Disclaimer
If you are upset by dark themes, crude language, or vivid descriptions of violence and death or blood, I would advise you to give this story a miss. All of this is included with purpose and not gratuitous or glorified, but if those sorts of descript images bother you, this may not be the story for you. That said, enjoy the tale!
- - -
~ Part I - The Torment of Fiends ~
Blood and spittle mixed together in a revolting duality, flowing into one another on the floor around Caliban's black boots, the vile substance constantly replenished as the bastard of Bal knelt before him. It hacked and coughed the stuff up uncontrollably, creating a whirlpool of death. The creature bent forward, strings of red-tinged saliva slavering disgustingly from his lips to the ground, and he gasped with pitious effort for air.
Yet, Caliban felt no pity.
The thing before him garbled, helpless as he rammed the toe of his boot into its gut again, multiplying the bruises that were accumulating on his pallid torso. Caliban's white hand fastened itself about the creature's neck with incredible, hateful strength as it reeled backward, trying desperately and failing to ward off a subsequent blow. Grasping its throat, he slammed it down into the floor. Throwing a strand of his mane of long white hair from his eyes, Caliban could see that half its head was submerged in the red, watery fluid that coated the floorboards like the slime of a snail as he leaned close to its face and observed the terror that was wrought there with his piercing yellow eyes. Good, he thought coldly, allowing a smirk to touch his thin lips.
"This will all be over in a moment. All I ask is that you tell me where the rest of you are hidden." Caliban's tone was dangerously soft, his voice laced with a quiet threat. He allowed a cruel look to come on his gaunt face, eliciting something like a whimper from his victim. The look did not suit him.
Nevertheless, the creature gaped in an attempt to speak, revealing shattered fangs and missing teeth. Caliban let go of its throat, allowing it a chance to save itself from more pain. It was taking a long time for it to speak, and for a moment, Caliban feared that he had gone too far in his interrogation. His fears were assuaged when, after a few more racking, heaving coughs, the creature managed to get out a few words.
"Please … please. I've had enough." The broken fiend may have been weeping. It was difficult to tell. Gasping for air, raising his hands up in weak surrender, he spat a wad of saliva and blood from the back of his throat before continuing. “You'll … you'll find them in a small cave outside of Morthal, here in the swamps of Hjaalmarch. Please, no more, just end it." Its words were slurred and difficult to make out as it's tongue flopped ineffectually against its shattered teeth, trying to adapt to the lack of surface to make sound against.
Caliban smiled. It had taken almost an hour, but the creature had finally broken. He threw his head back, gazing vaguely up at the roof of the tiny shack, and laughed.
"Do you hear that? Do you hear that, Bitch of Coldharbour? I'm coming for your fucking creatures!" Even to his own ears, his voice was manic and wild.
"I know, I know!" the thing before him wailed. "Please, just end i--"
The sweet sound of metal slicing air pierced the bloody shack as Caliban wrenched his blade from its sheath, cutting the thing's neck off before it could finish its pitiful dithering.
"I wasn't fucking talking to you," Caliban spat at the corpse as its head rolled from it's shoulders, slumping over and splashing into the liquid death that now coated the floor around it. He wiped the blade on the garments of the fallen Child of Molag Bal, sheathed it on his back, and turned to go. A cold voice stopped him in his tracks.
"Oh, but I think you were." The voice was dark. Deep. Rasping and gutteral. He recognized that voice.
Caliban's blood ran cold. He stopped, planting his heel, and pivoted slowly. The head was grinning morbidly at him. As he watched, the eyes of the dead Vampire turned to sludge and melted from the skull, replaced by glowing blue orbs. The pale, blood-covered flesh turned mort, a grey color spreading across it. The ears were severed from the head as horns sprouted from both sides of the skull, and the mouth widened grotesquely. The broken teeth slowly morphed, elongation into vicious fangs, and bone-like growths burst through the scalp. Caliban froze as the transformation completed before him.
He was staring at the face of Molag Bal.
The head chuckled satisfiedly as it drank Caliban’s horror.
“What devilry is this,” Caliban whispered, almost to himself, trying to keep a shake from his voice that may have been from hatred as much as terror. His greatsword came flying from its sheath and before he had made any conscious decisions, he was flying toward the head, hacking and slashing the defenseless mound of stone-grey flesh. Bits of molding skin, cracked pieces of horn, pink and greyish brain-matter, and shards of shattering bone sprayed Caliban as he smashed the top of the dismembered head to pieces.
