shoulder as though bewildered by its presence. “Strange, I’d thought Jyggalag far too proud to allow any wound to himself. Whoever got him must have been a clever lad.”

Haskill wanted to sink into the ground rather than be reminded of his deed.

His tongue felt like lead.

But his lord had a right to know.

“That one, lord,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “was me.”“You?” the Madgod’s golden gaze shot up to fix on the chamberlain in surprise. Haskill shrank back.“He had me, lord,” the chamberlain croaked out, though his excuses sounded foolish to his ears. “He said you were dead, and I supposed myself free from my vow to do you no harm. On my oath, had I thought otherwise I never would have lifted steel against you!”

Sheogorath’s laugh was so sudden that Haskill flinched. “By Padomay, I knew you had it in you!” crowed the Raver. “Sanguine owes me a drink—nay, ten drinks for the circumstances! To draw a single drop of Jyggalag’s blood, I’d wager even Molag Bal would faint dead away at the mere prospect, and here look what you did! I’m so proud of you, lad!”

Haskill’s face remained stony, his eyes averted. Sheogorath saw the grimace on his servant’s face, and the laughter in his eyes diminished, his expression sobering. He reached out and laid a

gentle

hand on

the

chamberlain’s

scale-covered

shoulder.

“Do not hold it against yourself, Haskill,” he said with such a sincerity that Haskill looked up in surprise. He had never heard his lord speak with such conviction. “I would have done the same, if I could. You acted where I could not. There is no fault, no dishonor.”

Haskill bowed his head. He felt as though a mountain had just been lifted from his shoulders. “

As you will it

, my lord,” he whispered.

Taking up the wine and rag, the chamberlain bathed Sheogorath’s wounds as best he could. The Madgod bore the sting of the alcohol with only an occasional

grimace

. There were no bandages to be had, so Haskill could only clean and dry thoroughly before sitting back and leaving the Madgod to his rest.

“Tomorrow,” Sheogorath murmured, already half-asleep as he spoke, “we make for the Isles.”

Bile rose in Haskill’s throat unbidden. He almost did not want to see what had become of his lord’s realm. What had Order wreaked on their home?

But he replied only, “Yes, my lord.”

Sheogorath lay back, and was asleep in moments, his hair flaming silver across the pillow. Haskill sat across from him on his own bed and

