Epilogue 7 - Where now?

Nocturnal left them to go down and see to the other women in the necromancer's "surgery". She'd see which ones could be saved, and which were too far changed. Even those might get a second chance in Evergloam, or Moonshadow. She'd be on the lookout for a "stray dog", too.

Azura stayed behind to talk with Clark. "I need to speak with you here on Nirn," she told him. "I can explain things here, without it causing any complications, because you won't remember it when it matters."

Clark was curious. "Why does it matter what I remember?"

"Not what, so much as when," Azura replied, "because my next job for you already happened. You need to follow Clavicus Vile, and prevent him from causing more problems. And don't argue, now. You already did."

"Did what?"

"Travel back into the past. Stop Clavicus Vile from interfering with the Tribunal, and disrupting history. I'll be helping you. We both will. But because it's your past, you won't remember anything about now, or that would cause as many problems as Vile does."

"Will I still be immortal? You'll be sending me back before that happened."

"Yes, because we did that in Moonshadow, where time is ... different. You noticed when you first came, that it's always twilight there; the sun is always just rising or setting. And Evergloam is always night. Time passes the way we want it to pass, even backwards if that's what is needed.

"I'll take you back to Moonshadow, move you back to the right time, and then send you to Vvardenfell. You've visited some of that island, so you'll know the older parts. And my shrine is where it always was, if you need to go there."

Gilda was curious. She'd only known of Vvardenfell as an uninhabitable volcanic waste. You could see the smoke from Red Mountain from the Skyrim coast, or Solstheim. Had Clark gone there before it erupted?

"Yes, briefly, shortly after Morgiah and Rinalla went to Mournhold. I paid a visit to Morrowind, and played tourist for a while," Clark told her. "it was mostly so I could see them ouside the Mournhold court, where Helseth's spies would be breathing down our necks all the time. Every family seems to have an ancestral tomb or two over on the island, and pilgrimages are common. They made a short trip over, and I met them there.

"They were back in Deshaan, and I was back in Cyrodiil, when the eruption happened. House Hlaalu was ruined by the subsequent events, but I believe they went into hiding under different names. Resourceful people like them always find a way."

Azura probably knew, but she wasn't telling. None of them would be around in the period Clark needed to go to, not even Barenziah. "About the only person who could be there is Divath Fyr. He's probably as immortal as you are, Clark, although he's not had any help from the Daedric Princes. He was a contemporary of the Tribunal, and we think he found his own way to do it, without using the Heart of Lorkhan."

"I never met him, so that won't really be an issue," Clark pointed out. "But the Tribunal, Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec, are all dead now, aren't they?"

"Yes, they never completely separated themselves from this world, so their immortality needed to be sustained by artifical means," Azura responded. "They depended on the Heart of Lorkhan, and Dagoth Ur, but the Nerevarine got in the way of that. I think the only one of those five that survived at the time was the Nerevarine, ironically the only true mortal among them."

"So like the Champion of Cyrodiil, he became a victim of time," Clark surmised.

"Well the Champion gets to live on as part of Sheogorath. His time as the Madgod changed the Shivering Isles and in turn its master, when he returned. He became the Madgod, so the Madgod became him, at least partly. And he's much better for the addition. I don't think Jyggalag will be returning any more."

Gilda was patiently waiting to ask a question. "What about our plans for Greta, if Clark's going away?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. When it's all over, I'll bring him back to now. So he'll return about the same time he left, and the interruption will be minimal. He'll just have a lot of extra stories to tell - if he wants to."

That just took away Clark's last objection, too. It looked like he had a trip coming.