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World of Tamriel Books - Biography of Queen Barenziah, Vol III |
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by Scribe Stem Gamboge
Go back to Volume II.
Barenziah was welcomed kindly by the Emperor Tiber Septim
and his family, who treated her like a daughter during her
stay in the newly built Imperial City. After several happy
months there learning her duties as a regent under the Empire,
Symmachus escorted her to Mournhold where she took up her
duties as Queen of her people, under his wise guidance.
Gradually they came to love one another and were married
and crowned in a splendid ceremony at which the Emperor
himself officiated.
After several hundred years of marriage a son, Helseth, was
born to the royal couple, amid rejoicing and prayers to the
goddess who had at last blessed their marriage. Although it
was not known at the time, it was shortly before this blessed
event that the Staff of Chaos was stolen from its hiding
place deep in the Mournhold mines by a clever bard known
only as Nightingale.
Eight years after Helseth's birth, Barenziah bore a daughter,
Morgiah, named for Symmachus' mother and the royal couple's
joy was complete. Alas, shortly after that, relations with
the Empire mysteriously deteriorated, leading to much civil
unrest in Mournhold. After fruitless inquiries and attempts
at reconciliation, in desperation Barenziah took her young
children and travelled to Imperial City herself to seek the
Emperor's ear. Symmachus remained in Mournhold.
During her audience with the Emperor, Barenziah, through her
magical arts, came to realize, to her horror and dismay,
that the so-called Emperor was an imposter, none other than
the Bard Nightingale who had stolen the Staff of Chaos.
Exercising great self control she concealed this realization
from him. That evening news came that Symmachus had been
killed in battle and that Mournhold had been taken by the
rebels. Barenziah knew not where to seek help, when a knock
sounded at her door. It was Eadwyre, King of Wayrest, and
an old friend of Uriel Septim and Symmachus. He comforted
her, pledged his friendship and confirmed her suspicions that
the Emperor was indeed an impostor, and none other than
Jagar Tharn, the Imperial Battlemage. Tharn had
supposedly retired from public work and put his assistant,
Ria Silmane, in his stead. As it seemed, Tharn had never left
the Imperial City. Ria was indeed dead, but her ghost had
appeared in Eadwyre's dreams and revealed that the true
Emperor had been kidnapped by Tharn and imprisoned in an
alternate plane. Tharn had then used the Staff of Chaos to
kill her when she attempted to warn the Council of his
nefarious plot.
Together, Eadwyre and Barenziah plotted to gain the
imposter's confidence and unmask him with the help of another
friend of Ria's, who was currently in prison, but to whose
dreams she had access, and who possessed great, albeit
untapped, potential. Barenziah charmed and befriended the
fake Emperor. By reading his secret diary she learned that he
had broken the Staff into eight pieces and hidden them. She
managed to obtain a copy of the key to Ria's friend's cell
and bribed a guard to leave it within the cell, as if by
accident. Their Champion, whose name was unknown even to
Barenziah and Eadwyre, made his escape through a shift gate
Ria had openned in a dark rat infested corner of the prison
where the cowardly goblin guards feared to venture. It
took Barenziah several months to learn the hiding places of
all eight staff pieces through snatches of overheard
conversation and rare glimpses of the diary. Once she had the
vital information, she and Eadwyre fled to Wayrest where
they managed to stave off the sporadic efforts of Tharn's
henchmen to obtain revenge. Tharn, whatever else might be
said of him, was no one's fool save perhaps Barenziah's, and
he concentrated most of his efforts in tracking down and
destroying the great Champion.
As all now know, the brave, tireless, and forever nameless
Champion was successful in reuniting the Staff of Chaos.
With it, he destroyed Tharn and rescued the true Emperor,
Uriel Septim VII. Following the Restoration, a grand state
memorial service was held for Symmachus in the Imperial
City, befitting the man who had served the Septim family so
long and so well. Barenziah and good King Eadwyre had come
to care deeply for one another, and had married in the year
after their flight from Imperial City. Her children remained
with her and a regent was appointed to rule Mournhold in her
absence. She planned to return after Eadwyre's death. He was
elderly when they wed so she knew that event, alas, could not
be far off as the elves reckon time.
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