gazed into the shadows of the room

. Tiredness weighed upon him like stones. Even so, it was

a

long

time

before he

could allow himself to

sleep.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The first thing Haskill felt was a cold wind. Cold, dry...dead. It chilled him right through his scaly hide. He stood upon the Fringe of the Madgod’s realm, every muscle braced in anticipation, but his breath was stolen by the sight before him.The Shivering Isles was gray. From the dry soil to the crumbling obelisks of crystal to the clouded sky above, it seemed as though every trace of color had been drained from the once-vibrant realm. Even the waves lapping the shore felt muted.Haskill stood in stunned silence for several moments before remembering his mission. He scanned his surroundings, straining for any sign of movement, but other than a few leafless trees rattling in the bleak wind, all was still.“My lord, it is safe,” he called behind him.The realm seemed to shiver as its master passed the borders. Sheogorath looked a sad sight indeed—silver hair hanging tangled past his shoulders, a ragged tunic his only shield against the biting cold. Golden eyes that had once laughed with every care and no care at once were now sunk deep in his gaunt face.The Madgod gazed about at the ruin of Order, leaning heavily on Haskill’s arm. More pain etched itself on his face than Haskill had ever seen, even in his deepest ravings.“My realm,” Sheogorath whispered, lurching forward on unsteady feet. Then said he again, his voice growing in volume until it echoed in the desolation, “My realm! My realm!”The pain in his voice made Haskill want to weep. He wished he could do more, but he could only support his weakened lord’s stumbling steps. Then he glanced behind them and gasped.“My lord,” he urged, “Look!”Behind them, wherever the Madgod’s foot had trod, a faint green was beginning to appear through the gray soil. It grew even as the two daedra watched, shoots of grass pushing their way upward, and even a flower bud here and there. It was so strange a sight among the ruin, but it thrilled Haskill’s heart in some way he could not name. Perhaps all was not lost.“Lord Sheogorath?”Haskill’s sensed snapped back to alertness. He placed himself in front of his master at the new voice, claws raised and ready to tear.Peeking from behind a shattered tree was a small face. Golden eyes peered at the two daedra above round cheeks and gangly limbs. Haskill’s breath caught in his throat.“Staada?” he found himself asking.For it was the golden daedra who emerged from her hiding place, her eyes wide with disbelief. Her form was little more than a child’s, a consequence, Haskill suspected, of her death upon the end of Order’s blade. But the Isles had re-formed her, a loyal servant of her master.“My lord,” she said, hesitating on approach as though she feared an illusion. The pinions of wings too large for her small frame dragged in the dust behind her. She knelt before Sheogorath, her head bowed. “My lord, we thought you dead. Order...it overtook us. We could not stand against Jyggalag.”Sheogorath shuddered at the name. “Do not speak of him, lass,” he said, but even his command was weary. “Is there anyone left?”“Few, lord,” Staada replied. “Some hid in the swamps or in the deepest caves. But the Isles betrayed all but the most cunning. Even this reborn visage is not my first. The forces of Order swept your realm like locusts, and many of those who were slain rose up again in their service.”She shivered. “Those of us that survived only did so by seeing what he did to our home, and going mad at the sight.”Haskill too felt a chill. But it was Sheogorath who now stood firm. Leaning down, he laid his hand upon her head as though in blessing.“You were doomed, lass,” he told her. “Your fool’s hope has done me proud. I now see that this realm was destined for death, for Order. But no more. Let madness take the Isles once again, for I am returned.”His words, though true, did little to ease Haskill’s nerves. When his lord was at his most lucid was also when he was the most dreadful.“Haskill,” Sheogorath commanded then, “Take me where I lead you.”“Yes, my lord.” the chamberlain bowed, eager for a sense of usefulness. “We make for Cylarne?”“Nay,” Sheogorath replied. He did not elaborate. Puzzled, Haskill exchanged a look with Staada, but she seemed as mystified as he.The three proceeded deeper into the Isles, and wherever the Madgod’s feet touched the earth, green sprang up in his wake. A few more survivors appeared, trailing after their lord like so many ragged ducklings. The vast majority were daedra. Haskill was not surprised at this—daedra could be reborn, but mortal dead were dead alike, though their souls would walk the deep places of the Isles forevermore.Midday was approaching by the time Haskill saw their destination—a great tree on a hilltop, its branches gnarled and dead. Between its roots opened a gap like a maw.“This place, my lord?” Haskill asked apprehensively. If he had encountered this place before Order’s ruin, he had no recollection of it.“Aye, this place.” Sheogorath’s voice was ragged, and Haskill knew what little strength the Raver might have regained upon entry to his demense was already flagging.Staada halted at the entrance beneath the great tree, giving a silent nod to Haskill that he should continue before turning to tend to the small procession that had followed them. The chamberlain went on, though somewhat nervous, escorting his lord into the door between the roots.“There,” Sheogorath said, hardly giving Haskill’s eyes a chance to adjust to the dim light. “The Fountainhead is below us. It has dried up now, but I shall restore it.”“Fountainhead?” Haskill echoed, still gazing about the decidedly uninteresting cave. Roots hung in tangled strands from the ceiling, the earthen floor uneven and peppered with stray rocks. He could not see any other passages in the wide space. However, that did not mean veiled tunnels were nonexistent. “How shall you restore it?”“Leave that to me, lad.” the Madgod broke from his hold on Haskill’s arm and trod on unsteady feet to the center of the room. The chamberlain started forward as his lord’s knees appeared to buckle, but this time the Raver’s movement was intentional. He sat upon the floor and lay back, folding his hands upon his breast. Green continued to spring up around him until it formed a sort of bed. He looked like some great king lying in repose, the weak light streaming in from the entrance casting a pale glow upon his beggar’s garb.