Perchance To Dream

Raziel falls victim to an insidious spell, and dreams of lost brethren ...

Notes:

A bit of background explanation: this was originally written for a long-running crossover RPG called Multiverse Haven (now sadly defunct). The basic premise of the game was that characters had been pulled from multiple worlds and marked as Chosen, in order to eventually restore a dying multiverse. The main storyline takes place in Nosgoth, however there may be occasional references to characters, magic systems and some borrowed vampire terminology from other canon sources.

..

Warning: these are feudal-era vampires, who survive by hunting/taking what they need, and who have also been corrupted by the Taint. There may be references and/or scenes of fairly brutal treatment of humans as slaves/livestock. Such is life in a world where vampires rule ...

..

..

..

Raziel led them from the blood-drenched darkness, and into the thin, false light of predawn.

There was little that could be done for Vivec's wing; the break was a bad one. The Ancient navigated the confines of the tunnels slowly, gradually paling as the heat of the fight faded and pain sank deep its talons. He would require more attention than could be given on the battlefield, and as human scavengers were already gathering to pick the dead clean of their meager possessions, Vivec could be left neither alone nor at the site of the massacre.

Some of the bodies that littered the square were still frozen, rimmed in hoarfrost and contorted in the agonies of their last moments. But of Tarrant himself, there was no trace.

Ordering all three Ancients to proceed afoot to the cathedral, Raziel shadowed them from above, until the healers he had summoned winged into view. The temple's great central apse was almost empty now of Ancients; only a single guard stood watch over the Reaver's latticework cask. Even the smeared blood on the floor was rapidly disappearing beneath scrubbing rags - a handful of white-clad human servants worked in rays of muted light cast through the stained glass by the rising sun. Raziel's passage added to their duties, for his every step tracked behind a thin rim of gore.

The Ancients' circular wind-chamber was quiet, but as Raziel entered, the breeze began to issue once more through vents under Raziel's boots. The air dried further the blood on his skin, making a caked layer that itched uncomfortably, but the zephyr also filled his wings and pressed him easily aloft. With scarcely a few hard wing-beats, Raziel touched down lightly at the landing that lead to the bathing antechamber. Despite his weariness, the prospect of resting whilst covered in gore held little appeal-not when such luxuries were so close to hand.

There was no attendant here now, simply a row of empty hooks for the hanging of robes. Through the haze of steam, the water that welled in the pools beyond the connecting arches seemed bluer than Raziel recalled, yet something of it was oddly familiar. Perhaps it was simply that he remembered the layout of the pools - they had changed little in three years - or the scent of clean, warmed water drawn up from the shadowed depths.

Raziel's armor clung to his skin, dried blood and gore thick as glue, and each piece had to be peeled off, pried from him. Eschewing the fragile hooks, he discarded segments of crusted, battered armor to the floor, leaving a trail of the implements of war behind him. The water, as he stepped down, was warmer than blood, hot against Raziel's deathly-chilled skin - a tangible reminder of how long it had been since he'd fed. When had he last taken nourishment? Perhaps he should investigate a wall niche, or summon assistance but... something about the circular pool beckoned.

Raziel sank down into the water with a sigh of relief, once again marveling at the silken texture of the liquid, so different from the burning of the Abyss ... a chill shivered over his skin, and he shook the unwelcome memory away. Unfurling his wings, Raziel sluiced water over his skin, washing the worst of the blood and grime away. Crimson swirls twined into the currents and disappeared, leaving ivory-pale skin behind as he moved to the deepest part of the bathing pool, feeling leaden weariness drag at his very bones. He had pushed himself too hard for too long, it seemed-even vampiric stamina had its limits, and the events of the last few nights had tested all of them.

Of late, it had felt as if this whole mad venture was on the verge of spiraling out of control, with only Raziel's hand upon the reins, exerting his will in an attempt to control the forces of history and things yet to be. Was this what Kain had felt when faced with his impossible choice, all those centuries ago?

And yet, despite his missteps, Kain had prevailed. Thus Raziel would do the same; vague misgivings about the future were not cause enough to break the oaths he had made to his Clan. They had suffered enough for his sake ...

Despite his dark thoughts, the warmth of the water was a potent soporific, sinking into aching, new-healed flesh, the tiny bubbles caressing his wings. Raziel sank deeper, closing his eyes and thinking only of the warmth, the soothing darkness underneath the water. Even a transient peace such as this was something to be cherished ...

Blood dried black twined from his skin into the sapphire quiet. The trickles joined, became streams, became more. And Raziel... Raziel...

...followed that river down

- and rested,

and the currents tore apart and spun out the tendrils of black, and rooted them in the unseen depths;

and they reached up dark-bladed fronds, strange leaf-blade ribbons buoyed by agar-slippery hollow nodes, which stretched to gather the faintest glimmer of light that dared filter down;

and in their twisting shadows, after an age like the aeons of man

- movement.