Midway through his grisly task, Caliban realized he was screaming … And the head was laughing. Cold, condescending, and dangerous, the laugh drove Caliban’s scream to a crescendo as he ravaged the face of his enemy. A gripping desperation took hold of Caliban.
I need to stop the laughing.
Finding the jaw, he shattered it with his greatsword, severing it from the head completely. As bits of teeth and torn skin were cleaved from its mouth and Caliban cut out its tongue, the laughing only grew louder. Each time the jaw became more separated from the head, the laughing seemed to … expand. It was around him now, not just coming from the head, but the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the very trees and stars outside. It filled Caliban, like he was in the middle of a terrible choir that was bent on his derision.
Caliban dropped his greatsword and went to his knees, still screaming, covering his ears, but it did him as much good as punching a wall. The laughing was inside him now. There was no escape.
As Caliban tore his throat dry with his shouts, the laugh began to morph and change, much as the now decimated head before him had. Where the voice had been masculine, it became feminine. Where it was cruel, it was now sultry. Where it was derisive, it became condescending. Low changed to high, and slowly the sound moved from outside to something much closer. Rather than an echoing choir of laughs, it was now a single voice, sniggering inside his head. Caliban’s screams began to die, turning into coughs as his dry, raw throat adjusted to the comfort of silence once more. He was not allowed to enjoy it for long.
“That’s it, Dream Thief,” the voice whispered in his ear. She gave an almost sensual giggle. “Oh, my poor little Vampire. Look at him. Did I scare you?” Again, that maddening, girlish laugh. “I’m so very sorry, but what would happen to my reputation if I allowed you to steal form me without consequence?” The pitch of her voice lifted innocently at the end of her sentence.
“Now is not the time, Vaermina.” Breathing heavily, Caliban clenched his teeth, forcing the words through them.
All polite pretense dropped from the Daedric Prince’s voice. “With you, it will never be the time, Caliban of Cyrodiil! It is time when I say it is time! You have no power over me, Child of Coldharbour!” she shouted in his mind, her voice echoing one thousand fold. Then, as suddenly as it had dissipated, her calm returned, as with a raging summer storm. “But fear not, my little bloodfiend," she continued, as though nothing had happened. "I will not stop you in your play at revenge. Neither Molag Bal, nor his children are of any concern to me. All, that is, except you.”
Suddenly Caliban realized that the voice was echoing from the sword. Dammit Caliban, he cursed himself. Why did you have to take the gods-damned sword?
Vaermina was in his head, and she laughed at his thought. Not the mirthless laughter from before. This time, she seemed genuinely amused. “Having regrets? Do not rue your actions, sweet Caliban?” He felt a hand brush his cheek gently, and he stood bolt upright, searching frantically for the source of the touch, but there was none to be found. “Why, if you hadn’t stolen my sword, we may never have met … and what a pity that would be.” Vaermina’s voice dripped with innocence as false as the warm-seeming light of Magnus on a crisp winter’s morn. “Take up the blade, little fang. Far be it for me to stop you on your … mission.” Her last word echoed as the voice receded from inside his mind.
Caliban realized he had been keeping his eyes tightly shut, and promptly opened them, blinking as they adjusted to light and scenery that did not come from the back of his eyelids. The sword still lay beside the mutilated head, although the head was no longer that of Molag Bal. The poor creature’s skull was in its place once more, or what was left of it. It was now in fact unrecognizable, but Caliban took a small comfort in knowing that those glowing blue eyeballs and the shattered bits of black horn had disappeared.
Wiping the spittle from his mouth, he leaned down and picked up the sword, which itself was covered in saliva and no small amount of blood. The blade was rather ugly, in truth, though it had a certain aesthetic appeal in its brutality. Serrated spikes had been laid horizontally at intervals along the blade, set against a black fuller that made its way almost two-thirds of the distance from crossguard to point. The guard itself emanated evil. It extended sideways from the upper hilt in spiked waves, each trough resolving in a wicked peak, and ending in three long spikes in each direction. The hilt was crafted similarly, and though it wasn’t sharpened as the crossguard was, it was scarcely any more comfortable to hold. The pommel was a large, hefty ball spiked in all directions, capable of delivering a truly deadly mordhau stroke to any unfortunate enemy.
