The Blessed Life of St. Reman

And so it was that after many years as emperor of the two Cyrodiils and by law of all Tamriel, despite the rebellion against his title in some outward environs, Saint Reman Cyrodiil passed beyond and was buried with a thousand holy rites in the Imperial City. Though he had birthed many children in his life, he had named no queen and, according to the traditions of the Niben, none of the claimants who appeared thereafter could be truly dragonborn. On the advice of the wisest of the Marukhati, an Elder Council was formed to act as in his stead, a holy union of all the great men of both Cyrodiils, led by the snake-born Potentate of the East, Tsamien-Varyel, who had seen the holy light in Saint Reman's eyes, put up his dai-katana and, laying the length of his golden body prostrate in the dirt before his former enemy, declared his loyalty only to the Eight Divines and to the Ruby Throne they blessed, and was thus accepted into the army of the Cyrodiils.

But this could not be forever, and in their wisdom, the Divines above sent a new Emperor to the people of the Niben. So it was that in the first week of the New Rain, Sed-Yenna, now a very ancient woman, was accosted in the jungle beyond her home by a host of a thousand atomies, who lifted her into the air and brought forth the form of Mara, cloaked in august and regnal robes and with a scarf of ancestor silk on her domed head. When she smiled, Sed-Yenna swore she could see the Paravant in her eyes, and she told Sed-Yenna of the coming of the new emperor, the son of Reman Cyrodiil.

And Sed-Yenna received an egg made of Reman's seed, a holy vessel laden with the spirit of Cyrod and the lineage of Al-Esh. She kept it dear to her, sleeping with it close to her breast and carrying it under her cloak each week when she travelled into Cardu to sell her woven silks. At first, it was the size of a hummingbird's egg, a tiny pebble warmed by an inner light, but in a few short months, it had grown to larger than the egg of a great blue cassowary of Topal.

But it was tragedy upon tragedy when one early morning the elderly Sed-Yenna was travelling alone along the Niben when a great gust from the west unsteadied her and Reman's egg fell from her wizened arms, cracking slightly on a rock before tumbling into the green waters of the river. Sed-Yenna waded in after it, shouting prayers to the Eight above, begging that the egg be returned to her, but it would not reappear, and at the moment that egg had cracked, the clarion gongs of east and west were struck on the fields of Addly, and the two Cyrodiils were torn asunder, and there would be no peace for eighteen years.

 

All was not lost, though, and one morning a paddy farmer by name of Theiden was sitting in meditation by an inlet on the Niben, when, to his great amazement, out of the water rose a ducal river-dragon, clothed in brilliant golden scales. He spoke no words, but in his arms, he held a baby, swaddled in reeds and riverfronds and with a scar across the right side of his head. The babe shone with the inner light of a saint or spirit guardian, and Theiden knew his name was Reman, the Light of Man.

So Theiden the paddy farmer took the child to his hovel in Tásmerah, and with his wife raised him as his own son. The earliest years of his life were plagued by the strife of wars, and he was but four years old when the Nornallers of the Weald stole the body of Reman Cyrodiil from the Great City and carried it off to Sancre Tor, burying him in a mound without the proper rites, and the war grew fiercer still than it had been. Tásmerah became unsafe after that, and Theiden fled with his family, first to Keptu, and then to Al-Harud, and to Bravil and Fet-Lun, and even as far east as Cothri.

By the time he was a man, Reman had seen all the lands of Nibenay, and bathed in all the tributaries of the Niben. But one evening they stopped in Sardovar, which is a holy but haunted place, and Reman was compelled to wander into the fields where his ancestors had toiled under the sun and the terror of slavedrivers. Standing in the marsh, he felt an impassable calling and he ran from the awful field and from Sardovar, moving with speed and grace until he reached the City of Cities.

Throwing himself before the Tower he shouted "I am Reman Cyrodiil!" and his shouts rang all the bells of Niben and Cothri and around him gathered a crowd of bewildered onlookers. But through that crowd passed the Potentate, who saw through golden eyes the Emperor returned to Cyrodiil, and lay his body at once for before his liege.

And with that, an army of blades gathered and set out to the West across Colovia, and all were made to bow before the Emperor Reman. Those landgraves and erfridders who refused were struck low by the katanas of Nibenay, and those suspected of disloyalty were removed from their position. Although at first there were numerous revolts against his authority, the Colovians having lost civility from years of rebellion, in one half year the land was made loyal to White-Gold again, so that all men from Sutch in the west to Gemha in the east were united under their liege, Reman II, Emperor of the two Cyrodiils and by law all Tamriel.