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THE FIRST LIFE
It was a beautiful day. Sheogorath was there.
"Love me," he said.
And M'aiq did.
Eventually there was another M'aiq, and there has been a M'aiq ever since.
THE SECOND LIFE
Passwall was a gate town outside the walls bordering Sheogorath's realm, the Shivering Isles; the Isles were conventional enough to have four gates, thus four Passwalls. Occasionally there was a bit of confusion but for the most part everyone ended up working in the right shops and going home to the right houses and having the right children most of the time. M'aiq and his family lived in the fourth.
Life was good. He traveled to the more orderly plane of Mundus frequently on business. A merchant, he found a ready market in the elves and humans of Tamriel's cities. Many of them assumed that his exotic goods were from Elseweyr. He rarely told them otherwise. He'd seen Elseweyr too, of course, and it seemed as nice a place to be from as any. It was warm. Lord Sheogorath was a Khajiit there, at least in pictures. M'aiq had met the Madgod in person on several occasions and found him exquisite but not remarkably Khajiit-like. Certainly a great deal less Khajiiti than M'aiq himself, who was by all lights a fine specimen.
It was on one of these excursions that M'aiq discovered that the people of Mundus found it very, very odd when he shared his news of the world. The most commonplace banal things, even: "This world seems unfinished. M'aiq suspects it is yet in development, the gods yet assembling. M'aiq is unsure." This seemed to trouble them, and they had no reply for him.
"Something in M'aiq's soul years for calipers, but he has never seen one," he would remark. Just to make conversation. "Perhaps some day he will find some."
And they would stare, their faces blank. M'aiq learned to keep his silence. Eventually the right time would come, he had faith in that. The right time, and calipers.
THE THIRD LIFE
M'aiq died as a mere kitten. It was harvest time and butchering time, and she thought it fascinating to watch the fat rendered from the butchered animals be poured into the little molds with the impressions of flowers and such on the bottom so that they stood out in crisp detail once the blocks had cooled and been unmolded. A startled mule knocked over the heavy kettle: years later, people would speak in hushed tones of the terrible rendering error that caused her death. Fortunately, her youngest brother was also named M'aiq. The family legacy lived on.
THE FOURTH LIFE
A great arena was built in Tamriel, and for the first time M'aiq felt secure in her existence and the existence of others. Something in her soul longed for calipers, and had ever since she was a tiny kit, but she felt confident that eventually she would discover what they were and obtain some.
One fine day in Passwall, Lord Sheogorath himself strode through the gate to the Isles and stood there in the town square. She shoved her way through layers of townsfolk to see him properly, and found that he was as exquisite as ever and that his particolored suit reflected the changing fashions of the mortal world--a fine jacket and short, tight trousers. M'aiq remembered the Madgod stories her grandfather had told her as a kit, after the shrewdness of his mind had gone slack with age and amusement herbs. Those stories were most inappropriate and M'aiq doubted her grandfather had done a third of the things with Lord Sheogorath that he claimed, in considerable detail, to have done. But she noticed those trousers, so smoothly-woven they concealed nothing and so tight they could have been gloves, and she flushed powerfully beneath her fur.
He was carrying a great load of ancient-looking rolled papers, for some reason. He was the Madgod, and he needed no reason for anything he did, ever, but he looked benevolent and expectant. That boded well.
"Scrolls!" he roared, throwing his armful of them up in the air. Some of them took wing and flew about, some detonated, and one turned into a sweetroll. It dropped into the fountain, and crawled back out again as a mudcrab.
"Take 'em!" laughed their lord. "Take 'em all! Pick 'em up and eat 'em! Burn 'em! Wear 'em as fashionable hats! Those scrolls--" here his voice dropped to a terrible, whispering growl "--are the eldest that this brave land has ever seen. AND THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM."
And then he laughed uproariously. "I defy any of you to find me an elder scroll than these! First to bring one gets slaughtered for tea!" And then He disappeared in a cataclysm of lightning and flame and the smell of violet char.
M'aiq picked up one that had rolled to a stop at her feet. She unrolled it and read the fine antique handwriting across it. This is what it said:
NOT YET
She picked up another, unrolled it and read it. Its words were the same. A third, even: still the same. M'aiq took the three elder scrolls to her home and put them away safely to wait, and went about her business as usual. She lived a fine long life in the fourth Passwall, was greatly loved by her family and children, and was venerable for many years before she died.
Her final request was that her son M'aiq take up the elder scrolls. Her final wish was for calipers, but none were to be found.
THE SIXTH LIFE
Dutifully, M'aiq took up the scrolls' custodianship.
For a time he avoided becoming involved in worldly pursuits, anxious to be free of any constraints when the scrolls chose to alert him to their purpose. He learned to play instruments, but only those he could easily carry, and he took lovers, but only those he could leave, and he took many, many drugs--but only those which seemed like a good idea at the time.
The scrolls never changed, and M'aiq was obligated to live his entire life as a magnificent rock star. The scrolls passed to his youngest son, along with a great deal of moonsugar and an ancient drygoods shopping list upon which "calipers" was the only item left uncrossed.
THE SEVENTH LIFE
One sunny morning, before breakfast, M'aiq withdrew from their chest the elder scrolls that had been placed so solemnly in his care. It was his habit and custom to do this, as had been his father's custom, and his father's mother in her time. Carefully, he unrolled the first.
NOT YET, it said, as it had done all his life.
He unrolled the second.
NOT YET, it said. This, too, was as it had been.
He unrolled the third.
It said NOW.