One thing was clear: this was a blade made for fear. Caliban had been grateful for it many times since he had taken it from the depths of Kota-Uxith Temple in Black Marsh. That den of Vaermina Worshippers had been nearly impossible to enter, and Caliban had regretted nearly every part of it since he realized that no cure for his affliction could be found within. The only thing he hadn't pined over was the acquisition of the sword. Now even the blade he spurned.
Nevertheless, it had saved his life on more than one occasion. With every cut, the greatsword secreted a sort of red poison. Caliban had seen the poison work in the veins of many Vampires and other creatures since he cut his way out of the Temple with the greatsword in hand. As it spread, the eyes of the victim widened and their pupils dilated. They became more timid and shy in combat, always giving ground, and eventually, when the toxin had fully spread itself through their body, they turned and fled in panic.
Grudgingly, he replaced the Brand of Quagmire on his back, and left the shack of death.
~ Part II - The Torment of Caliban ~
Caliban knelt and ran his blade through the least muddy patch of grass he could find. Unideal though it was, it served at least to clear most of the sentry’s blood from his weapon. The twice-dead Vampire’s clothing was saturated in the mud and grime of the bog as he lay face-down in the brown water where Caliban had left him, a gaping hole torn through his ribcage. The soft armor he wore had not been enough to protect him from the uncanny keenness of Vaermina’s brand.
Righting himself from where he knelt, Caliban turned to face the gaping mouth of the cave before him. The fiend he’d killed in the shack had not been lying. The cave was right where he’d said it would be, just beyond the little city of Morthal, hidden in plain sight. Such was the way of Vampires. A large cairn of bloodied rocks was stacked outside the beast's maw. Bones were strewn about carelessly about its base, and a blood-covered skull with one eye still rotting its way from a socket sat atop the pile of rocks.
“Cursed savages,” Caliban muttered as he kicked the cairn over. With the offensive shrine to death diminished, he continued past into the mouth of the cavern. Wispy strands of spider silk clung to the walls and braziers, which flickered with a dim light that was somehow more foreboding than warm or inviting.
The soft earth and gravel was crunching and squelching gently beneath Caliban’s boots as he moved into the lair of the Vampire Lord known as Movarth … and then, it wasn’t. Caliban scarcely had time to cry out as he started falling. Clinging desperately to his sword, he widened his eyes, hoping to adjust to the sudden darkness as he plummeted, but whatever pit he had happened into seemed to have no light whatsoever. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but the sensation of hurtling through a void. For one of the few times in his life, Caliban had no control. It terrified him.
Then there were hands grabbing him. Dark hands, from every direction. He could not see them, only feel them and hear them rustling his clothes and armor. Where they gripped him, it appeared as though hand shaped holes were covering his body, for the black of the hands blended seemlessly with the black of the void around him. Caliban tried to hack at them with his blade, but each time he did, the arms slunk away from him, only to return once his weapon had passed harmlessly by. Then, whatever these creatures were, they began gnawing at him. Caliban shrieked in rage and pain as he felt himself being eaten alive. No matter how he writhed or twisted or fought as they fell, he could never so much as touch one of the creatures.
Blood streamed from his various wounds, and still Caliban shouted as they chewed through his armor and into his flesh. Then, as soon as they had come, the gnashing teeth and fumbling hands disappeared.
Caliban was alone once more in the void … or, was he? He would have looked around if he could have, but some sixth sense was teasing him. He felt a presence there in the void with him. Something massive.
And he started to scream all over again when a pair of massive, invisible jaws grabbed him. Dagger-like teeth sunk into his back and slid through his metal armor like it was no more than a thin stick of butter. The pain was blinding, unbearable, and just as with his last aggressors, this one seemed incorporeal. Caliban writhed and beat at the thing with his fists and the pommel of the sword, but nothing he did even touched whatever beast was consuming him. Suddenly the pain peaked as he felt himself being shaken back and forth, almost as though he was experiencing it vicariously.
- - -
Caliban sat up, spluttering, and smacked his head against something soft and slimy. His whole head was wet, and he frantically spit out a foul tasting acidic liquid. Using a dry bit of clothing beneath his armor to wipe his eyes and nose, he finally let his lids flutter open. Something was horribly wrong.
The walls around him … they moved. Pink and fleshy, lined with veins, arteries, and blood vessels, they undulated around him, rhythmically expanding and contracting. Caliban had to hunch his back and neck so that his head wasn’t pressed against the ceiling. Looking down, he saw he was sitting in a green liquid that smelled of bile. Where he had no armor and only clothes, it had soaked into the fabric and burned him annoyingly, as if a fire were being held just beyond the flesh of every inch of his body. He stopped moving for a moment to listen. As the green water settled, he heard something. A gentle wind rushing toward him, and then slowly moving away. Almost like something was …
Breathing.
