36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 2

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.