It was sharper, more sudden than the drift-wash sway of the storm-weed: a flash of scale or fin perhaps, a disturbance of the water at the corner of Raziel's awareness.

Curled and floating in the silent depths, the movement was more felt than seen. Slowly, closed eyes opened.

Rahab? Raziel Whispered silently, without knowing why. His brother was gone, all of them were-dead and more than dead, all by his hand. The midnight waters made no reply, fronds wreathing around his form in a shadowed cocoon. Sunk deep, he felt no urge to leave this illusory shelter-the old instincts that should have led him to struggle free of the deadly water were for once utterly, completely silent.

The name echoed, resonating oddly within the confines of Raziel's mind, as if he both sent and received the Whisper. Vision brought little better clarity, for though the water was clear, eyes adapted to thin and more rarefied atmospheres were not well-suited to perception here. Still, Raziel could make out patterns of light and shadow. Lithe fragments of the latter danced through the dimness. Though time itself was swallowed, as a river vanishes into an inland sea, those flitting shapes seemed unreal in their swiftness, their agility, here in their domain.

There was another faint disturbance in the water, a swift ripple between the blades of black, and this time it seemed much closer - and directly behind Raziel. You return to these waters oftener than I would suppose. That echoed strangely, too - some part of Raziel playing both speaker and listener.

Do I? In truth, Raziel wasn't sure where he was. It did not seem important, somehow ...

It is ... peaceful here. Quiet. The words echoed in the silence of his mind, as if in affirmation. Dimly, fossilized deep beneath layers of memory, was the faintest echo ... screaming without sound, echoes of agony. He flinched slightly in reaction-then it faded away, deeper into the water. Idly, he reached out, twining talons into storm-weed, feeling currents move across his skin. Where are you?

A certain kind of amusement, dark like the water, rippled. Where? Why, here, Raziel - and everywhere. I swim in each pulse of your veins, coil in the jelly that wreaths the steel of your spine, dwell in the liquid that floods your lungs. The sense of movement in the water, of something long and limber passing, from left to right behind Raziel's back, was close this time, perhaps even within reach. The answer you should more rightly seek, Brother, is not of the nature of this medium that brakes your descent... but rather why you fell at all.

Raziel frowned slightly, a certain impatience rising past that immersive peace. Riddles, Rahab? His brother had always been fond of puzzles, and of wordplay, he remembered. Rahab and Melchiah, especially, had oft diverted themselves with twistings of logic and philosophy ...

He uncurled a bit, sculling hands through the water in an attempt to right himself-an effort made more difficult by the realization that he was not entirely sure which direction was up, or if it even mattered. His movements were clumsy, ill-favored next to the flickering, lithe movements of his unseen companions. I do not remember ... How had he gotten to this place? There was something tugging at him ... something left undone.

Frowning more fiercely, he kicked outward, using what he had learned in the drowned Abbey to propel himself through the water, towards the diffused light that glimmered down through the fronds. It was the merest shadow of the grace that the Rahabim had possessed, he knew ... but it was sufficient to make some progress.

Raziel's hard kick sent the shadows scattering, but they circled and regrouped soon enough, trailing alongside, curious - or predatory. The closer form kept pace as Raziel found a rhythm to his strokes - which took a moment, for this body was unused to swimming, and in the resistance of the water was the sense-memory laid down by another physical form: one thinner, lighter, its wings a tattered cape that dragged behind. Memory is... difficult here, agreed the echo, as it is difficult to measure the river's breadth from within its waters. A pause, and then the long undulation ghosted closer, a turbulence in the water just behind Raziel, slightly to his left. A cool, slightly tacky touch passed up the thick wrist-spar of one of his wings. Though granted, your swimming is somewhat improved.

You shall turn my head with such lavish compliments, Rahab, Raziel answered dryly, obliquely reassured by his brother's presence, even obscured as it was. Even the touch upon tightly folded wings-so useless here, in these environs, yet no less precious-did not provoke any retaliation.

He swam for a time, then paused, somewhat annoyed. Is there no sky in this place? he asked his shadowy escort, somewhat peeved. The shafts of lights that these unnamed lurkers took such pains to avoid must come from *somewhere*, did they not?

The reply, when it came, was thick with irony and surprise both. You have no idea, my brother, how deep we truly are. An abrupt pulse of the water around him, and then smooth-skinned arms were enwrapping Raziel's waist, webbed and gripping-textured talons splaying over his lowest ribs. This way, Raziel.

Acceleration was sudden and startling, the water abruptly a solid pressure against Raziel's face and chest. His heels scraped over silvery-slick scales; Rahab's body seemed very long, very supple, and each stroke of his - legs? tail? - propelled them both as far and as fast as a dozen of Raziel's kicks. The forest thinned around them, dark tips of waving fronds appearing overhead, sweeping to the side, and disappearing into the gloom behind. The water grew lighter, and as it did the flitting shadows nearby fell away, one by one.

It was impossible to gasp under water, but Raziel held on to those arms with a near-crushing grip as the underwater world rushed by him in a blur of light and shadow. ...Rahab! It was a timely reminder that this was his brother's element indeed ... how deep *had* he gone?