Then Caliban remembered. The hole, the hands, the giant maw that had swallowed him. He moved frantically, beating his fists against the walls of the great beast that had consumed him.
I have to get out, I have to cut my way out.
Those thoughts filled his head, and he could think of nothing else in his panic. Looking around frantically for anything that might help, perhaps a sharp broken bone that the creature had consumed, his eyes lit upon it.
The Brand of Vaermina.
He still had the blade with him. Picking it up, he tried to slide it across the stomach of the creature to drive the point through the flesh, but the blade was too long. Frustration and anger building up inside him as the stench of the stomach filled his nostrils and messed with his mind, he drove the spike at the end of the pommel into one side. He heard a muffled, beastial scream of confused pain as he did so. With the blade stretched diagonally across the stomach, Caliban grabbed the flat and pulled the point toward himself with all his strength. The keenly sharp tip of the weapon slid across the pink internal flesh of the beast, causing the scream to intensify, and drawing a deep red line along the wall of the stomach.
Finally, Caliban managed to slide the blade so that it stretched all the way across the stomach, albeit with almost half the blade already embedded in the flesh. He grasped the hilt of the sword and, with all his might, gave a single massive push.
The beast’s pained screeches filled his ears as the full length of the greatsword plunged outside of the stomach and into the rest of the creature’s body. Caliban cut his way from the stomach and ran into a hard outer layer of … flesh? No, it was too firm to be that. He hacked and slashed from the inside, and eventually managed to pierce a hole through his organic cage. The screams continued as the acidic liquid leaked form inside the stomach into the rest of the creature’s body. It started to roll and writhe in pain, and it was all Caliban could do to hold onto the sword as it was embedded into the creature’s outer walls. Caliban continued to attempt his cuts, eventually making a hole big enough to stick his head through. Using the hole as purchase for his blade, he used the serrated edges to saw through the hard armor that the beast wore. Dimly, he became aware that the creature had stopped moving and screaming as he tore the final bit of what he now realized were scales and tumbled from the creature's insides.
Coughing and spluttering, Caliban righted himself, covered in stomach acids and blood in almost equal measure. He looked around, but once more was greeted by nothing but a black void. Turning about, he saw the thing that had consumed him.
The dragon was immense, black, wicked, and very, very dead. Shreds of useless flesh where Caliban had cut his way from its innards lay limp and bleeding. The wyrm’s mouth was open, its tongue lolled in death and its mouth opened in an eternal cry of pain. As he watched, the dragon began to glow, as though someone had set a fire within it. Caliban became aware of a grim chanting in his head, spoken in some language he had never heard. It began so quietly that at first it was unnoticeable, but it quickly built in volume. He stared in morbid wonder as the flesh and scales gradually flaked off the giant beast’s bones, the chanting pounding rhythmically in his head. A great gust of wind suddenly hit him, and tendrils of light slithered from the dragon toward Caliban, piercing his heart.
The dragon was now no more than a skeleton. The chanting reached a climax, and the strength of dragons rushed through Caliban. He shouted, this time not for pain but the immense power that coursed through him.
Then it was gone. The wind and light died, and he was left once more in a pit of darkness.
- - -
Caliban sat up again. He was covered in liquid still, but he had no wounds, and this time as he got his bearings he seemed to be in a relatively normal room. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized where he was.
Blood and saliva was the liquid that coated him, for he was in the shack once more, where he had tortured the Vampire and met both Molag Bal and Vaermina. Curses streamed forth from his mouth as he slowly stood up.
Shaking his head to clear it, he stood up. Wiping the spittle from his mouth, he leaned down and picked up the sword, which itself was covered in saliva and no small amount of blood. The blade was rather ugly, in truth, though it had a certain aesthetic appeal in its brutality. Serrated spikes had been laid horizontally at intervals along the blade, set against a black fuller that made its way almost two-thirds of the distance from crossguard to point. The guard itself emanated evil. It extended sideways from the upper hilt in spiked waves, each trough resolving in a wicked peak, and ending in three long spikes in each direction. The hilt was crafted similarly, and though it wasn’t sharpened as the crossguard was, it was scarcely any more comfortable to hold. The pommel was a large, hefty ball spiked in all directions, capable of delivering a truly deadly mordhau stroke to any unfortunate enemy.
