-0-
"Even knowing what to expect was not enough to prepare me for the effect of my mind and soul laid bare and my awareness stretched across causality."
-0-
The Tablet he had only just retrieved broke apart in his grip, dissolving into dust that passed through into his very being, absorbed like a sponge would absorb water. Its retrieval fuelled him in ways he could not immediately describe. Like before, the haze of reality seemed to float away like insubstantial mist and he saw past it to other…things.
"The pebble in the pond." That booming voice began to echo through his soul once more, that same voice that reminded him so much of the False God, yet was profoundly different.
Before him now there was a most confusing sight. He saw what looked like old ruins. Crumbling castle walls and fortifications, all of them bearing the tattered symbol of the now long dead Razielim. Standing in a courtyard of stone was a winged Ancient, clad in extremely archaic-looking golden armour across the arms. Kain perceived the Ancient to be that other strange incarnation of Raziel whose mural he had seen before, Raziel-Divus.
Now the image was made flesh and stood with wings spread out wide and talons clenched. The resemblance to the whole Raziel who had served Kain for a millennium was so striking that it was almost like looking into a mirror that gave the handsome first-born son he had been so fond of blue skin and black feathered wings.
He stood facing an open gate, expression profoundly disapproving. Then he turned, confronting an intruder upon the scene.
Leaping down from a rocky ledge was…another Raziel! This form was the one he was far more used to seeing now, the blue, ruined wraith form that Kain honestly thought he had seen the last of.
The two Raziel's circled each other, each one speaking to the other, yet Kain could not hear what either was saying.
Then the Ancient version of Raziel raised a hand and threw a focused burst of energy at his counterpart. The wraith dodged and then leapt at his opponent, talons outspread.
As he lunged, the scene around them shifted and changed and they faded with it.
"Armed for the true endeavour."
Vorador appeared then, his mature form now fully realised. He sat down on a throne-like seat made of stone in some dusty and abandoned room. He had been sitting there for some time, as he himself was covered in dust, spiderwebs clinging to his body and the insects running across his arms unhindered.
He just sat there unconcerned, his face sunk in what appeared to be permanent melancholy. Then he let out a sigh and closed his eyes. Kain watched as his skin began to harden like a chrysalis, becoming rigid and tough.
His entire outer body became this shell as he retreated back inside himself, entering into a suspended animation that Kain and his own Vampires had used. This was the state of change, a period were Vampires entered into a dormant torpor to accelerate their evolution.
When the process was complete, Vorador was entirely encased, left to the mercy of the spiders and the mounting dust.
The whole scene was so pathetic Kain actually felt himself indulge in the fancy of pity.
"Time fades even legend."
The new act before him now was much more recent. The Citadel smouldered in the wake of its conquest and in the central chamber, Ba'al was on his knees, shackled and beaten. Before him stood the younger incarnation of the Necromancer, Mortanius, escorted on either side by un-dead beings he had conjured with his Death magic. Little more than rotting zombies with flesh dropping off their yellow bones.
In his hands, Mortanius was holding the third Tablet of Dark Fable, taken forcibly from Ba'al.
Kain felt his stomach sink at the sight. Ba'al must have lied to him. He had not sent all the Tablets of Dark Fable to Ajatar and the Serioli for safekeeping. He had kept one with him. That foolish act had placed it in the hands of the uprising Humans, where no doubt it would be destroyed.
Mortanius looked down at the Tablet he held with wide eyes, fear and wonder both reflected in his expression as if what he held were the forbidden fruit tempting him to reach forth and take it.
A looming sense of presence interrupted Kain's thoughts and with that coming presence, everything else faded.
Something was behind him.
Slowly, he began to turn around but froze halfway, eyes wide at the sight of the face before him. Two pairs of narrowed eyes met his, with a large, circular one directly in the centre of that leathery face. Tusks of ivory, which in themselves had to be over a hundred feet long, jutted out either side of that face and seemed capable of crushing Kain with one swipe.
Lancing out behind that massive fish-like face was the long, serpentine body of the snake monstrosity he had seen in the first set of visions from the Tablets.
"Unite what has been set asunder."
Kain sat up, gasping for breath, his eyes wide in awe.
Ajatar backed off from him, her wings half spread in alarm.
-0-
"I awoke from the nightmare with a terrible thirst in my mouth and the palpable awareness of time having passed."
-0-
He took a moment to regain his sense of location, finding himself lying on the floor just outside Vorador's forge where Ajatar must have dragged him. Evidently he had collapsed again. Once again the light was different, indicating the passage of time, yet not as much as before.
The visions he had seen this time made no sense. What did this all mean? Was he truly being guided or was this some fakery concocted by the False God to lure him astray? How could Raziel fight himself? That defied basic logic. And what of Vorador's plight and that…that snake-like thing that followed him through the dreams?
With a sudden start, he remembered what else he had seen.
"How long have I been unconscious?" He asked, looking up at the Grandmaster of the Serioli standing above him.
She hesitated for a moment.
"About an hour." She said eventually, her expression one of disturbed confusion as her eyes studied his face. "You were asleep longer the last time."
Kain grunted and made his way back to his feet unaided.
"Perhaps I am growing more used to the experience." He surmised, running a hand over his face to rub his eyes.
Ajatar watched him, her lips pursed. Kain turned to look at her, returning her gaze with his own steady one.
