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As my fate was decided in the Palace of Perfected Fortunes I would watch the sunrise. A brilliant orange sun on a pale sky clear as glass, and think it my last. The specifics of the trial I would not learn for some time, but can think of no better time to share them with you than now.

It was held in the throne room and opened with Rokash bloviating in his usual obsequious style, and his high priests sharing the details of my confession. They demanded I be beheaded before the lunch kabobs hit the grill, and a chorus of Moon Bishops were all for it — both sensing the Mane's wrothful mood and eager to increase their own exposure to His Holiness with me removed.

The elder Clan Mother spoke next and commented that since the emperor was technically still our sovereign there had been no treason, but that my blasphemy was indisputable. A particularly entertaining line of argument considering their own private investigations regarding the Mane's legitimacy of which I was aware.

The nobles were divided between imprisonment and a pardon (provided I signed a formal retraction of my 'lies' and oath of loyalty). Unsurprising, as my brother and I served as a counterbalance to the bishops and were always even-handed in resolving their disputes. However they presented no cohesive demand and so had little bearing on His Holiness as far as I can tell.

Of those I considered my friends and family: my brother recused himself totally and made no comment on my behalf, leaving me to whatever fate I may have brought on myself. Prince Findulain offered to provide me a trial by combat but withdrew his bloody offer when Lady Elindel wept for mercy on my behalf. Of Baron Hoot-hoot and Sorvild, neither of whom were technically in a position to speak in court being a lower noble and mercenary respectively, but I was told they hooted and hurrahed in agreement with the calls for a non-lethal outcome for what it was worth.

It was murder in His Holiness's eyes, and in the end it was Do'Qanar who saved my life. Just when the Master of Ceremony closed the call for comments, the tiger-man came charging up the aisle, accusing Rokash and his rat-licking bishops of playing politics with the life of a well intentioned fool (not the worst title I'd been given by far). He invoked the old law, the tribal right to exile for non-violent offenses with an elevated language that could only have come from a Clan Mother, or more probably an erudite cultist.

Perhaps it surprises you that a hotheaded savage with no love for the empire would save a self confessed imperial spy? He had every reason to hate me but one — I had been a friend to him when I needn't be. And to Do'Qanar, whose mind was not enslaved to the abstract dogmatics which so often plague us settled folk (and those in high offices most of all), that was enough to stand by me.

By the end of my tale I expect you won't even recall Do'Qanar's name, but it was only by his charity that I live to share it. It's often the way of the world that the seeming insignificant cruelties and kindnesses lay seed the most bountiful harvests. I suggest you remember this the next time you see a stranger struggling to light a pipe.

***

I knew none of this when my inquisitors led me blindfolded from the gates of Dune astride a horse (which I quickly recognized as Spinner by the occasional whirling sensations) and deeper into the wastes. I rocked along the way, my back too tired to hold stiff, my chest aching with countless bone bruises and likely a few fractures — all as the hissing whispers of the crowd gathered to witness my expulsion vanished into the long low whistles of a desert wind against my face. I saw only darkness, but soon felt the heat of the sand rising like steam off a kettle against my sore legs that were still cramped from a night spent half suspended by serpent-flesh.

My captors largely ignored me, being under strict orders from their messianic Mane to see me delivered safely to nowhere. They were eager to remind me that the corpse snake that made me it’s puppet surely had wild cousins in the area, and informed me that their master, Vizier Rokash, had sent runners to all the great bounty hunter guilds of Elsweyr to inform them of my banishment — for while I was forbidden from visiting or receiving succor from settlements loyal to the Mane of Dune, I would otherwise be left unmolested. But there remained a thousand septim bounty on my head unclaimed at the jungle court of Senchal.

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The blindfold was removed and clawed hands dragged me squinting against the sun’s harshness from Spinner’s back. A waterskin sloshed down at my feet like a bloated organ, followed by the thud of Eophicles’ Treatise (my choice when offered a single personal effect to bring), and a single long flatbread, dried stiff as a sheetwood which slapped into my face before falling into the sand. They pronounced me free by the boundless mercy of the perfected Mane, and with no further word they left me there as they led Spinner back by her reins. No doubt they were eager to return to Dune lest they be left behind when the army marched.

