Note/L10N/Myths_and_Legends_Weapon2/2.4.8/Books/BookMALley?
題名 
原題
訳題
本文
原文 †
<BR>Myths and Legends:
<br>Volume 4
<br> by Draskal Ratden
<br><br>
-Foreword-
<br><br>
These collected volumes are the result of my travels throughout Tamriel, where I have spent my life listening to the many wonderful myths and legends that are abundant throughout our magnificent world. Though I am no adventurer, I truly do believe many of these stories are based on fact, though how much of them is true and how much the fantastical elaboration of imagination, I cannot say, for I am just another conduit through which they shall live.
<br><br>
<br><br>
--------------------------
<br><br>
<br><br>
While traveling through the scenic region of Niben Bay, I always make a point to stop at Silverhome on the Water in Bravil. The hospitality of Gilgondorin, the Altmer proprietor, is top-notch and he always carries a fine selection of local brew. It was there that a beggar known locally as ?Wretched Aia? stopped me, asking for alms. In response, I offered her a septim and a pint of Bravil's finest. I was then recompensed with the pitiful woman's harrowing tale of misfortune, which I dutifully record here.<br>
<br>
- Orne's Folly -
<br><br>
Once the wife of Antonius Gammell Orne, a ranking archer in the Imperial Legion, Aia enjoyed all the modern comforts of domestic life in the Talos Plaza of the Imperial City. As a soldier's wife, Aia often found herself anxiously awaiting her husband's return from dispatches all over Cyrodiil. One fateful day, Antonius returned from a grim mission his regiment had carried out in Western Cyrodiil. Though physically uninjured, no soldier returns from the battlefield without wounds. So it was with Antonius.
<br><br>
The mission was unprecedented in all the history of the Empire. The Legion would march on one of its own cities, slaughtering all who resisted, literally burning the settlement from the map. Wild rumors of the macabre had been circulating around the small village of Hackdirt for years, but after the disappearance of a cadre of legion detectives sent to investigate the disturbances, Count Valga of Chorrol was compelled to present the request for troops and their ghastly purpose to Chancellor Ocato.
<br><br>
Given only the explanation that the elder council believed the village to represent a grave threat to the stability of the Empire, Orne's regiment was sworn to secrecy and dispatched to Hackdirt on a mission of war.
<br><br>
Few accounts of the actual events that transpired at the razing of Hackdirt nearly thirty years ago remain today. Most of the regiment was lost, and those who survived either dropped out of all records and knowledge or were committed to the imperial asylum at Renato Island, South of the Niben.
<br><br>
Upon his return home, Antonius carried with him a bow which he claimed as a trophy of the mission. The bow was covered with a thick and slimy membrane which emitted a powerful odor of rotting fish that could be smelled from halfway across the district. Despite its repulsive state, Antonius compulsively kept the bow close to him, as if in fear of its influence.
<br><br>
Moreover, Antonius' behavior became more erratic with each day. He began to spend more and more time down at the Imperial City Waterfront, associating with pirates and sailors from ports unknown. He soon found himself unable to sleep at night, plagued constantly by nightmares of the things he saw in that village as well as other things, horrific and unrecognized by his conscious mind.
<br><br>
He often complained of voices speaking in a hideous language that spoke to the soul. Deprived of sleep and tormented with visions of unspeakable horror, Antonius wandered the streets at night, muttering in the strange language. He soon became a topic of local disdain and suspicion.
<br><br>
One night, Aia awoke hearing strange chanting out in the street. Only vaguely recognizable as Antonius' a voice rang out across the plaza, crying "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgahnagl fhtagn!"
<br><br>
Aia emerged from their Imperial City apartment to find a wild-eyed Antonius stripped bare, wearing only the mysterious bow he brought out of Hackdirt, and covered in strange markings carved deep into his own flesh. Accused of daedra worship, Antonius and Aia were chased from the city into the night.
<br><br>
For days, Antonius led their escape, shrieking hysterically, blindly scrambling across the countryside. Though their pursuers had been lost on the outskirts of Weye, they continued on, Antonius never dropping his frantic pace.
<br><br>
They ran day and night, avoiding the road and any settlements as they pushed ever west across Cyrodiil, making sure to pass far south of Hackdirt. When they reached the shores of the Abecean, they collapsed from exhaustion near the ruins of the ancient Ayleid city of Beldaburo, south of the mouth of the majestic Brena River separating Cyrodiil from Hammerfell.
