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Voryn stepped on the ash to the beat of a heart not his own. It was a march with an horrible sense of finality. The wind carried a melody that burrowed into his head from his ears, like a scavenger digging its claws into a carcass. The notes settled on his chest with a dull ache. Ba-dump, ba-dump, like two strikes of an hammer, the feeling not unlike a dagger, stabbing once and then twice, slashing once and then twice. The repetition stirred something within him and he stopped. He looked at Red Mountain as if it was the one speaking all along. It loomed above him, uncanny and out of this world, with horrible Dwemer machinery at the top -- Dumac's citadel -- the piping like teeth from a beast, sinking into flesh -- ba-dump, ba-dump, the pumping of blood. The glow at the very top, foreboding and profane, tinted the buildings and constructs an ominous red. Veins! Pumping blood, once and then twice (thrice! Three! The sacred number!), he stumbled forward and the mountain grew in size, threatening to fall on him, or swallow him whole in its vastness, or both simultaneously; the world swam and he would drown in it, choke in the ash of Vvardenfell and of the dead at his hands and those who came before--
A hand, cool but gentle, and a harsh face with soft eyes. Sotha Sil sees through him, hears the ancient tones pulsing through him. He feels naked. Laid bare and vulnerable. Voryn's eyes widen, his heart beats faster -- a meaningless cacophony of hearbeats -- and then he blinks, once, twice, thrice, trying to break the spell, but the world is hazy and he feels stuck in a dream where he cannot control himself. He takes a deep breath and he can taste fire and burnt flesh.
Seht's mouth moves and it produces something familiar and like language.
"Of course," Voryn says, and his mouth feels like cotton.
He cuts through the Dwemer, bloodletting to Lorkhan's beautiful song. Slash once and then twice. His fire burns through them and sends them to the ash as ash, and a northern poem names him Sharmat and demiprince, and in his chest swells pride with every verse. His feet dig themselves into the ash and meet the vibrations of the bones of NRN as a rhyme everything at once beating to the same tune, missing god and his doom-drum, beautiful symphony and orchestra of death. Finality leaves a taste of iron on his mouth and when he looks down at his hands they are black with ichor -- Mephala's dark hands, cursed -- but then he sees a regal flash of white and gold and in his throat catches a melody far sweeter than the one hammering at his core, a three syllable name, that settles on his hip, bloody, as an oath, and he kneels. His lord is metal and steam and he cuts through dwemer, Nord, imperial Others with a force ungodly and yet divine and he pulls at his hair because he must be going insane nothing he is seeing makes any sense and yet it does, in the same way one identifies things unreal perfectly in dreams, Dagoth looks at his Khan with unwavering loyalty, as he always did. Voryn's hands fester with boils and they pop and in the pus and ooze are images of freedom and lava and a beautiful mechanical sunrise.
It is his lord who puts a warm hand made of flesh on his shoulder. Skin. Not metal or cold, but warm, with a heart that beats like his own, for the same cause. Voryn snaps completely from his daze. Nerevar grabs his hand and pulls him up. The sounds of battle filter in: swords clashing, officers barking orders. The smell of ash and blood. Voryn rubs his hands together, the motion as real as any other.
"Are you alright, my friend?" His voice is familiar as ever, relief washes over Voryn as lucidity returns. Soul-sickness? He could not afford that. Not now. They need to win this battle, now or never.
"Always, my lord." My friend, my companion, my...
Nerevar nods. "Vehk has sent word that the way in has been secured by our agent. Come."
Nerevar walks away, and Voryn makes to grab him -- his arm, his hand, his hair, anything, and he finds himself falling into a braided white snake that coils around his body, and in its red eyes he finds three smiling traitors wearing the skin of his friends.
Nerevar shakes, Dumac dead at his feet. A huge gash runs across the Hortator's heaving chest. His blood is red like any other, Nerevar bleeds. Is Veloth's blood red, too? Voryn rushes to his lord's side with all haste and supports him when he almost keels over. He quickly looks over the wound: a large cut, from the slash of a blade, and so very deep. Nerevar is bleeding too much, his golden skin is pale and he looks faint. Voryn sits his friend against a nearby rock formation. Hands alight with restoration magic, he places them on his friend's wound.
"You cannot die of blood loss, Nerevar. That would make for a poor song."
Nerevar coughs and smiles weakly. "Vehk would never forgive me."
It closes, albeit badly, and he bleeds still, but far less than before. More magic would not help him further, Voryn notes sadly. Worse yet, it would reopen with movement, but neither of them could rest, not now at least, not when the tools--
The tools. Keening. Sunder. Wraithguard. What was to become of them?
As if reading his mind, Nerevar says, "I want you to guard the tools. I have to... to talk with the others. About what should be done." Nerevar gets up unsteadily, supporting himself on the rocky wall. Nerevar brings their heads together and they touch foreheads. The two stand like this for a moment. Through fire and war, friends until the last, freedom or death. Nerevar whispers a prayer to Azura and leaves without looking back.
Voryn gathers the tools and stands guard in front of the Heart. Alone now, he hears that song again, louder than ever: it shakes the walls of the Chamber, makes his bones hum with power. The Heart calls out to him like a siren. He feels an itch on his hands, like worms crawling on his skin. He eyes the tools like a starving man would a hunk of meat. But he would not. He would not betray Nerevar. The Heart beats, once and then twice. Doom-drum. It gets inside his head, echoes over and over, until all he is is noise, layered and cacophonic and utterly meaningless in its want and lust, power for the sake of power, change and trickery for its sake, the allure of the moons and a corpse cut in half. He participates in the tune, once and then twice, the tap of a bellhammer on its instrument.
Nerevar returns with Almalexia, Vivec, and Sil. Almalexia helps him walk, an arm wrapped around his neck for support.
"We are going to destroy the tools," Nerevar says, still commanding despite his condition.
Three moons. Three white snakes. Perfect sinners. Voryn holds the tools to his chest -- he had put on wraithguard without noticing -- one and then twice, destroy the tools? Impossible, and how would they do that, throw them into the sea of fire below? Do they think they can silence the song so easily? They cannot. Truly, they cannot. Fools! All of them! Voryn takes a step back, clutching the tools for dear life, his sweet melody. Bells ringing in his chest.
"Voryn?" Nerevar asks in a voice too small for him.
"He will not give up the tools," Sil says.
He looks behind them and he sees it! Three shadows behind his lord, each striking him, one two and then three, for their selfish reasons, ugly stepstones step-tones towards an ideal they will never reach. Voryn faces them again. Vivec is tightly clutching his spear still. Sil has flames crackling on his palm. Almalexia's sword is unsheathed. Foul murder! Reeking of mutilation and defilement!
"Traitor," Almalexia hisses, making to strike Voryn, but Nerevar stops her and draws his own sword.
"Then you leave me no choice."
"They will betray you!" Voryn shouts, gesturing wide-eyed at the shadows dancing behind the elves: the dance of his lord's murder. "They will take these things, steal power, lie, murder you--"
One step, two and then three. A blade cuts through his mage robes like butter, and he finds that the blood comes out of him melodically. One, two, and then free. He slumps to the ground, Sunder and Keening clattering. Droplets fall where his hands are, and when he looks up to see the source he sees-- sees a Dwarven machine destroyed at the hands of an Other. Sees Nerevar impaled with Vivec's spear. A golden mask melting in lava. Trueflame growing dim. The Heart Chamber collapsing. The cutting of limbs and the stealing of faces.
Dagoth Ur falls into a dark, long sleep, and in it, he dreams.