One thing was clear: this was a blade made for fear. Caliban had been grateful for it many times since he had taken it from the depths of Kota-Uxith Temple in Black Marsh. That den of Vaermina Worshippers had been nearly impossible to enter, and Caliban had regretted nearly every part of it since he realized that no cure for his affliction could be found within. The only thing he hadn't pined over was the acquisition of this sword Now even the blade he spurned.
Nevertheless, it had saved his life on more than one occasion. With every cut, the greatsword secreted a sort of red poison. Caliban had seen the poison work on many Vampires and other creatures since he cut his way out of the Temple with the blade in hand. As it spread, the eyes of the victim widened and their pupils dilated. They became more timid and shy in combat, and eventually, when the toxin had fully spread itself through their body, they turned and fled in panic.
Grudgingly, he replaced the Brand of Quagmire on his back, and left the shack of death.
- - -
Caliban sat up again. He was covered in liquid still, but he had no wounds, and this time as he got his bearings he seemed to be in a relatively normal room. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized where he was.
Blood and saliva was the liquid that coated him, for he was in the shack once more, where he had tortured the Vampire and met both Molag Bal and Vaermina. Curses of frustration and confusion streamed forth from his mouth as he slowly stood up. He saw the Brand of Vaermina in the pool of watered-down red liquid, and knelt to pick it up. The blade was rather ugly, in truth, though it had a certain aesthetic appeal in its brutality. Serrated spikes had been laid horizontally at intervals along the blade, set against a black fuller that made its way almost two-thirds of the distance from crossguard to point. The guard itself emanated evil.
- - -
Caliban sat up again. He was covered in liquid still, but he had no wounds, and this time as he got his bearings he seemed to be in a relatively normal room. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized where he was.
Blood and saliva was the liquid that coated him, for he was in the shack once more, where he had tortured the Vampire and met both Molag Bal and Vaermina. Curses of frustration and confusion streamed forth from his mouth as he slowly stood up. He saw the Brand of Vaermina in the pool of watered-down red liquid, and knelt to pick it up.
- - -
Caliban sat up again. He was covered in liquid still, but he had no wounds, and this time as he got his bearings he seemed to be in a relatively normal room. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized where he was.
- - -
Caliban sat up again. He was covered in liquid still, but he had no wounds, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not understand where he was.
- - -
Caliban sat up again. He was covered in liquid still.
- - -
Caliban sat up again.
- - -
Caliban sat up.
- - -
Caliban sat.
- - -
Caliban.
Caliban.
Caliban.
Caliban!
CALIBAN!
CALIBAN!!
“Caliban, wake up!” Eliana’s voice slid through his ears like a comforting tune, warming and calming him like a mug of mead after a long journey on a cold winter’s night. She laughed her joyous, innocent laugh as she nudged his shoulder through the soft blankets of his bed. Inhaling, he smelled the wonderful smells of home in Cyrodiil. He could almost taste the meal that was being prepared in the kitchen as the comforting scents wafted to him. “Come on, wake up, sleepy head!” she laughed, nudging him harder. “You can’t stay like that all day. I have plans now that you’re back. Come on. Come on! I haven’t seen you in years, Cali. How did you sneak past me? I tried to stay up all night, I really did. Come on Cali, At least give me a hug.”
Caliban sat up, his eyes shut tight, and felt his sister’s arms wrap around him. She laid her head against his shoulder and held him tight. “Maybe the Navy can keep you away from father and I, but I won’t let your laziness do it too,” she murmured teasingly.
“I … I’m sorry,” he managed. His voice was younger. He sounded alien to himself. Speech came easily here. Eliana laughed.
“Don’t be sorry, silly. Just get up and come have breakfast,” he heard her say, his eyes still shut tight. He heard her turn to go, but then she stopped. He felt her gaze on him. “And wipe that silly expression off your face. Come on, you look ridiculous with your eyes all scrunched up like that. Open up! It’s not that bright out.”
“No … no please,” Caliban stammered. A pit formed in his stomach. “Please don’t ask me to do that. Anything. I’ll do anything, but please don’t ask me to …” He heard his sister stomp her foot in that playful, stubborn way she always did, and huff out a little sigh.
“Come on, Cali, you’re being ridiculous. I just want to see your face. It’s been so long, and I can’t really se you when your eyes are all scrunched up like that.
