A Vision

I saw a vision. Whether or not it was truth, or story-truth, or merely an empty tale I wove for my own comfort, I do not know. But here is what I saw.

I saw a blasted moorland, dark and terrifying. It was the summoning day of Lord Molag Bal, Prince of Domination and Humiliation, Master of Control and Cruelty, King of Rape.

I saw two women, a mother and a daughter. Both were naked and their bodies were smeared with filth and their own blood. The mother lay on the ground, for her legs were broken and she had lost consciousness. Her daughter stood over her, a tree branch in her hand and despair in her heart, ready to strike even though it would be a useless gesture that would bring about nothing but her own death and eternal torment.

The two were feckless followers of Molag Bal, who had trusted in his lies and been offered to him on his summoning day, to become Daughters of Coldharbor, chosen and honored vampiric minions. They had not been told that the degrading rites would mean death for all but one or two of the offerings. Now, raped and defiled, they looked into the Void without even enough hope to pray. Besides, who could they pray to now?

The daughter closed her eyes. There was nothing there but absolute blackness. It was the true Void, she knew, the wilderness beyond both Aedra and Daedra. But it was not empty. She heard a whisper in her ears, "Not here. Seek not here. The Void has nothing for you. Look into yourself."

She opened her eyes and saw Lord Molag Bal. He was standing on top of a small hill, not far away. He had taken a form close to human, the better to humiliate them with his inhuman strength. He was laughing. She knew he was laughing at her, but instead of fear, she felt anger. They had been faithful, and he had tricked them. "Helpless!" he roared out, and fell to laughing again.

In her anger, the daughter closed her eyes. She obeyed the whisper from the Void, and looked into herself.

But there was nothing there. She and her mother had followed the Lord of Cruelty too long. His darkness covered all.

The voice whispered again, "Deeper!"

She thought back to her girlhood, her childhood. Before she had been initiated into the cult. But there was still nothing but darkness there. She and her mother had been bound to Molag Bal long before their formal submission.

But the voice urged once more, "Deeper!"

She forced herself down, and with her last strength, she saw a spark. She followed the spark of light, in a growing terror and despair, for Lord Molag Bal was no longer laughing. He was describing how he would torture the two of them, mother and daughter, shouting it out with the laughter still in his voice, torture them to death and beyond. Because they were weak creatures, unworthy to serve him, Lord of Cruelty, mightiest of all.

Just as Lord Molag Bal boasted that he was supreme in Oblivion and Mundus both, she caught up with the spark of light. It was a torchbug. And she remembered.

It had been when she was very young. She had gone out in the evening with a friend, to hunt torchbugs. They were going home, and her friend proposed to free the bugs they had captured, to let them go. It would be cruel to do otherwise, her friend had said, and cruelty was not pleasing to Lady Mara. Lady Mara loved all creatures, her friend had continued, loved them as a great family that included all, and she was best served by mercy to even the most trivial and weak beings.

The daughter remembered that she had felt her friend's words were stupid. Did not the powerful rule the weak, even to determining whether they lived or died? What good was mercy to a bug? But she had opened her gauze bag all the same, and loosed those she had captured. One had circled her head before flying off, as if in thanks. But that was foolishness, she thought. Besides, the gratitude of small things was useless. So much had she already been shaped to the service of the Lord of Domination.

Her mother was furious when she heard of the expedition. She beat her daughter, and forbade her to see that friend again, calling her a sentimental weakling who followed a weakling god. Soon, the friend moved to another town, and the daughter never saw her again.

The daughter opened her eyes. Lord Molag Bal was almost upon them. He stood at her mother's feet. His huge organ was erect and glowing hot. He laughed and told her what he was going to do now. He would rape her mother with his red-hot tool, and she would have to watch and listen to her mother scream from the pain of her broken legs and the scalding hot shaft that was being pounded into her. He would take her mother this way until she could scream no more, the Lord gloated, and then he would spray a flood of molten metal inside her and she would be burned to death and yield up her soul for his further "pleasure." But not at once, the Lord added. She would live long enough to see the same done to her daughter, watching her daughter's torment in despair as her own insides were consumed. "And there is nothing at all you can do about it, nothing that can stop me doing as I please. Helpless!" The Lord of Cruelty all but choked on his own laughter, again.