"Who are you, Vampire?" She asked of him in a near hushed whisper, her voice tense and reeking of hope and anticipation. "How can you do all this?"
Kain smiled sardonically at her.
"My name is Kain." He told her, deliberately leaving a pause where she still looked at him expectantly. "But that is not the answer to the question you really want to ask, is it?"
Ajatar swallowed hard once, almost trembling. Kain knew what she suspected, but could also tell that she dared not assume such a thing. Her deep-rooted cynicism about the Prophecy and the state of affairs in Nosgoth would not let her believe such a wondrous thing.
"Ba'al told me only one being was supposed to seek these Tablets…" She began but Kain raised a hand to cut her off, his head cocked to one side.
"Be silent." He said abruptly, his eyes narrowing. Faintly, off in the distance he could hear the mutterings of a large number of people. His sense of smell, far greater than Ajatar's, could also pick up the unpleasantly familiar stench of Vampire dead. "Something is wrong."
Without waiting to see her confused reaction, Kain turned to face the Citadel up towards the higher chambers. Smoke still rose up into the sky, but the fires had burned to smouldering coals and all was silent.
That meant that the ships blockading the Citadel had ceased their attacks. That in turn meant one of two things. They had given up and gone away, or the battle was over and the Humans had seized the Citadel.
Kain felt that the latter was far more likely.
In any event, he was soon proved correct. Among the still-smoking ruins of the Citadel, the Seraphim walked in victorious strides. The Werewolves had been called back by their masters, harshly whipped into meekness and collars placed around their necks.
The fate of these poor mutants when they eventually escaped their bonds was to wander through the outlands and wilderness until their extinction. Kain supposed that they might very well be the most pitiful species in Nosgoth's history. Created for war, used up and then left to die in the cold.
Before the main fortress, the Seraphim had gathered in a large group. Kain, with Ajatar following closely behind, was able to see it from a distant vantage point of a hidden ledge.
The Grandmaster of the Serioli paled at the sight of so many winged bodies all around, hacked and mutilated almost beyond recognition. Kain, more hardened to that sort of thing, frowned when he saw the young Moebius at the front, his venomous staff with its glowing orb held high.
-0-
"The scene before me was more than familiar. An execution ground, Moebius' favourite kind of amusement. Corpses lined the ground all around him and even as a youth he relished in the blood and slaughter."
-0-
There was a winged Ancient lying at Moebius' feet. He had been stripped, badly beaten and was covered in blood and one of his wings was hanging askew and torn. Two of the Seraphim stood on either side of him, their blades held just over his back in a ready position to plunge down.
Ajatar breathed in sharply through her teeth and drew one of her short blades, preparing to rush forward. Before she could give them away, Kain lashed out and grabbed her by the arm.
"Let me go!" The Grandmaster demanded hoarsely, looking back at him with a stricken face. Kain shook his head with a frown.
"It's too late for him." He told her.
Crouched there, broken and battered was the first Balance Guardian, Ba'al Zebur. A cut was running down one side of his face, leaving only one half of his face visible to the crowd of warriors and soldiers around him.
Moebius walked up to him, sneering that loathsome sneer of his and then knelt down to look directly into the face of his captive.
Kain quickly glanced around the plaza. There was no sign of Mortanius here.
"Ba'al Zebur, you have been judged guilty before the eyes of Humanity for crimes against our species." Moebius began, his grey eyes locked onto those of Ba'al who stared back just as harshly. "Do you have anything to say before sentencing is carried out?"
One of the men beside Ba'al grabbed his head and jerked upward so that the leering and mocking crowd could see his face. Ba'al endured the punishment without so much as a whimper of pain to betray his dignity. He looked Moebius squarely in the face.
"I have no words of wisdom for cowards and sneak thieves." He said, and then spat on the ground between his tormentor's feet, a mixture of saliva, blood and broken teeth. "I have played my part, do what you will."
Moebius' face contorted into a disgusted sneer as he stood back up.
"It is the judgement of the Human Guardians of the Circle of Nine that you shall suffer the painful death you and the rest of your kind deserve." He declared, turning to look back at the warriors behind him, who each held cowed before them one of the shackled and chained Werewolves.
"Food for the wolves!" With that declaration, the Seraphim reared back their whips and lashed their dogs, goading them into a maddened frenzy and howls of frustration, rage and agony. "The final ignoble death of the last Vampire Guardian." Moebius added, stepping out of the way. He sneered at Ba'al one last time. "I can think of nothing more fitting."
Once Moebius had stepped out of the way, the two warriors standing as Ba'al's guards broke and ran out to either side just as the Werewolves were released.
Ajatar tried several times to break out of Kain's grip as Ba'al was set upon by tearing claws and ripping teeth, each struggle weaker than the last. When it was finally and obviously too late, Kain relented and let her go.
She ran forward two steps before she stopped, acknowledging the truth. With a shudder of horror and mourning, she turned away.
-0-
"So passes Ba'al Zebur, the Lord on High and the first of the Balance Guardians. He could not have known the full extent of the events he foretold nor their nonlinear nature, but in time they would bear the hope for a race damned by all others. His sacrifice and the sacrifices of all others after him would not be in vain."
-0-
Moebius chuckled as the Werewolves finished their work, turning to address the crowd.
"The city is ours!" He shouted to a massive cheer, swords and axes rising in the air in accompaniment. "Let this day forever mark when God smiled down upon us and showered us with grace! This is the Age of Man!"