“No. No, Eliana please. You don't understand.” Please, she can't understand. Caliban felt the panic setting in. The knot in his stomach tightened.
“I want to see your eyes Cali! I don’t understand why you’re being so stupid about it. Just open up!” She was getting annoyed now.
“No, Eli, I--”
“Just open up! Why is it so hard just open your--”
“I CAN’T DO IT!” he screamed at her. He heard her gasp and take a step back. He felt terrible. Worse than he’d ever felt. “I’m … I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. I just … don’t ask me to open my eyes, please. You’ll hate me, please don’t ask me to.”
Eliana stepped forward slightly, and then she felt her hand on his shoulder. “Cali … if something happened in the Navy … Cali, come on. I promise I won’t hate you. Why would I hate you? You're my Brother, Cali. Come on. Just open up.”
“You promise?” Caliban asked. He hated the hope that krept into him. Part of him knew it was false, trying to push it away. Yet, the rest of him gripped it tightly, like a rock-climber to his life-preserving rope, pulling it toward him desperately, welcoming it as it loosened the knot in his stomach.
“I promise.” Eliana squeezed his shoulder comfortingly.
Caliban opened his eyes.
She screamed.
Caliban groaned. His shoulders fell and his hands shot up to cover his face, but not in time to stop him from seeing her reaction. “No please, not again, don’t look at me like that EVER AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!” Caliban's shouts dissolved into sobs. His stomach writhed. That look on her face … it had killed him once before. “Please!” he begged, of no one in particular. “Please, anything but this, I can’t do this again!”
Despite all his pleas, Caliban could not look away from her, even if he wanted to. His hands were at his face, but he was seeing through his hands. Nothing could block his vision. Eliana's young face contorted in horror as she looked on him, beholding his flaming, hateful eyes. They were yellow at the very center, he knew. The roiling yellow faded into a raging sea of orange, rimmed with bloody crimson. He had spent far too much time looking at those eyes. Hating those eyes. Seeing Eliana look at them with that same hate was too much. Too much.
“Caliban … you’re not Caliban. Where is my brother?” Eliana screamed. She had fallen backwards as she beheld his horrid Vampiric eyes, and she scrambled away, her hand groping behind her. Settling on an ornament from a small table in his room, she grabbed it and hurled it at him. “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY BROTHER!” she screeched.
Caliban tried to take a desperate step forward. “Eliana, PLEASE! It’s me. It’s Cali, it’s me. Please believe--”
“Get away from me!” she shouted. “Get! AWAY!” She scrambled to her feet and fled through the door, slamming it shut. He fell to his knees, tears streaming freely down his cheeks.
“Please. Please,” he moaned pitifully on the floor. He could hear her barricading the door form outside his room. His groans of sorrow turned into screams of rage and pain and fear and confusion. He curled up, rocking back and forth on the floor for a time, and then stopped.
Quieting himself, he listened. He heard something behind him. A whisper, no more than a hint of a sound, carried to him from his bed. Slowly, effortfully, he stood up, and turned around.
It was rather ugly, in truth, though it had a certain aesthetic appeal in its brutality. Serrated spikes had been laid horizontally at intervals along the blade, set against a black fuller that made its way almost two-thirds of the distance from crossguard to point. The guard itself emanated evil. It extended sideways from the upper hilt in spiked waves, each trough resolving in a wicked peak, and ending in three long spikes in each direction. The hilt was crafted similarly, and though it wasn’t sharpened as the crossguard was, it was scarcely any more comfortable to hold. The pommel was a large, hefty ball spiked in all directions, capable of delivering a truly deadly mordhau stroke to any unfortunate enemy.
Caliban stepped forward, determined. He knew what he had to do. He had seen her again. She had seen him again. The pain … he knew he could not bear it. He could not bear it again. He reached out, and his hand brushed the uncomfortable handle of the sword. The whispering intensified as his fingers closed. He lifted the great blade, feeling that it was somehow heavier now than it had ever been, and brought it to the center of the room. He stabbed the spiked pommel into the floor, vaguely aware of a shout of alarm from Eliana outside at the sudden noise. Stepping back and holding onto the end of the blade, he stood straight, with the sword facing him, slanting upward from the floor. The tip gleamed at him menacingly. Welcomely. It was an old friend.
Gently, ever so gently, he placed the wicked point of Vaermina’s Brand against his heart. Sharply taking in a breath, he fell forward.
