The character of Kain and name of Nosgoth; property of Silicon Knights,
Crystal Dynamics and Eidos.
The characters of Raziel, Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah;
property of Crystal Dynamics and Eidos.
Based on the game "Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver"
Metamorphosis
part 1
Change. A transference of one state of being into another and then from there
into yet another caused by the inherent restlessness of energy, always moving
and coming into being as something new, again and again. After having gone
through a change, one can never return to the state preceding the change,
even if the change should turn out to be reversible. The reversion itself would
represent just another change and the perspective differs by each one.
The life of a mortal is an existence under the yoke of change, as the mortal is
always at the mercy of the elements, the shifting seasons and its effect on the
crops, the capricious rulers and their varying demands for taxes and war
material. Then there is the mutable state of the mortal's own desires, his mind
reaching for this state or that, retreating from some and shunning others.
There is the appearance and disappearence of family, friends, riches and
power, always coming and going, seldomly resting. And then after a lifetime
of changes, some pleasurable, others painful and yet others unnoticeable, the
mortal falls prey for the final change, death itself.
It is different in the vampiric state. Here, the final change, that of death, has
been turned into a constant, that of immortality. The changing seasons have
little effect on the powers or resources of a vampire since his only needs are
those of blood for feeding and a place to rest during the day. As long as he is
able to feed himself and find shelter, the vampire need not worry about
whether it is this king or that duke ruling the land, whether the winter is long
or short or the crops good or bad.
Instead, he is beyond the concerns of mortals and their striving and futile
attempts at avoiding the unavoidable; death. Beyond the initial confusion of
having to come to terms with the death of death, the existence of the vampire
represents great opportunities for stability and constancy.
Kain was the first of us to go beyond death. He created my brothers and I,
and we in turn created the rest of the vampire legions in Nosgoth. With the
enslavement of humans at the dawn of the empire and the establishment of
power at the broken pillars, a vampiric haven of constancy was created in
Nosgoth.
However, even this existence of stability contained periods of intense
change, not in the external world, but inside. Already during the wars, Kain
changed. After days of exhibiting a mysterious lethargy and disinterested
somnolescence, he fell into a deep sleep from which he could not be roused.
Semi-solid blood which quickly hardened began oozing from his skin. Soon
it covered his entire body like a solid black shroud. It was behind this shell
that the first transformation took place. When Kain rose from his sleep a
week later, he had changed. At first, he seemed no different than before, but
soon the changes that had taken place became apparent. Lord Kain was more
decisive, more energetic and more present. His physical strength and speed
had increased, as had his hunger. His magical prowess had become greater.
Wounds healed even more quickly than before. In our ongoing campaign to
enslave the humans, under the leadership of Kain, we now became
unstoppable. The legions, despite being much fewer in number than their
human counterparts, swarmed the land like hungry locusts under Kain's
expert leadership and soon the last of the human cities surrendered to our
wills.
After some time, Rahab could not be roused from his sleep and blood started
coming from his pores. He changed. Then we all changed, one by one,
becoming almost as strong as our creator. As time passed we experienced
several such changes. Every time Kain would enter the torpor first, then one
of us would follow and then in slow sequence the rest of us. The periods of
deep sleep changed us profoundly, carried us further and further away from
our mortal origins. But even these periods of change, because they repeated
themselves over time, became a constancy in our existence in the new
Nosgoth.
However, the last time I changed, I could not have imagined what form it
would take. Or what form I would take. In the time preceding the change, I
pondered much about the wars nine hundred years ago. At that time, as now,
the humans' religion was the fuel as well as their refuge in their war against
us. Several places in the land the humans had built fortresslike cathedrals to
protect the populace against us and keep them together in their faith, barring
all acceptance of our presence in Nosgoth. The faith of the humans preached
the righteousness of their existence and the damned state of their enemy; the
vampires. The vampires were the spawn of the devil who had been damned
by God and only deserved to be shunned back to hell from whence they
came. The humans' God had bestowed upon them the power to discriminate
between moral and immoral acts, between good and evil. Vampires on the
other hand possessed no such power of discrimination, they were without
conscience. They were not human and as such, were denied any and all rights
of existence. Thus spake the faith of the humans and it was constantly
encountered as combativeness in their lords, relentlessness in their warriors,
resistance in war prisoners, fear in village inhabitants and vengefulness in
their religious texts.
In one respect the humans were right. We, the vampires were faithless. We
had no God except the desire to rule ourselves and to manifest our loyalty
towards our master. Yet, since we had once been mortals, we sometimes, in
private, pondered the reasons for the humans' hatred towards us, our fates
and the causes that had made us into what we were. We all knew the direct
reason for our being. Kain had died and been resurrected by a necromancer
and he in turn had created us. But who allowed these gifts, this magic to
come into the world? Were we not in a way God's creation too? If God had
not allowed our existence, would he not have seen to it that we would never
have walked the earth in the first place? Some of us felt that our existence
and our powers were so strong, they had to have been endowed us by none
other than God himself and mentioned this in private conversation during the
wars when the fighting was especially bitter. In addition, the humans claimed
their God was moral and just, bidding the humans to view their fellow man
with benevolence and respect. However, if God was moral and just, would he
then not look with mercy upon anyone who tried to follow similar codes of
conduct? What about our morals, our conscience? From where could it have
originated? If God was the spark of conscience in both human and vampire,
where was the true difference between man and vampire?