“You are a good servant, Haskill,” Sheogorath said, his eyes fluttering shut even as he spoke. “For now, I give you only one more command: Don’t wake me.”“Wake you? My lord!” Haskill’s heart quickened with terror, but Sheogorath’s breathing deepened, golden eyes falling shut. All the held-in tension of pain and weariness left him like an outflowing stream. For the first time since silver had begun to score his hair what seemed an eternity ago, the Madgod relaxed.Haskill stared at the sleeping Prince, feeling utterly helpless. How had he only just got his lord back only to lose him again? Would things never again be the way they were?Staada found him crouched beside the Madgod’s slumbering form. The childlike daedra observed the Prince for a few moments, then the chamberlain.“Haskill,” she said at length, “there is little you can do for him like this. Come; the survivors need a leader, and with our lord in such a state, that task falls to you.”The thrall covered his head, raking his scales with his claws. “Cannot you fulfill that role?” he asked, his voice near to a whimper. “You are still the captain of the guard. The people will obey you.”“Yes,” Staada admitted, “but they will serve you. Though he would never say so aloud, you are Sheogorath’s strong right hand. An order from you is an order from him. Even madness must bend to his command.”Her voice softened at her next words. “It is what he would have of you.”Haskill knew she was right. Slowly, every instinct fighting against it, he forced his long limbs to unfold and push himself upright. His daedra’s form towered over Staada’s childlike one. She took his hand, and side by side the two thralls turned toward the waiting daylight.So the Isles began to rebuild, as Sheogorath remained in his deathlike sleep.For six long moons.Haskill tried to distract himself by tending to the needs of the people. He sent emissaries to Nirn in hopes of drawing a few maddened souls to the Raver’s demense, but gave strict orders to keep clear of other Princes. The last thing the Isles needed was an incursion by one of Sheogorath’s many enemies while he was weakened.Yet with each passing day his lord did not awaken, Haskill felt hope fading into shadow.The chamberlain spent more and more time glued to his lord’s side throughout the long days and longer nights. He ate little, and spoke even less, sitting as though rooted to the cave floor. Staada kept all others from the cave, though she herself would visit with food, or perhaps a tattered blanket whenever the chamberlain inevitably could no longer stave off exhausted slumber.One day, Haskill noticed a faint darkening at the roots of Sheogorath’s silk-white hair. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it was the barest trace of rusty hue, pushing against the colorless silver wrought by Order.The thrall’s heart leaped within him. The demented, paranoid despair that had sucked him down these past months was turned on its head, a wild, manic joy exploding through him like fireworks. The remnants of Order could not maintain their hold! There was still hope!Unable to restrain himself, Haskill performed a small dance of glee. He then quickly regained his composure, looking around to see if anyone had witnessed him, but the cave was empty save for the slumbering Raver.Haskill squatted again by his lord’s side as though the Prince would awaken at any moment. He did not, but this did not stop the chamberlain from waiting expectantly, his veins thrumming with hope renewed.Days passed, and the lord of the Isles did not stir. His hair however continued to push out the silvery hues of Jyggalag and regain again the red flame of madness. Haskill remained stalwart, feeling in his mad soul that the moment was coming soon when the Isles would again ring with the laughter of its lord.Dawn broke over the realm. Haskill stood at the cave entrance, and gazed out at the sight before him.The flora and fauna of the Shivering Isles was very nearly restored to its former glory. Trees in full leaf were ruffled by a wind that no longer smelled of ash, but of flowers blooming. Towns were being rebuilt, the Fringe’s fortifications were guarded by reborn thralls under Staada’s command.The capital of Cylarne remained a blasted ruin, however, with only a few daedra emerging there who would leave for greener country almost at once. Haskill wondered if Sheogorath want the city rebuilt, or find a new place to set his throne when he awoke.If he awoke.The chamberlain shook his head vigorously, scattering these thoughts from his mind. His lord would awaken. He must.Stifling a yawn, Haskill rubbed his tired eyes. How long had it been since he had gotten a proper sleep? Eons, it seemed like. Perhaps he ought to leave the cave for a little, see how the rebuilding was progressing.Drawing his hand from his face, the thrall paused. He stared uncomprehendingly at the smooth lines of his palm. A mortal hand. Pale skin. No scales, no jagged claws.Haskill touched his face. His heart began to beat faster, realization creeping upon him with agonizing slowness. Smooth features. Hair where before had been knotted horns. He looked down at himself and saw a tunic and breeches, rather than the craggy hide of his unclothed daedra’s form.A footstep sounded behind him, but Haskill almost did not want to look. After so long, it seemed it could not be true. His heart beat a wild frenzy as he forced his head to turn and look at the one drawing up beside him.Sheogorath squinted out at the morning sun from glittering amber eyes. The white fabric of his blouse hung loosely on his wasted frame, long hair like tongues of flame cascading down his shoulders. His eyes were sunken in above an unkempt beard. But it was he. The Madgod walked Oblivion once more.“My…” Haskill almost choked on his own tongue. “My lord?”The Raver inhaled a deep breath of the crisp morning air, letting it out in a satisfied sigh. “Aye, lad?”Without realizing, a flash of anger rushed through Haskill’s veins. All the stress and terror of the past months could no longer be bottled up. Now it must explode.