Sacred Witness Summary . This book chronicles various aspects of the Dark Brotherhood ' s origin and deities . Chiefly , this book makes the claim that the Night Mother is not one of the Daedric Princes . Content . I have met countesses and courtesans , empresses and witches , ladies of war and slatterns of peace , but I have never met a woman like The Night Mother . And I never will again . I am a writer , a poet of some small renown . If I told you my name , you may have heard of me , but very likely , not . For decades until very recently , I had adopted the city of Sentinel on the coast of Hammerfell as my home , and kept the company of other artists , painters , tapestrists , and writers . No one I knew would have known an assassin by sight , least of all the queen of them , the Blood Flower , the Lady Death , the Night Mother . Not that I had not heard of her . Some years ago , I had the good fortune of meeting Pellarne Assi , a respected scholar , who had come to Hammerfell to do research for a book about the Order of Diagna . His essay , The Brothers of Darkness together with Ynir Gorming ' s Fire and Darkness : The Brotherhoods of Death are considered to be the canon tomes on the subject of Tamriel ' s orders of assassins . By luck , Gorming himself was also in Sentinel , and I was privileged to sit with the two in a dark skooma den in the musty slums of the city , as we smoked and talked about the Dark Brotherhood , the Morag Tong , and the Night Mother . While not disputing the possibility that the Night Mother may be immortal or at least very long - lived , Assi thought it most likely that several women - and perhaps some men - throughout the ages had assumed the honorary title . It was no more logical to say there was only one Night Mother , he asserted , than to say there was only one King of Sentinel . Gorming argued that there never was a Night Mother , at least no human one . The Night Mother was Mephala herself , whom the Brotherhood revered second only to Sithis . ' I don ' t suppose there ' s any way of knowing for certain , ' I said , in a note of diplomacy . ' Certainly there is , ' whispered Gorming with a grin . ' You could talk to that cloaked fellow in the corner . ' I had not noticed the man before , who sat by himself , eyes hidden by his cloak , seemingly as much a part of the dingy place as the rough stone and unswept floor . Turning back to Ynir , I asked him why that man would know about the Night Mother . ' He ' s a Dark Brother , ' hissed Pellarne Assi . ' That ' s as plain as the moons . Don ' t even joke about speaking with him about Her . ' We moved on to other arguments about the Morag Tong and the Brotherhood , but I never forgot the image of the lone man , looking at nothing and everything , in the corner of the dirty room , with fumes of skooma smoke floating around him like ghosts . When I saw him weeks later on the streets of Sentinel , I followed him . Yes , I followed him . The reader may reasonably ask ' why ' and ' how . ' I don ' t blame you for that . ' How ' was simply a question of knowing my city as well as I do . I ' m not a thief , not particularly sure - footed and quiet , but I know the alleys and streets of Sentinel intimately from decades worth of ambling . I know which bridges creak , which buildings cast long irregular shadows , the intervals at which the native birds begin the ululations of their evening songs . With relative ease , I kept pace with the Dark Brother and out of his sight and hearing . The answer to ' Why ' is even simpler . I have the natural curiosity of the born writer . When I see a strange new animal , I must observe . It is the writer ' s curse . I trailed the cloaked man deeper into the city , down an alleyway so narrow it was scarcely a crack between two tenements , past a crooked fence , and suddenly , miraculously , I was in a place I had never seen before . A little courtyard cemetery , with a dozen old half - rotted wooden tombstones . None of the surrounding buildings had windows that faced it , so no one knew this miniature necropolis existed . No one , except the six men and one woman standing in it . And me . The woman saw me immediately , and gestured for me to come closer . I could have run , but - no , I couldn ' t have . I had pierced a mystery right in my adopted Sentinel , and I could not leave it . She knew my name , and she said it with a sweet smile . The Night Mother was a little old lady with fluffy white hair , cheeks like wrinkled apples that still carried the flush of youth , friendly eyes , blue as the Iliac Bay . She softly took my arm as we sat down amidst the graves and discussed murder . She was not always in Hammerfell , not always available for direct assignment , but it seemed she enjoyed actually talking to her clientele . ' I did not come here to hire the Brotherhood , ' I said respectfully . ' Then why are you here ? ' the Night Mother asked , her eyes never leaving mine . I told her I wanted to know about her . I did not expect an answer to that , but she told me . ' I do not mind the stories you writers dream up about me , ' she chuckled . ' Some of them are very amusing , and some of them are good for business . I like the sexy dark woman lounging on the divan in Carlovac Townway ' s fiction particularly . The truth is that my history would not make a very dramatic tale . I was a thief , long , long ago , back when the Thieves Guild was only beginning . It ' s such a bother to sneak around a house when performing a burglary , and many of us found it most efficacious to strangle the occupant of the house . Just for convenience . I suggested to the Guild that a segment of our order be dedicated to the arts and sciences of murder . ' It did not seem like such a controversial idea to me , ' the Night Mother shrugged . ' We had specialists in catburglary , pick - pocketing , lock - picking , fencing , all the other essential parts of the job . But the Guild thought that encouraging murder would be bad for business . Too much , too much , they argued . ' They might have been right , ' the old woman continued . ' But I discovered there is a profit to be made , just the same , from sudden death . Not only can one rob the deceased , but , if your victim has enemies , which rich people often do , you can be paid for it even more . I began to murder people differently when I discovered that . After I strangled them , I would put two stones in their eyes , one black and one white . ' ' Why ? ' I asked . ' It was a sort of calling card of mine . You ' re a writer - don ' t you want your name on your books ? I couldn ' t use my name , but I wanted potential clients to know me and my work . I don ' t do it anymore , no need to , but at the time , it was my signature . Word spread , and I soon had quite a successful business . ' ' And that became the Morag Tong ? ' I asked . ' Oh , dear me , no , ' the Night Mother smiled . ' The Morag Tong was around long before my time . I know I ' m old , but I ' m not that old . I merely hired on some of their assassins when they began to fall apart after the murder of the last Potentate . They did not want to be members of the Tong anymore , and since I was the only other murder syndicate of any note , they just joined on . ' I phrased my next question carefully . ' Will you kill me now that you ' ve told me all this ? ' She nodded sadly , letting out a little grandmotherly sigh . ' You are such a nice , polite young man , I hate to end our acquaintanceship . I don ' t suppose you would agree to a concession or two in exchange for your life , would you ? ' To my everlasting shame , I did agree . I said I would say nothing about our meeting , which , as the reader can see , was a promise I eventually , years later , chose not to keep . Why have I endangered my life thus ? Because of the promises I did keep . I helped the Night Mother and the Dark Brotherhood in acts too despicable , too bloody for me to set to paper . My hand quivers as I think about the people I betrayed , beginning with that night . I tried to write my poetry , but ink seemed to turn to blood . Finally , I fled , changing my name , going to a land where no one would know me . And I wrote this . The true history of the Night Mother , from the interview she gave me on the night we met . It will be the last thing I ever write , this I know . And every word is true . Pray for me . Editor ' s Note : Though originally published anonymously , the identity of the author has never been in serious doubt . Any layman familiar with the work of the poet Enric Milres will recognize Sacred Witness ' s familiar cadence and style in such books of his as The Alik ' r . Shortly after publication , Milres was murdered , and his killer was never found . He had been strangled , and two stones , a black one and a white one , crushed into his eyesockets . Very brutally .