Grand Plans He no longer needed the Heart to sense the Blood. It moved ever closer, now this way, now that, as its bearer passed through rooms and passages. Veer'Shule Hhaathra could barely contain himself. At last, after all these long years! He had prolonged his life far beyond the measure of man to see this moment. This moment. He paused in his pacing to ponder the gravity of it. But soon, his feet were moving again of their own accord. The Heart would be reborn. The Denigroth again walk the earth. The mages above subjugated. All of Hammerfell would feel the iron fist of the Horned Council again. Hammerfell, and then perhaps Highrock. Or shall Valenwood fall next? Now he was getting ahead of himself. Concentrate on the now. He reached out to the Heart, a great ruby two fists large, laying in its golden cradle, shaped in the likeness of a narrow hand. The Master marvelled at the stone's perfectly smooth surface. The light of the two torches on either side of his dark throne were thrown back into his eyes. He shook himself and withheld his white hand. He didn't need to touch it with the Blood so near. He let his eyes wander about the great hall of bone. Its vaulted ceiling was lost to the darkness, but he could see in his mind's eye every rib that held up the rock above. He turned to the columns, long femurs accenting the pale towers of vertebrae and long bones. The walls were decorated with intricate designs of teeth, painting a ghastly panoramic mural. Denigroth were outlined in the bodies of their victims. Ah, but the floor was his favorite work. No, he did not pave the floor with his own hands, but he knew every skull. His forebearer, Tol'Arigrim, who had taught him all he knew, had named each skull from his ancient memory. These skulls he now trampled upon held special honour, deserved special condemnation. Those who paved the hall were those men and women who had broken the inner chamber and murdered all but a few of the Horned Council. They were Werre. Every one. The dead stared back at him. "Arigrim," he whispered, "if only you could see me now. You were as a father to me. You were the son of one of the last of the Council, and now I, your pupil...your son, shall rebuild it. I have chosen three archmages worthy of holding seats on the Horned Council. They know it not yet, but greatness awaits them. The Council shall be whole, and all thirteen seats filled by the end of the decade." He knelt by the Heart's pedestal and kissed one of the four skulls on the forehead there. He looked long upon it. "I swear it!" The Blood would be taken at the bridge. <><><><><><><><><> Alduin dor Lammoth