Her eyes closed. The torchbug was there, flying about in front of her face. "Ask for the mercy you gave to me," it sang, in a soft clear voice. "Ask that it be returned to you, and you will be heard. Faithful daughter, as a daughter in need, call upon the Lady of family love and witness her power."

Without opening her eyes, the daughter whispered, "Lady Mara, a boon, not for myself. If not me, save my mother from the Lord of Cruelty. She is my parent. Stand between her and his filthy desires."

A moment passed, and then a soft, maternal voice responded, with a hint of humorous teasing, "Took you long enough. But do not fear. This is no great task, for Me."

She opened her eyes. It seemed that Lord Molag Bal had heard the voice too. His face expressed utter fury and contempt, but the daughter could only smile. Suddenly, the King of Rape looked absurd, ridiculous and undignified as he stood there with his organ waving back and forth.

In fury, he raised his hands to call down a firestorm of glowing rock and lava, to destroy mother and daughter instantly and absolutely. He could still settle accounts with their souls later.

There was a crack like a tree being snapped in two, and a sound of thunder. The daughter closed her eyes, not in fear but in wonder at her new absence of fear, her freedom from the Lord of Cruelty's heaviest chains. Another clap of thunder, and she opened her eyes again.

Molag Bal's spell had failed. It had achieved the very opposite of its intended effect. Instead of the blasted moors of Coldharbor, they were now within a forest like those in the lushest parts of Cyrodiil. The sky was clear and blue, and the air was warm. They were near the top of a hill, and Lord Molag Bal, still naked, infuriated, and absurdly erect, was scowling up at them from the other side of a rushing stream.

A voice spoke, full of laughter.

"Comport yourself with more dignity, Lord of Domination. You are a ridiculous sight, a disgrace to both Aedra and Daedra. Your tool is an ugly little thing, and I wish to see no more of it."

Molag Bal clenched his fists in fury, and suddenly he was huge again, standing there fully clad in his armor, a tower of evil strength. He pointed with his Mace, and roared, "Mara! How dare you interfere, weakling? If it comes to a trial, you know I will best you."

"Brave words, Lord of Cruelty. But perhaps your accounting of my power and yours is not entirely accurate. We stand in my world, in Mundus, not in yours. Are you sure you are familiar with all my strength?"

Molag Bal sneered at Lady Mara. "Your power is diminished by the creation of this very world. You were drained by your creation of Mundus, like all the Aedra, and now your power is nothing in comparison to that of the Daedra. Like fools, you threw your strength away."

More laughter.

"Then perhaps you can come and take back your victims from me. But I warn you, it may not be as easy a task as you imagine."

The Lord of Domination raised his Mace again, and stepped forward. Then he dropped the weapon, and howled with pain, clutching at his right eye.

"Careless, careless, Lord of Cruelty. You nearly stepped on that sparrow's nest, and to protect her family, the mother bird flew up and pecked you in the eye. Such a small thing, and yet its love gives it such power."

Shaking his head and waving his left hand frantically to keep the infuriated bird away, Molag Bal bent down to pick up his Mace again. But no sooner had he touched it than he drew his hand back with another cry of pain. Lady Mara laughed.

"You never learn, do you? You dropped your weapon carelessly, and nearly crushed a wolf's den. The mother wolf is not likely to forgive you any time soon. She will bite you again if you reach down again."

A snarl from Molag Bal.

"They are nothing. Little things. They took me by surprise. I can kill them easily."

"Perhaps. But what if more come? All you will do is widen the struggle. Kill one, and another will come. Kill a flock, and another flock will come. They cannot kill you, of course. Not even banish you. But they can make you look a fool to all of Mundus, and you're rather sensitive about that, aren't you? All for the sake of revenge on a couple of mortals who managed to escape your grasp. Not a good trade, I think."

