Disclaimer – I do not own Legacy of Kain.

Lament of a Lonely Man

by

Ayla Curtis

For Sara(h), Liz and Eddie

I'm sorry it took so long and I hope you like it.

It rained a lot in the swamp.

The rain was one of the reasons that it was a swamp, meaning that it was almost constant. Even on the days when the sky was almost empty of bloated, bruised clouds, there are still seemed to be, at the very least, a few spits of water in the air or a damp mist ready to settle on any available surface.

The seemingly endless patter could be deemed relaxing by some, a steady rhythm like that of a ticking clock by which to be reminded that the world was still turning and time was marching ever onwards.

But for some it was not so comforting. Time keeping can mean little to those who know that their time has the possibility of being endless.

Vorador placed one careful claw of emerald hue against the cool glass of one of the many windows of his great gothic mansion deep in the swamp that lay nestled in the heart of the Termogent Forest which in turn sat enthroned in the land of Nosgoth.

The rain against the glass sent ghost like vibrations through his hand as he watched the water's incessant falling about his home, tracing rivulets around his palm and obscuring the view before his eyes. It was at times like these when he realised, if only for a fleeting moment, that eternity was a very long time indeed, especially when nature played out its time keeping symphony to ensure that he acknowledged every single second that passed.

Briefly he returned his gaze to the room in which he currently stood; the master bedroom which he called his own even though he found little use for sleep. A warm fire crackled in the hearth, creating a flickering golden glow to play over the pale skin of his newest two brides who graced his bed like the most elegant of throws. They'd kept him amused…for a while…but though they were not children in the least, nor human any longer, they were still relatively young in their years and he had easily exhausted them. They slept curled together now like sisters, dark and light hair fanned over the sheets around their heads like halos…conveying an innocence they (willingly) no longer possessed. He couldn't even recall their names. He had so many women now that came and went as he pleased without complaint that after so long he no longer cared to acknowledge them individually as they were, after all, merely a means to and end; satisfaction and a brief respite from boredom.

He turned his face from the warmth of the room back to the cold, almost monochrome, world outside. The rain had been so heavy that he had not left the safety of his home for some time now, far too long; he was beginning to feel like a prisoner, trapped in here…beginning to stagnate. He needed to get out soon or he was sure that he would go mad. Though there were some who might argue that he gave up his sanity to sadism along time ago, and some days he might even be inclined to agree. Sanity was a fickle and frail thing indeed.

Leaving the window he gathered his clothes, strewn about the room quite haphazardly, dressed and was gone without further thought or word, a few green sparks of light which quickly faded being all there was to prove he had departed, let alone had even been there in the first place.

-o-

The rain couldn't kill him, but that did not mean that it could not sting or irritate. He did not stay within his home because it would harm him so grievously to leave, no, it was more so that the rain drove life away from the swamp. Animals, insects and birds alike hurried away from the liquid spears falling from the sky in the same manner they would the hottest of flames. Water dampened spirits as much as it did the world…which was not what Vorador wanted at that moment. Building boredom always put him in a monumentally foul mood after a while no matter how calm he attempted to keep himself. Coming out here onto the open ground where the sky could look down on him behind its bloated dark clouds was supposed to make him feel better…less trapped. It was supposed to remind him that there was an entire world out there with a complex future waiting to play out, that there was still so much out there…that it was not all about to collapse around him…that there was still a little hope of finding something to do. But no…nothing like that…the rain washed all of that away.

The place was so empty…the life that the place contained hid within its depth, leaving only the empty spaces and the decay. The corpses of trees drowned by the excess of water in the already sodden ground masked other dead and dying plants and creatures.

Nothing but rot and water

So much death here…quiet, cold and miserable. Not at all what he had been looking for. If he had wanted to watch life fading from this world he need only go down to his dungeons and look in on those fools he had chained down there…unless his women had decided to have their fun and left naught but scraps in their wake.

With a soft sigh Vorador was ready to turn and leave, his walk doing nothing to alleviate his mood in the slightest. Yet while wondering whether to traipse back home on foot or use his magic to transport himself straight there a sound and a scent caught his senses and compelled him to remain outside just a little longer in order to investigate just what had called the corpses from their graves. Indeed, the stench of the living dead was as unique to them as the careless moans and shrieks they made when confronted with potential prey. Such a perfectly horrid odour they produced; the utter stink of what rotting flesh still clung to their bones heightened by the unmistakable edge of the magic that kept their form animated.