So M'aiq groomed himself thoroughly, packed up a bundle of his nicest clothes and a great deal of moonsugar and a fishing pole, and walked out of the fourth Passwall into the province of Morrowind, which he had never seen. It was clear to him that it was what he should do, though he couldn't say how he knew it. His life had been a quiet one, a simple and unremarkable one as a fisherman and trader, but as he walked and thought and walked some more, it became obvious to him that he knew much: many things, in fact, that others did not. He would tell them, would M'aiq. But he would only tell them some.
The people of Mundus had become so strange while his family had stayed in the Shivering Isles, and forgotten so much!
M'aiq kept for the most part to the islands of the Sheogorad region, being himself a fisherman. The name of the place made him feel more at home. He taught travellers some of the things he knew, such as why horses could not be ridden. That seemed to be very important to people, this riding of horses. Where did such an idea even come from? Why was it so important to sit on animals? M'aiq did not understand it. But it was not M'aiq's place to judge.
Many years passed in this way. A mudcrab crawled up out of the sea while he was fishing of an afternoon, and greeted him in a most familiar way. It was fortunate, if odd, that M'aiq understood the languages of all things, but that was another thing he did not find it productive to question.
"You look so like your grandmother," said the mudcrab.
"M'aiq did not know his grandmother," M'aiq said, "so he cannot say. Perhaps you look like your grandmother too."
"Your grandmother was charming," the crab continued. "I remember her from my very first day. When I crawled out of the fountain, she was there picking up scrolls, and I followed her home, though she did not know it. I travelled with your father around the Isles, though he did not see me either. And now I have found you. You are far from home."
"This is true," said M'aiq. "But M'aiq is a fisherman, the same he always has been, and does what he must do. Would you like an ash yam?"
The mudcrab waved a thick claw. "Thank you, but no. I am a great merchant to heroes and I cannot stay long. I have responsibilities!"
A dunmer adventurer approached. Her armor was disproportionately excellent, given the local degree of threat, and she was carrying a remarkable number of potions and extra weapons. M'aiq knew at once that she was the hero. He could not say how he knew, but he did. It was the first time he had ever met one, and he tried very hard to keep his voice from shaking as he answered her questions about the dwemer--he felt sure that he was nattering on and speaking nonsense, since of course he had no idea where they had gone, or if they had gone anywhere, or why. But the hero nodded as though everything he said made sense. So that was a good thing. And then her red eyes drifted down to the spot a few steps off where the mudcrab had withdrawn to groom its mouthparts. This seemed to remind her of something.
"What do you know about a mudcrab merchant?" she asked.
The crab eagerly made a series of wet clicks, which the hero showed no sign of understanding.
"M'aiq has heard of this," M'aiq said.
"Tell her I'm right here!" chittered the crab. The hero idly fingered her weapon, keeping her eyes on M'aiq. She did not understand the languages of all things as he did. He felt the spirits of his ancestors stir within him, generations of fine Khajiit tracing their line back to the Madgod's own majestic trousers, and M'aiq heard them all say the same thing: DON'T TELL HER. IT WILL BE MORE AMUSING.
"They have all the money," M'aiq mused. He scratched himself under the chin, which always felt lovely.
"Oh, you wouldn't. You would not, you--"
"Mudcrabs, taking over everything."
"YOU FILTHY CAT BASTARD!"
"They already run..." M'aiq began, and paused. He was speaking for the gods themselves, here. Where should he send her? Somewhere relaxing.
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH GOLD I HAVE, MADAM HERO, IF YOU'D JUST LOOK DOWN HERE."
"...Pelagiad," M'aiq said. Pelagiad was nice.
The hero nodded, and made a mark on her map. Behind him, M'aiq heard the crab swear mightily and trudge off in the right direction, more or less. He wished them both well.
THE EIGHTH LIFE
M'aiq returned to Passwall after many years in Cyrodiil. He had seen much, travelled far, and told many people many true things. It was a pleasant land.
Above all else, it contained calipers.
His first calipers were a revelation: a broken and abandoned carriage on the road between Leyawiin and Anvil still contained a chest only partially looted by bandits, and inside...there they lay. He picked them up. He rubbed them, carefully, across his whiskered cheeks and the roots of his whiskers thrilled to their touch. He fitted them into his pack, but it felt like he was fitting them into his soul. The caliper-shaped gap was still there, but it no longer gaped quite so deeply. He walked with a lighter step.
The next week he found another one. Months passed before he found more, months in which he informed the hero, a tiny Argonian woman, of many things. Something about horses, and why it was ridiculous to fight while sitting on one. M'aiq had heard his father talk about heroes and their strange horse-related yearnings, but he hadn't even begun to guess at the bizarre uses they dreamed up for the poor beasts. M'aiq himself loved horses, and had enjoyed many of them. Heroes were very strange creatures, M'aiq thought.
He discovered, on an autumn evening just outside Anvil, that the caliper-shaped void in his soul was deep enough to contain precisely twenty calipers. He picked up his twentieth caliper, tucked it next to the others in his pack, and realized he no longer knew what to do.
He unrolled the elder scrolls.
NOW, said the first. He rolled it back up. WELL DONE, said the second. And that was that, it seemed.
When he returned to Passwall, it was in shambles--the Greymarch's crystalline order-horrors had arisen as the old stories said they would, and had tramped through and destroyed much of it. His shabby little house, gone! All the things he had left there, gone! His sweetroll--the one that had been sitting on the table waiting for him to return--that was most definitely gone. Dismay!
M'aiq breathed deeply, stepped into the wreckage of his home, and arranged his calipers into a pleasing pattern on the floor. Everything would be all right.
Also, in M'aiq's absence, Lord Sheogorath had become a tiny Argonian woman. This seemed reasonable enough.
THE NINTH LIFE
M'aiq emerged from the soul gem with a bad hangover, and his calipers were missing again.
He sighed, brushed the snow off, and carried on.