"I am Molag Bal, the Lord of Domination! I can prevail over them all. Their strength is nothing in comparison to the limitless might of a Daedric Prince."

"If it were their strength alone, perhaps. What if it is more than their strength?"

Molag Bal did not reply, and Lady Mara went on after a brief pause.

"You said earlier that we of the Aedra threw away our power. But that is a shallow and stupid judgement. We shaped Mundus with it, and there the power remains, running through the mortal world, empowering it and binding it to us the Aedra. We did not throw anything away. We invested our powers, like farmers planting seeds, and like the careful farmer, we gain a hundredfold when the time of harvest comes. You cannot see this because you think only in terms of domination. We do not dominate; we cultivate. Our love and care stands behind all earthly beings. The sparrow that pecked you in the eye has its own small share of the strength of Akatosh, of Kynareth, of Dibella and Zenithar and Julianos, of Arkay and Stendarr – and of me. You might be able to destroy the single bird or wolf. But can you destroy all that stand behind it? I do not think so."

The Prince of Domination glared at the two women on the hill, and barked at Lady Mara, "I will have them in the end, all the same. This is not over."

And with a crack of thunder from the clear sky, the Lord of Cruelty retreated to his own realm to nurse his wounds.

To the daughter's eyes, Lady Mara was nothing but a golden glow. She spoke to the glow.

"I am a sinner almost from birth, and your mercy to me and my mother is beyond my understanding. I will walk in your light from now on, though I do not know what my destination will be."

"It is enough. Your former sins have brought with them their own punishment, from which I cannot release you. You and your mother chose to be vampires, and vampires you will remain. No man will be able to detect this from your outward form, though those of the vampire race will recognize you as one of their own. But you will have the hunger for blood, and this you must resist. If you can serve me despite your vampire burden, and walk in the light until the end of your days, then you will be allowed to follow me after death. But if you falter, Molag Bal will take you despite all that I can do. The choice is yours."

The daughter bowed her head.

"Your mercy is great, and we will not fail you. How long will we be tested?"

"I cannot say. Perhaps to the end of the world. Vampires are immortal. But it is a burden you chose for yourselves, and you must carry it to the end."

By now, the glow had faded, and Lady Mara stood there beside the two others in the form of a middle-aged woman, as she is depicted in her temples. She reached out and gave the daughter, who knelt before her, two robes made of a silver-grey fabric the daughter had never seen before. Smiling, she said, "You and your mother should put them on, daughter. You are much easier on the eye that that ugly piece of work Molag Bal, but you might still be misunderstood if you walked into a town entirely naked."

The mother was still asleep. The daughter dressed, then looked enquiringly at Lady Mara.

Lady Mara nodded. "She will rest a while longer, daughter, and wake with her legs mended and whole again. And she will know what we have said here, though you should make sure she understands by conversing with her. Her heart has turned too, because of your bravery, and she will walk with you along the road you must travel."

The daughter was silent for a long time. Then she asked a final question.

"We did nothing to deserve your mercy. We shut you out. Why did you hear my prayer?"

"You resolved to die in defense of your mother, out of your love for her. That was prayer enough. We use whatever opportunities mortals give us to extend our grace to them. It does not require much."

Here my vision ended, with Lady Mara and the two mortals near the top of a hill and the sun slowly going down in the west. Perhaps the mother and daughter walk among us still. Perhaps they fell prey to temptation and were seized by Molag Bal. Perhaps Mara or another of the gods took them when their sins were finally forgiven. Or perhaps the entire story is nothing but a fiction.

Fiction or not, I now know my own path. True strength lies with the Eight, not with the Daedra. The Daedra mock the Eight for their weakness, but as they do in everything else, they lie. The strength of the Daedra is in their own particular powers, but that of the Aedra is invested in the world itself and everything in it. There is no question whose strength is greater, or who will prevail in the end.