I stood transfixed for a long moment before gathering the pitiful gifts at my feet, a small mercy I was endlessly grateful for. The waterskin I slung over my neck and shoulder, but the book and bread I would have to carry under curled fingers as the featherlight white penitent robe I had been cast in was without pockets.

I walked without thought. I must have gone south but it was through no planning, but rather a sort of magnetic repulsion from Dune and the fresh pains it had inflicted on my body. My heart was too heavy to speak of, and my bare feet grew numb to the scorching sands as I rose and fell down their sloped dune faces. Shaking hands continued to wander up to the shaved middle track of my hair, the skin smooth as an egg under the sun's glare.

At one point I took a draw at the waterskin before spitting the contents out to imprint a dark shadow onto the sand. Brandy. My very own brandy from my apartments; a final cruelty that stung my waiting throat which already scratched from the dehydrated air..

I wandered into a red horizon, and then onward for some time after that by both magelight and the otherworldly glow of the two moons — silver and rust. The terrain grew rockier, harsh stones and blisters of cracked soil grew everywhere, along with gravel which tortured my bare soles as horribly as knives. At some point I hammered my big toe into an enormous stone and fell screaming to my elbows; even so, I moved forward on hands and knees for several minutes until something large and solid blocked my path. Abandoned by any wit higher than an insect, I curled up against rough stone and slept as the dead do.

I woke shivering at first light, jumped up to when I realized there was dew gathered on the nearby rocks. The brandy went into the ground, and by my limited elemental sorcery I froze the damp rock faces until there were paper-thin sheets of ice which with craft I carefully broke into shards and fed into my waterskin — filling it under a quarter of the way. I took a celebratory slurp, and while it had a brandy aftertaste it felt fresh as a mountain brook over my dried out tongue.

After swatting a curious mantis insect off my bread sheet, I scrambled atop the boulder to sit cross legged and eat, survey the new world I occupied, and bring structure to my disordered thoughts.

There were three paths before me if I wished to survive. The first was to travel back north to Cyrodiil, backtracking my fever dream journey of the day prior and going beyond — past the fortress of Dune and the surrounding oases under its influence to flee back over the West Weald, or by Riverhold if I wished to dare the bounty hunters. Needless to say this was near suicide, for not only was the distance vast and more barren for its entirety, but I felt I had little assurance the clemency of His Holiness would long endure.

The second option would be to flee west to Valenwood. A portion of the journey would be through the Mane of Dune's realm, however it would be only a few days before I entered the borderlands where the rolling dunes faded into dry grasslands and the local pastoralists were known to keep to themselves. That would have been the safest route surely, eventually bringing me to the roaring Xylo river which roughly demarcated the border. Valenwood would be safe and also give me a chance to warn their king of the Mane's treacherous schemes involving Prince Findulain. I wouldn't avert the battle going that way, but I might halt any greater escalation between nations, and crossing those border plains I may have feted at the termite mounds which Baron Hoot-hoot's folk held in such high regard.

My weary heart knew both these options to be lies however. Oh, they were physically possible, preferable even, to the third option; and a Berry Longfellow who had never been blessed enough to feel the warmth of Aiera’s eyes would be for the best may have given in to the path of least resistance. But the mother of my children deserved a hell of a lot better than a consolation letter from the next kingdom over.

No, cracking bread with my teeth, a mouthful of splinters that dissolved on my tongue, I felt a sinking in my gut as I realized there was only one choice my life would allow me to make. Muscling down a swallow I gazed southward over crumbling stone, walls half submerged beneath sand grayed as though cut with grave ash. Beyond lay windswept ruins — a broken skyline of columns and tiered pyramids — I knew it immediately to be the dreaded blight of Ourobe.

But beyond all that I knew rose the Corinth highlands, followed by a slow descent into forest and then dense jungle, and at the far end of it all, at lands end, the Mane of Senchal. There remained another mane to try and speak reason to — or attempt to steer to my purpose.

And so, without a single utterance but perhaps a belch when I finished smacking my lips, I downed my water before shoving off. I did not know my route precisely, nor the length of such a journey (and if I could be swift enough to prevent untold slaughter), but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt my intent, and some crude estimate of my means.

In short, I had no idea what I was walking into.