It wasn't long before he came across them…it wasn't as if they were trying to avoid him, or even aware of his presence when he arrived; they were far to occupied with their quarry.

Zombies, risen from their shallow graves deep in the sodden earth at their feet, dressed in whatever garb they had worn at the moment of death or burial, holding either the weapon they had possessed in life or whatever they had taken up from the mud…some clutched at only clumps of dripping dirt and grass that had been instrumental in their crawling from their, supposedly, final resting place.

And what was it that had riled them so, that had made these foul creatures stumble from their sleep and seek out warm flesh?

Humans…inevitably. Do they never learn? Mortal fools. There was always one whose curiosity would get the better of their common sense…or two of them, in this case. A young man and a girl.

Blood sprayed out in a fountain from a torn artery, an arc of gleaming red against the frosty grey sky.

Correction…one, now, in this case. The young man had fallen to their clawing fingers and snapping jaws, borne to the ground by their sheer weight they piled on top and made light work of devouring his soft form while he screamed curses to them…and warnings to the girl; yelling at her with his dying breaths to get away, to run as fast as she could back from whence they had journeyed…back home to where it was safe.

The girl, no more than seventeen years on this world, pretty pale blue dress now stained red and brown with yellow ribbons in her auburn hair turned to flee, hot tears streaming down her face and a fresh scream forming on her lips. But she took no more than three quick strides before she crashed into the solid form of the crimson clad vampire watching the awful, gruesome spectacle. The scream never fully rose from her throat and she dropped backwards to the mire with little more than a whimper.

"Why are you all the way out here…in the cold and the rain, little girl?" Vorador asked, his voice just loud enough to hear.

The girl's eyes, dark with her weeping and shot with red, suddenly turned cold, terror replaced by a rage fuelled by loss still so raw in her heart. "You stand and watch…monster…did you call these creatures! Does it please you to watch us suffer so!"

He turned his gaze to the young man whose limbs and torso were torn asunder as the zombies and skeleton soldiers fought for the meat on his bones.

"No." Vorador said simply, golden eyes flicking back to the girl at his clawed feet. "Nothing these mockeries of sentiency do bring any pleasure to me. I've no hold over them."

"But you stand there still…" her voice began to quaver and tremors of fear run through her hands and lips but her eyes showed no change, still harsh even though new tears began to fall. "Why!"

"Those…things…are no interest of mine, it is what they produce that can be of some fascination. There is no other time that a human is more alive than when they are faced with imminent death. Something happens inside you..."

The girl's pretty face twisted into a disgusted sneer. "So you lie; you do find amusement in other's pain. What do you plan to do now, beast? Watch me run while those things nip at my heels…wait for them to drag me down…have you no compassion?"

"Not for your kind. You mortals know nothing of what you have…and what you've thrown away. You complain about suffering when in truth it was you who caused it." He said, taking steps forward.

To her credit she did not crawl back, instead she rose to her feet, trembling still. "You talk in riddles. You're a vampire are you not? Has your age addled your mind?"

"Brave words for one in your position." He commented, peering over her shoulder to where a few of the zombies had lost interest in their meal and had now focused on the victim they had, up to that point, forgotten about.

The girl didn't look back. She didn't need to; she could well enough hear their steady trudging steps as they stalked towards her. "Vampire, I know you've no love of my kind, I know our only tie to you is that you have need of us to supply you with the blood you crave but…please…don't leave me to their butchery. I do not expect you to save me…but perhaps there is enough soul left in you to grant me a quick death."

Vorador crossed his arms and slowly shook his head. "It is not my place to take any part in the affairs of mankind. If this is your fate then so be it."

A small, cruel smile crept over her dread paled lips. "But you've already interfered; you stood in my path and halted me…you are part of my fate now whether you wish it or no."

A frown settled on his face…a tridactyle hand reached forwards and clamped tight to the back of her neck, claws pressing sharply into her skin and holding pressure against the vertebrae inside. "You pray for a little peace…" he sighed.

"I pray for nothing from you. I'll thank you for easing my passing but that's all. If you could bring back my brother…" she paused to let out a trebling sob, remembering her last living image of the tattered corpse behind her. "...then I'd worship you."