<br><br>
Aia awoke at dawn to find her husband standing between the arches leading to the door of the fallen Ayleid city. With tears streaming down his face and a maniacal grin, he promised he would find a place for them beneath the waves of the Abecean.
<br><br>
Though he begged her to join him, Aia refused, sensing the passing of the last shreds of human reason within Antonius. Taking only the mysterious bow, he turned from her, shrieking to the sky, "Ia Cthulhu F'htagn!" and plunged west into the sea, diving straight to the bottom.
<br><br>
She watched him swim to depths hidden from sight and scanned the western horizon, willing him to resurface. Antonius never emerged from the Abecean's depths.
<br><br>
He departed west from Beldaburo descending into the depths of the Abecean, never to be seen again. Some say that if you venture out to the ruin of Beldaburo at night, a pale and eerie light may be seen moving under the ocean near the place where Orne was last seen. But perhaps the ultimate fate of the bow and its wielder is perhaps best left to the uncharted abyss of Nirn.
<br><br>
<br><br>
--------------------------
<br><br>
<br><br>
While most of my stories concern the supernatural and unexplained influences upon man and mer, as those are inherent aspects in nearly any myth or legend worth telling, few of them could be considered tales of true horror. The following tale of dread and the unspoken terrors of an ancient evil is not one of them.
<br><br>
It describes the location of an ancient blade of tremendous power, said to be wielded by the leader of a group of four foul beasts, known only by the chillingly mundane yet entirely fitting name of The Horsemen. I first heard this story in my younger years while traveling through the lustrous city of Chorrol, and, though I never discerned her name, I shall never forget the look of pure fright on the face of the old woman who recited it to me.
<br>
<br>
- The Sword of the Four -
<br>
<br>
Far north of the town of Chorrol, in the untamed wilderness of the unexplored areas of the county, sitting quietly atop a rugged mountain, lies the home of an ancient evil. Within this decrepit ruin precariously aloft the mountain's peak dwell some of the most horrifying monsters known, or perhaps, more fittingly, unknown, to Tamriel.
<br><br>
Those who know of these beings refer to them with dreadful names which represent the virulent extent of their unending malice; War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. These cruel beings know no mercy for the weak nor sympathy for humankind, for they are genuine monsters of pervasive malevolence.<br>
<br>
If one of these abhorrent beings can truly be labeled any more pernicious than the rest, the one known as Death is considered the worst, for he is the epitome of all darkness on Tamriel. Those who claim to have seen the haunting figure floating through the night say he rides upon a pale, sickly horse, garbed in tattered, black robes darker than night. Always in his icy grip is his bladed weapon, an intimidating tool forged from some unknown dark ore, covered with strange images guilded in gold, said to depict the end of Nirn itself.
<br>
<br>
It is said that to glimpse Death and his companions is to look into the endless void of Oblivion itself, that to witness these Horsemen is to be confronted with the maddening clutch of one's own mortality. While nobody knows how old these beings are, this story has been passed down from countless generations, a fact which verifies suspicions of their immortal nature.
<br><br>
Nobody ever dares to venture that far north of the city but for a few brave pilgrims seeking to visit the shrine of Hermaeus Mora. And for good reason, too, for it is not rare for inhabitants of Chorrol to wake screaming in the night from unexplained nightmares of the end of days, as if the very thoughts of the Horsemen had descended from their lair to taint the minds of mortals.
<br>
<br>
Though the citizens of Chorrol understandably choose not to speak of the subject, I find the idea of a foul presence dwelling in an ancient ruin intriguing. Perhaps these so-called Horsemen are nothing but a convincing facade created by bandits to frighten the superstitious townspeople. Or perhaps they are a group of vampires, maintaining the illusion of greater dread to keep interlopers from entering their lair.
<br><br>
But maybe there truly are immortal beings dwelling in that old ruin north of Chorrol, whose eternal enmity towards humanity will never be extinguished... and has perhaps not even been truly witnessed yet. But I do know one thing; I will certainly never venture too far along the path north of Chorrol, and would certainly never enter an Ayleid ruin in the area. Beware that place, dear reader, for, whatever it is, there is something wrong about it.
訳文 †
【訳文記述エリア】