The light intensified by degrees, until the water they traversed had turned translucently pale, aqua shimmers rippling above them. There was a subtle flinch in the slick-skinned body pressed to his back; and they abruptly veered to the side, paralleling the surface rather than approaching it.

Rahab, what ...? And then Raziel realized. Ah-of course. The sun. Regret seeped through the Whispered words. My apologies, brother. I did not think.

They passed into a pool of shadow-and Rahab changed direction once more, gliding lithely upward. They breached the surface of the water together, waves rippling outward. Raziel blinked water from his eyes, gazing about him; and realized they had surfaced in a rocky grotto, sheer overhanging cliffs of mossy rock sheltering them from the glare of the sun.

On the contrary, Raziel; Rahab cleared the water from his throat, and the sound was raspy with the liquid, but his tenor laugh was as clear and sweet as any siren's, "- you think far too much." His arms slipped from around Raziel; the silvery-blue skin of those limbs was darkened and cracked in a long stripe, elbow to hand, where the light had fallen too brightly upon it. As Raziel turned his head, shaking the obfuscating water from his eyes, he saw clearly - Rahab's long body, finned and scaled, marbled in a palate of violet and green and every shade of blue in the heart of the sea. His brother's smile was a shark's, quick and ancient and very sharp.

And then Rahab ducked underwater again, his body a silvered streak, then a rippled blue shadow. His whisper echoed once more, a warning or a promise: And we all make our sacrifices. The water closed around him, and he was gone, the surface placid and silent, hinting nothing of what ghosted beneath.

The surrounding walls were steep, nearly sheer, hollowed and notched by wind and salt. They met the water in rough-folded waves, forming a multitude of small hollows and coves. There, half-hidden in overhanging shadows, dark glassy orbs bobbed in the water, clicking against rock or silently brushing the hanging green. There were perhaps fewer of the spheres now, and no sign of whatever tides had driven them to take shelter against this bastion of stone. But something about the distant horizon, when Raziel looked out from the grotto, seemed... not right, seemed malicious.

There was no welcoming beach shore here; stony walls rose straight and slick from the water's embrace, adorned with clinging ferns and hanging moss. And adept as Raziel might be in the air, he was certainly no flying fish, to leap from one element to the next with naught more than a flip of a nonexistent tail ...

It appeared, then, that Raziel would have to make a much less ... dramatic entrance. Swimming through the water to the nearest rocky cliff, he was uneasily aware of his clumsy splashing, nothing like the sleek and silent movement Rahab had shown. Before, he had not felt the faintest trace of unease, guarded as he had been by his brother's company. Now ... the waters suddenly seemed a great deal more opaque, ominous. He had a vague, half-formed memory of something else lurking in their depths ...

Shaking away his womanish fears, Raziel reached outward, brushing talons over the rocky walls. It was good stone-porous, yet solid enough for purchase without flaking and crumbling under the edges of his talons. Glossy spheres nudged against him as he craned his neck in order to gauge the best route, moving in silent swirls and patterns of their own, at the mercy of the water's currents. But whatever their purpose, they kept their secrets, shadowed and half-submerged, as Raziel sank talons into the stone before him and began to climb.

The first long pull was a hard one, Raziel's body weighted by the sucking water and whatever forces had drawn him down to begin with. But the water sheeted from his wings, poured from his armor, and his movements became less encumbered with every bodylength. The rock was cracked and fissured, worn into recessed canyons. The climbing was easier, there, and the sharpening gusts of wind were muted to mere breaths, but the close walls afforded little space for the spread of Raziel's wings, and he kept them tight-folded. The water grew distant below him as he ascended; the atmosphere thickened, as if heralding a stormfront.

Raziel reached for a final handhold rear the rim of the plateau. His talons slid firmly into the mossy crack, but as he placed his weight there, the entire be-greened ribbon of stone peeled away from its parent mass, and Raziel had to scramble for purchase in the sudden tumbling landslide. Chunks of stone pelted his head and back, man-sized boulders crashed down so close the the wind of their passage kissed his skin, and only Raziel's quickness kept him from joining the fall. The rock was rotten close to the exposed surface, he saw, for the scar from where the fin had parted was wormed with the channels of anchoring roots. For all their seeming fragility, the wreathing ferns and vines did their part, with the wind, to gnaw away at the walls.

Even Raziel's sharp ears could not make out the sound of stone falling into water, so far below. But the palms of his hands sensed well enough the vibration of a footfall, directly overhead, very massive. The voice that accompanied it was just as heavy, a bass stone rumble. "'Tis enough to cause one to wonder if you mean to play at warfare, or at farming."

"... Turel?" The name escaped him before he could call it back, born of surprise. Raziel craned his head backwards, his awkward position ensuring that, try as he might, he could not see if his younger sibling truly was above him; even his nose failed him, as all he could scent was the damp earth now liberally adorning his talons.