“Don’t you ‘Aye, lad,’ me!” he burst out. “Have you any idea what you put me through? Jyggalag? His destruction of your realm, and me left picking up the pieces? All these months sitting and waiting, not knowing if you would ever awaken, thinking you dead? Not knowing if you would wake with blue eyes? By Padomay, I could throttle you this very moment! I could—“Haskill broke off, realizing with a rush of terror that his hands were bunched in the Madgod’s collar, their faces inches apart. He quickly let go his hold, not knowing whether to scream or weep, or perhaps both. Sheogorath smiled down at him.“You waited for me, lad, and here I am,” said he, and his voice was kinder than Haskill had ever heard it. Then his eyes sparked with mischief. “Catch me, if you can!”Before Haskill could even register this statement, the Madgod turned and sprinted down the hill, barefoot, his hair streaming behind him like a bright flame in the morning sun.“My lord, wait!” Haskill raced after him, all anger momentarily forgotten. “You mustn’t exert yourself so soon!”But his cries fell on deaf ears, for Sheogorath did not slow. Haskill, now unused to his chamberlain’s glamour, stumbled whenever his mortal feet were jabbed by a twig or pebble. The two daedra flashed past Staada ascending the hill with breakfast for the chamberlain. Haskill could not spare breath, but he glimpsed a grin lighting her golden face.Sheogorath did not run far. In a field of golden flowers he tripped and fell, and Haskill, carried by his own momentum, stumbled over the prone form of the Raver and sprawled headfirst into the blooms with a curse.The two daedra sat up, both puffing. Sheogorath’s hair was speckled with flower petals. Haskill was certain he looked much the same. Wiping dirt from his brow, he cast his lord an exasperated look.“My lord, are you certain you should be exerting yourself like this?” he inquired, striving to keep his voice as level as possible. “You haven’t eaten in months.”Sheogorath’s hands quivered, but his countenance was brighter than Haskill had seen since before the nightmare of Jyggalag had begun. Even the golden flowers seemed to turned their faces towards him.“Ahh, I feel more alive than I have in many a long day,” the Madgod said. “Having your entire soul forced out of you and replaced with its complete antithesis is dreadful business. Not something I’d recommend by any means.”The sensation of wishing he knew what went on inside his lord’s head was all too familiar to Haskill, but it had been so long since he had last felt such that he could not help but smile. “Your subjects will be overjoyed to have you back, my lord.”Sheogorath lay back in the flowers and stretched, all his joints emitting a small cacophony of pops and crackles. “How has everything fared during my nap?”“As well as could be hoped for, my lord,” Haskill replied. “Captain Staada has been overseeing rebuilding efforts. The people still fear to go near Cylarne, though. The memory of Order is still too near.”“Oh, I never liked Cylarne much anyway.” Sheogorath waved a dismissive hand. “Too far north, gets horribly damp and chilly in the winter. And such a long walk from the Fringe! Nay, we shall rebuild someplace else, and now that I am returned, things will progress much faster.”“Where shall we build?”Sheogorath sat up, looking up the hill to where the tree of his awakening was now in full leaf. “How about right here? ‘Tis a prime location, right on the border of swamp and forest. I can luncheon by the bog and have tea time among the mycelia!”Haskill managed to filter out the relevant information from this statement. “It will be done, my lord. Shall your new city have the same name?”“Of course not!” Sheogorath looked hugely offended at this suggestion. “We shall call it…”He paused, his brows knitting together for a moment before inspiration struck him. “We shall call it...New Sheoth!”The absurdity of his situation could no longer be ignored. “Padomay preserve us!” Haskill muttered.“What was that?”The blood drained from Haskill’s face. “F-Forgive me, my lord,” he stammered out, “I only meant—that is, I did not intend to—“Sheogorath clapped him on the back, nearly winding the chamberlain and cutting off his hapless dithering. “Lighten up, lad! ‘Tis good to see that nerve of yours on occasion. I didn’t hire you to be a yes-man, after all!”Haskill exhaled. He looked to the Madgod again, a worried line creasing his brow. “My lord, the Prince Azura said that what happened to you shall happen again,” he said. “At the end of each age of the world, Jyggalag will resurface, and the Isles shall be laid low as they have been.”Silence fell for some moments, Sheogorath’s glittering gaze thoughtful and distant. Sunlight glinted in his hair as red as flame.“The end of the age is a long ways off, is it not?” the Raver said at last. “And who is to say Jyggalag will be able to return, now that I know to expect him? I think we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it!”He stood, tottering briefly, and his eyes lit with his smile so unpredictable. “Race you back up the hill!”“My lord!” Haskill scrambled to his feet and sprinted after his lord. Only this time, a smile was on his lips.The Shivering Isles watched as the Madgod trod the stones of his realm once again.All these memories passed through Haskill’s mind in a moment. He sat at the gates of the Fringe, fingers tapping on the desk before him, the metronome ticking away the moments until doom was upon them once more.The ages had rolled on. And each time, Greymarch had ravaged the Isles and its lord, reducing the flame of Madness to mere cinders. And each time, Haskill barely escaped with his life. Sheogorath had tried to evade his fate any number of ways. But the hounding silver had always caught up to him. Who could say if this time would be any different?The gate before him shimmered, and a mortal stepped through. A pair of eyes fixed on Haskill. Eyes already half-mad with grief, that shone with echoes of dragonfire. This mortal had seen things that would send anyone to the Madgod’s Asylums.Perhaps Haskill’s worries were misplaced.The chamberlain sat straight-backed. Lacing his fingers before him, he addressed the newcomer.“You approach the Shivering Isles,” he declared. “Through the door behind me lies the realm of Sheogorath, Prince of Madness, Lord of the Never-There.”