~ Part III - The Torment of Quagmire ~
Caliban woke up.
“So, the fallen hero emerges from the Quagmire.” Vaermina’s mocking feminine voice slid in and out of Caliban’s ears like gently running water through rocks, but this time he could identify a source. He opened his eyes, which still streamed with tears. Remembering, he shot his hand up to his heart, and felt very gratefully that it was still there. Relieved, he looked up, and saw her.
The Daedric Prince Vaermina herself standing before him.
“Oh, have no fear on that count, little Vampire," Vaermina said, looking at his hand as it clutched his heart. Her sultry voice was as it had always been, but coming from her twisted, thin-lipped mouth, it sounded more repulsive than ever.
The Prince of Torment stood before him, naked as a babe on its birthday, but there was nothing pleasing about her form. Her upper arms, back, and the outside of her legs were covered in vile snake-like scales, while the rest was a pale, moist-looking flesh. Her right arm held a great spiked staff, and her two left arms were occupied stoking the massive serpent that slithered about her body. It slid from one shoulder to the next, round her waist and up to her neck, continuing its eternal dance. Occasionally it caught a glimpse of Caliban and hissed maliciously. Her head was a mask of bone with four crimson eyes, and a mane of horns slithered from the base of her skull. Ribbons of shadow enshrouded the back of her head like some perverse maiden’s veil, thrown back that her husband may kiss her to symbolize the onset of their marriage. Yet no man in his right mind would have kissed this creature before him.
“Your heart is still in your body,” Vaermina continued, and then she chuckled. “At least the part of it that dear, dear Eliana didn’t take--”
“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK HER NAME!” Caliban roared, standing bolt upright and reaching to his back for his blade, only to feel his hand clutching at thin air. Vaermina laught gently.
“Perhaps not. Just as you had no right to slaughter my followers in my Temple and steal MY blade.”
“I came only for a cure,” Caliban seethed, “to this.” He pointed furiously at his eyes. “You know that. What choice did I have when your followers would not give it to me?”
“Would not?” Vaermina sounded amused and infuriated in equal parts. “My sweet Caliban, they could not, had they wished to, and I’m sure by the end you did make them wish to. Your Vigilant of Stendarr didn’t tell you the whole truth. Perhaps he did not know it. I am the only one who can grant you respite for your ailment. I alone hold that secret. Not even Molag Bal himself could change you.”
“Damned Vigilants. What would they know of such magicks anyway,” Caliban spat, cursing himself for a fool. Seething, he looked about. They stood in a valley, beneath dense, crooked, dead trees. The ground beneath his feet was soft and squelching, as it had been in the swamp of Hjaalmarch. A gentle, unnatural mist filled the air around Caliban’s boots, and spread like a field of clouds along the wetlands of the valley. Incredibly high peaks jutted into the black sky on either side of them, their upper reaches shrouded in a swirling purple mist. “Where are we?” Caliban asked the Prince, his anger momentarily forgotten in his awe and confusion.
“Are you so easily impressed?” Vaermina chided. “This is not but a fraction of my realm. You stand in Quagmire, Caliban. You have been here for some time, in fact, though I am sure from the way you screamed you did not recognize it. Few do. Fear is a powerful distraction.”
Caliban clenched his fist. So the bitch had drawn him into her realm. How long ago had that happened? How long had he been accomplishing nothing? Since he fell into Movarth’s Lair? Since he met Molag Bal in the shack? Perhaps since he came into the shack at all. Caliban did not want to consider the worst possibility.
“No, it has not been quite that long,” Vaermina said, reading his thoughts.
“Stop doing that!” Caliban demanded. “You’ve already come unwanted into my life, at least stay out of my head.”
“You mortals are so easy to read. So predictable. I don’t need to invade your mind to see your thoughts, sweetling,” Vaermina said dismissively. “I allowed you to progress some once you got your hands on my blade, before beginning your punishment. Finally, however, you had entertained me enough, and you’ve paid enough that I can consider my reputation upheld."
“Then what the fuck am I still doing here?” he said through gritted teeth.
“My my, such an angry little fiend. No need to jump to fury, little Caliban. You should be thanking me, really. I considered simply dumping you back off on mundus and returning my blade to its place in Black Marsh, but the truth is, I’ve become rather fond of you.”
“Fond?” Caliban scoffed. “I will never befriend a demon of Oblivion.”