"I don't ask for that." The pressure increased.

Why was it that all of the potentially interesting human beings were the ones about to die? He had not expected, from this girl with her yellow ribbons, such…bravery, for want of a better word. He was loath to apply such a description to a mortal but it was the closest fitting as she, quite literally, put her life in his hands with such conviction of belief that he would not case to her to suffer greater.

Brave…but ever so foolish. She knew nothing of the screams that so often echoed from his home, nothing of the crimson stains and corpses.

"Girl, do you expect a world after this one? Do you believe there is something waiting for you when this existence is over and done with?"

"Why do you delay?" she asked so quietly it was little more than a breath.

"Answer me, human." He told her sternly, loosening his grip rather than tightening it, given the circumstances, to emphasise that it was not something to be ignored. "Quickly now; they are almost upon you."

"I hear many different things of what lies beyond the grave, so many people with faith and vision but I share none of it. I can only hope that death is merely a sleep that can never be woken from…with no dreams or nightmares. I fear only how I die not when or what occurs beyond the moment."

"What of gods?"

She paused for a moment as if he had just asked something monumental, took a breath, allowed a few more tears to roll and then locked her eyes on his, still no softer. "With how this world is, with all of the suffering, if there is such an entity as a god then it isn't worth believing in. Place me before him and I will gladly spit in his face."

Was it just her tears obscuring her vision or did her words bring the slightest crack of a smile to the corner of the vampire's mouth?

"You would curse god?"

"With every breath I still possess…now please…"

Just as hooked fingers and stained blades made to touch upon their so desired target, both girl and vampire were gone, leaving emerald sparks in their wake.

-

Take the path from the back of the mansion leading away from the unused greenhouse, down a short set of stairs and past the rather redundant well, you find yourself confronted by an awe inspiring tomb, carved with images of bats and horned demons that gaze down with baleful yet empty eyes.

The place seemed simple enough; a single room, the walls lined with niches containing long decayed corpses and the centre bearing a broken stone throne…

But perform the correct gestures over the ornately decorated wall behind the throne and a door will open to you, revealing a curled staircase leading downwards to a secret chamber beneath the main one inside which dusty cobwebs brushed over yet more coffins and bones surrounded by sandy stone walls and black marble laced with deep red veins. And at the centre of this room is no throne, but a testament to veneration…laid out amidst a thousand or more brightly burning candles was what, in this dark age, might so easily be described as an angel.

It was to this sight that Vorador and the quietly terrified girl arrived from the attack near the edge of the swamp.

Gasping at the sudden and unexpected change in location the girl pushed away from Vorador and stumbled into the short few steps rising up to the central dais, her dress almost catching light as the candle flames grazed the dampened edges while she fell down in the thin clear path between them.

"Where have your brought me!" she shrieked, evidently fearful by the quaver in both her body and voice, gazing up at what she could see of the enshrined corpse before her.

"You beg me for death yet now you cower at the sight of a tomb…such fickle creatures you humans are." Vorador sniffed, unimpressed and uncaring for her confusion and plight.

"What is that?"

"Whatis that!" Vorador roared; outraged at how she would dare to address the deceased being she observed. He crossed to her in a flash and dragged her to her feet with a handful of her hair and ribbons, forcing her forwards so she would be face to face with the one she had insulted.

"He is Janos Audron, you would do well to remember it."

"To what race does…he…belong? She stammered, carefully choosing her words and shrinking back a little once she had been released by the vampire's quick hand. However her curiosity, with some difficulty, was overcoming her abject fear and looking upon the lifeless from she had to confess to never seeing nor hearing of any such creature before, living or dead…though the name appeared a trifle familiar even if she could not recall exactly from where she knew it. Cool blue skin and wings of darkened grey with three fingered hands and two toed feet, all tipped with black claws. No…this was not a form she knew. So fascinated was she that the gaping death wound over which those powerful hands rested was not registered by her eyes for a time.

"Of what race does he appear?" the enigmatic and quick to anger being behind her queried.

"I could not even hazard a guess. Tell me…please…how did he die, and when?"

"Is it not obvious how his life was taken from him? Is the wound not clear? His cruel demise was played out near five hundred years ago now."

"So long?" she whispered, taking in the grizzly red hole, all but ringed by broken ribs reaching almost claw-like from his breast. "And yet in all this time he has not rotted?"

