Biography of Queen Barenziah, Vol. III                          Stem Gamboge, scribe                                                                                                                                               )	      D  L
  y    Biography of Queen Barenziah, Vol. III     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.           