I am called Sai Sahan, son of Nazir Itaf Sahan of Bangkorai. Once again, I set my thoughts to paper.
It pains me to see a city of such history corrupted by the foul necromancy of Mannimarco and his Black Worms. Though the sons and daughters of Cyrodiil are not my people, it is precisely the ruination of something so deeply, culturally significant that causes my heart to ache. In many ways, though neither Crown nor Forebear will admit it, we are more alike to the Imperials than we are different.
Varen honored me when he asked me to captain his Dragonguard. I trained many of the captains myself, drilling them in the arts of swordplay, leadership, and tactics. They were of many races and many creeds—there was devout Nethynal of Morrowind, who would quietly recite the sermons of his heathen demigods each dawn. I also recall young Lucas Evane, outcast from his family holdings in High Rock over some political squabble. Not all of us were Imperial, and yet we took readily to their traditions, their learned ways, and even their food. We believed in the vision of the Empire, once.
This day it seems the Empire was just a dream, and Sancre Tor merely a ruined shadow of that dream. I swore an oath to Varen Aquilarios to protect him and see his own dream of a reunited Empire come to pass, but as we now witness and I must admit, it will be impossible to fulfill that oath. Even now, the Imperial City is beseiged by those who would see their own petty leaders seated upon the Ruby Throne, and very few of them are of its native soil.
I mourn the loss of Sancre Tor and the broken Empire to the ravages of conflicts both cosmic and mundane, not because I hold any special love for Imperial ways, but because it is much like the fate of the sword-singers—a broken line that only a scant few seek to mend for reasons that are unselfish or incorruptible.
| Ant.: Part 6 | Acima: Chronicles of the Five Companions | Próx.: Part 8 |