Vorador merely nodded and produced a shallow grunt of agreement to confirm her statement but would elaborate no further.

"Will you grant me knowledge of two things?"

"Perhaps. Ask away, though I will not guarantee an answer."

Taking another steadying breath she voiced her two questions. "Firstly, once more: please grant me the name of his kind and secondly, also once again; let me know why it is that you have brought me here."

"He is a vampire, one far more ancient than I…and as to why I brought you here into his presence…a whim? I myself am unsure. Perhaps in some small way, your disgust towards god is…comforting."

"Is there a specific pain which causes this state of mind? I suppose there must be…is it to do with…him."

"Yes. His blind and absolute faith in an uncaring and ignorant god as well as the stupidity of humanity was what led him to his demise. If it were not for his faith, so much tragedy might have been avoided."

"What was he to you?" for a girl who had just witnessed the brutal murder of her brother she was recovering and coping rather well. But then again, these troubled times caused even the purest and most innocent hearts to begin to harden at such an early age.

"The easiest way to describe him to you would be to call him my father."

"I'm sorry for your loss." She told him, politely but earnestly, having suffered her own loss but a few moments ago.

"I'm sure." Vorador replied with a cynical edge.

There was a silence between them which only the occasional dripping of candle wax would pierce.

What caused him to spare this girl's life? What had possessed him to bring her to this most private of places? Vorador could come up with nothing that would explain it, it was as he had told her; a whim…a fickle, stray desire most likely brought on by boredom. But what baffled him the most was the fact that although to the bottom of his cold dead heart he still despised every waste of flesh that called itself human he was discovering it to be difficult to find such total hatred for this one girl. It was so difficult to remain so angry at the only person he's had anything resembling a civilised conversation for who knows how long.

It wasn't as if he didn't have any company…but his brides had little purpose beyond keeping him occupied in a more…physical manner. They were his as he needed them and they didn't care, swanning about the mansion with their minds lost to lust both carnal and for blood. They were completely dependant on him to bring them the nourishment they required to survive and treated him as 'master' accordingly, calling him Prince and continually pestering him. Some days he could not do without them and others he shunned them because of their base and animal-like qualities. Eternity was a hard thing to live through when you had no one who could hold a decent conversation with you…no one to talk to. Oh, he'd come down to the crypt of his sire on a good few occasions and speak to him as if he were still alive, or even just prattle on to his women whether they were listening or not…but it was just not the same as having a living and understanding being who would speak their own mind in return.

His contempt for the entire human race was being overruled by something he thought he had conquered long ago; loneliness.

Was it wrong to want to just talk to her? He felt like he was betraying himself somehow by even contemplating such a thing.

And yet…

He watched silently as the girl noticed one of the candles by his sire's head had gone out and took it upon herself to take up the one beside it and ensure that it was relit.

"I know that you must be tired of hearing me say this," she began quietly, setting the candle back down into the wax surrounded circle she had pulled it from, "but might I ask one more time what plans you have for me? You say you brought me here on a whim…but now that I am here what is to happen?"

Any other time he would have not have even graced her with an answer; he would just have chewed a hole in her throat and drank his fill before tossing what was left to his brides to toy with and feed from…but with the circumstances here present, with such mental conflict and heavy weight on his soul…could it be really just too much to ask her to stay a while and talk before just sending her on her way to finish mourning her newly lost sibling?

Choosing his words carefully he approached the girl with a purposefully blank expression and an inviting open hand. "Come, your dress is ruined and you must be damp and cold. There are fires in my home by which you may warm yourself while I find you a replacement garment."

Confused, if not slightly worried, by his actions and words but seeing no other options present she took the claw offered to her and allowed herself to be led away.

To be continued …

Author's Note – Well there you have it. For a long while I had no idea where this was going but hopefully it doesn't show. I'd be grateful to hear what anyone thinks of it as this is my first attempt at writing Vorador. Hope you liked reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it…even if it did take a little longer than I expected, especially since it was originally supposed to be a one-shot…and hopefully the rest of it will be done soon. Currently I'm not sure how long it will be, but probably no more than two or three chapters in total. I'm notreally happy with thetitle but have no idea for a better one...any suggestions would be very helpful...

But anyway, I hope I'll see you next chapter and thanks again for reading!