“Friends? Oh, how you amuse me, sweetling. I said nothing of friends. Merely that I’ve become ever so fond of you. You are by far the most interesting mortal I’ve met in the last few decades. Admittedly, that isn’t saying much, but still, one does get so desperately bored with eternity. Your little hunt for revenge makes for quite a good story, and I’ve grown to rather like playing a part in it. So I’ve brought you here to offer a choice.”
“Choice? What choice have you given me so far? I have no reason to trust a single thing you say,” Caliban said defiantly. Part of him wished he could keep his mouth shut, but that had never been never one of his strong suits. Still, he felt a slight pang of regret for his words when Vaermina’s four eyes flashed dangerously.
“Careful, mortal,” she said, an echo of power creeping into her lascivious tone. “You would do well to recall that you are still quite expendable. I have no true need of you. I suggest you take what choice you can get, Caliban, for choice is an illusion when you are mortal.
Caliban bit back a sharp reply. He knew there was no way out of this one but to play the game.
“I have decided,” Vaermina continued, “that you may keep the blade.” Caliban’s brow furrowed. “Your theft of Jinxel-Narthax was rather impressive, but no less unjust. You needed to earn it, and the only way to earn it is through pain and fear. After all, pain and fear is what it inflicts. Your people name it Lucid Nightmare, I believe. Is it not just that the king understands how his actions affect his subjects?”
“Fine, I’ll take your damned sword then, and let's be done with this quickly.”
“Tsk, tsk," Vaermina admonished. "Be careful what you agree to, my Caliban. I did say you have a choice to make, did I not? This sword is one of the few artifacts that may be used to slay Molag Bal … or at least inconvenience him, for a time. You may take it, and use its powers to help you in your little quest, but you abandon the second gift I offer you … ”
Caliban realized with horror the choice he was going to have to make before Vaermina had even finished outlining her deal.
“ … The chance to cure your Vampiric affliction.”
Caliban’s heart plummeted. Vaermina said nothing as countless thoughts and emotions assaulted him. He could still feel the ghost of the horrid sinking feeling that he had felt when Eliana looked on his eyes. However real or unreal it might have been, the pain was as vivid as life. If he abandoned his quest against Molag Bal, if he left Vaermina and her sword behind … would that be so horrible? What did he fight for, really? What was revenge worth, in the end? If he was cured, perhaps he could go back to Eliana, and maybe she would accept him …
Her face loomed in his mind once more; her terrified face as she stared at him with revulsion. The chance that she would accept him was slim, but was it worth it?
Then another memory hit him, as if on cue. This was not the first time he had seen the naked form of a Daedric Prince. He had tried to shut the memory out, but his dreams in Quagmire had resurfaced them. Molag Bal, in her female form. He remembered what she had done to him, and the shame came over him again. The next memory, his father’s betrayal as he had given his own son to the Prince of Rape. As if watching it from a window, Caliban saw his father cutting his arm after his ordeal, raising a chalice of his own son's blood, now tainted by Molag Bal, to his lips, becoming a true Vampire Lord.
You have done your duty, son. You have gone through the rites, and now we will ascend together as Lords of Coldharbour.
Caliban remembered the betrayal.
And the vow.
The vow of hatred Caliban had made. Pain and shame roiled inside him as two of his greatest burdens fought for dominance. Eliana’s face and Molag Bal’s body rippled through his mind’s eye. He wanted them both gone. The pain, the shame, it mixed together … but the shame won out. He could not live knowing what had been done to him would go unpunished. His nerves steeled. His muscles tensed. He looked up at the Daedric Prince before him.
“Give me the sword.”
Vaermina smiled.
END
Replies
Hot damn, this was chilling. Nice work
Thanks Chris :D
I don't know what to say ? It is amazing, i want to read more despite it is my own character ! That's an incredible feeling, thank you so much Pixel, you perfectly did it and you have done what i could not. The atmosphere was extraordinary, the character is perfectly painted and you really understood the tragedy (and the strenght) of Caliban, the irony of this impossible quest.
Thank you so much for your very kind words! Faithfulness to the original character was both the greatest pressure and greatest joy of writing this character. You gave me a lot of source material to work with though, and I had a blast building on the foundations you set out.
I enjoyed writing this so much, I may do more stories on Caliban in my "Elder Scrolls Chronicles" series if you'd be gracious enough to let me.
Ofc mate ! Just remember to share the links on discord if you ever release another one :)