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The netchiman's wife who carried the egg of Vivec within
her went looking for the lands of the Indoril. Along
the journey many spirits came to see her and offer instructions
to her son-daughter, the future glorious invisible warrior-poet
of Vvardenfell, Vivec.
The first spirit threw his arms about her and hugged
his knowledge in tight. The netchiman's wife became
soaked in the Incalculable Effort. The egg was delighted
and did somersaults inside her, bowing to the five corners
of the world and saying:
'Thus whoever performs this holy act shall be proud
and mighty among the rest!'
The second spirit was too aloof and acted above his
station so much that he was driven off by a headache
spell. The third spirit, At-Hatoor, came down to the
netchiman's wife while she relaxed for a while under
an Emperor Parasol. His garments were made from implications
of meaning, and the egg looked at them three times.
The first time Vivec said:
'Ha, it means nothing!'
After looking a second time he said:
'Hmm, there might be something there after all.'
Finally, giving At-Hatoor's garments a sidelong glance,
he said:
'Amazing, the ability to infer significance in something
devoid of detail!'
'There is a proverb,' At-Hatoor said, and then he left.
The fourth spirit came with the fifth, for they were
cousins. They could ghost touch and probed inside the
egg to find its core. Some say Vivec at this point was
shaped like a star with its penumbra broken off; others,
that it looked like a revival of vanished forms.
'From my side of the family,' the first cousin said,
'I bring you a series of calamities that will bring
about the end of the universe.'
'And from my side,' the second cousin said, 'I bring
you all the primordial marriages that must happen
within them, each one.'
At this the egg laughed. 'I am given too much to bear
so young. I must have been born before.'
And then the sixth spirit appeared, the Black Hands
Mephala, who taught the Velothi at the beginning of
days all the arts of sex and murder. Its burning heart
melted the eyes of the netchiman's wife and took the
egg from her belly with six cutting strokes. The egg-image,
however, could see into what it had been before in ancient
times, when the earth still cooled, and was not blinded.
It joined with the Daedroth and took its former secrets,
leaving a few behind to keep the web of the world from
disentangling. Then the Black Hands Mephala put the egg
back into the netchiman's wife and blew on her with magic
breath until the hole closed up. But the Daedroth did
not give her back her eyes, saying:
' God hath three keys; of birth, of machines, and
of the words between.'
Within this Sermon the wise may find one half of these
keys.
The ending of the words is ALMSIVI. |
