On The Honors Of The Dead, V
“I am not of the slaves that perish.” Such were the words of Nerevar the Hortator when he fought the craters of Masser to reach heaven by violence, as Vivec recounts in his sixteenth lesson. Herein Lord Vivec teaches us of the difference between our race and the outlanders. For the outlanders worship what is mortal like them, the Aedra, who are mortal in their stasis (such is the lesson of the twentieth sermon), the first of which to die was Lorkhan, whom some would associate with the moons Nerevar conquered. Our honor is in our living gods, and as such, we continue even after death in ways I have already explained. If one of our dead is enslaved by some necromancer, he truly becomes a slave, unbefitting of the honor of our race. Yet who would care, even among outlanders, if their dead are used for the work of the living? The Empire permits such practices, yet it is a pity that their blind equality reaches even to the people of Veloth, corrupting the minds of our young to see no distinction between us and them. For many, even among the Telvanni of the east, deem all necromancy corrupt because of the honor which should be shown our ancestors. Yet this is not the way we have always been. What wrong is it for a slave to continue to serve his master after death? For, as Vivec says, “To be made of dirt is to be treated as such.”