We pondered long and hard on these questions. Although each man arrived at
an answer in his own conscience or left the questions altogether, we never
reached a consensus on them. After the wars ended, few encountered
anything but enslaved humans and saw little to their cathedral fortresses and
rigid faith and we forgot the old questions. However, with the listlessness
that preceded the sleep of change, I had much time for introspection. I
pondered these questions but reached no conclusion, only a gaping hole of
unknowingness that with the approaching torpor slowly faded into apathetic
indifference. Sensing it was time to surrender to the sleep of change, I fed
well, entered the changing chamber with its dark walls and dimly burning
braziers and let the deep sleep envelop me.
The previous sleeps had been dreamless and empty, save for a few energetic
movements in the state between sleep and wakefulness, but this time the
period of change was filled with dreams of the world as it was prior to the
first change, before Kain, when I was human. I remembered a field, running
through it, being a child, seeing the sun as a blazing circle in the sky, feeling
a warm breeze on my skin. Wearing a jerkin of fabric so rough it chafed the
skin on my wrists, seeing sunlight shining on a grey stone floor through a
stained glass window. The dreams were vague, their contents forgotten as
soon as they came into being. I only knew they were peaceful and that they
filled me with an intense and surprising longing for what had been but which
I could not remember. It was a long time since I had not felt the hunger of the
body and in the dreams of the world as it had been, the hunger had still not
become present. My soul was, for the first time in centuries, at peace. The
feeling of rest, of standstill, permeated my being. Time came to a halt. I was
asleep for three decades. When I woke up, I had changed.
The cocoon was wafer thin. A faint light filtered through its lacy structure.
The difference of the shell at every change never ceased to amaze me. The
first time it had been thick, like hardened mud and difficult to destroy. I
remembered the panic of waking up inside it, the weakness of the body, the
gnawing hunger, the determined yet futile attempt at breaking the thick shell
which only caused more loss of energy and another failure of breaking the
confinement, turning into a deepening spiral of despair. Eventually, Kain
appeared and plunged a dagger through the side of the cocoon, splitting it
open, releasing me from its claustrophobic interior. Having experienced the
sleeping and waking enough times to become confident, I never fought the
changes. But because of the unfortunate first time experience, the immediate
awakening always held faint traces of fear.
I rose left hand and the cocoon fell apart at my touch. It turned to a thin layer
of dark dust, which was easily swept aside. I looked up at the dimly lit
ceiling and gently inhaled to sample the air of the room. The scent of slow
burning aromatic herbs reached me, additions to the lit braziers as a focus for
the returned. I sat up, feeling the movements of the body being as I
remembered them. I wondered what changes this sleep had brought. In the
past, some changes had been apparent immediately upon awakening, such as
the alterations of the hands and feet. At other times, the changes had been
more subtle, such as the light hearing. Usually, there would be one apparent
change of the body accompanied by one or more subtle changes of the mind.
The new powers would always require some period of adjustment, either
spent reveling in the change or occasionally, mourning the loss of certain
aspects of the body. But what awaited me at the waking side of the sleep this
time I would never have been able to anticipate.
Externally, two leathery pale wings folded out of my back, stretched on a
frame of skinless yet sturdy bones. The wings were as broad as the length
between my shoulder and elbow and tapered to a narrow triangle at the tip. I
gently tested the movement of the base of the bones and felt the entire frame
shift with undulating movements. The wings were as mobile as my arms.
Then I discovered the subtle change that the wings carried with them. The
touch of moving air on the surface of the wings opened up something inside;
the thirst of flight, of unencumbered movement, an heretofore unknown pull,
an impulse in need of immediate satisfaction.
I rose from the slate on which I had been sleeping, feeling more air move
along the surface of the wings, deepening the need they were causing. Cold
touch of the tiles of the floor. A door with a brass latch. I slowly opened it,
then started up the dark spiraling staircase that lay beyond. At each turn of
the staircase was a window and through it I could see an enticing light. With
each step, the need to climb higher grew stronger. I passed the heavy door
leading into the keep and the other members of my clan. It would have to
wait. I ascended the staircase to the door that marked its end and opened it.
My private chamber.
The familiar room was filled with the rosy light of dusk coming in through
tall vertical windows and a door with clear glass set in its middle. I
approached this door, opened it and walked outside onto the balcony. After
the darkness of the changing chamber, even the subdued light of the dusk
was enough to sting my eyes. But the revulsion of sunlight, which had
accompanied the vampiric body since the beginning, was gone. I knew the
fading rays of dusk were not strong enough to harm me. The breeze was still
warm from the sunny day. A faint smell of smoke was in the air. I walked up
to the stone balustrade that edged the balcony, then climbed it. The slight
wind sang in my ears, filled my being with a want impossible to resist. I
fixed my eyes on the distant mountains, feeling the space separating myself
and them, and without knowing how, I was in the air. For a heartbeat I felt
fear, fear of falling and hurtling towards the ground. But then the wings took
over. They guided my first flight, filling the longing of movement, then
gently emptying this need; the desire for flight emptied and filled in one long
cycle. There was no need to think or calculate. I need only be.
That first flight, filled with joy and gratitude for the change, is almost enough
to wipe out the memories of what followed. I was in rapture of the newly
received gift. Grateful, and also proud. I knew the members of my clan
would receive the same gift themselves and this would be our mark for the
future. It would be my gift to the children.
After an unknown length of time, I returned to the balcony balustrade. The
rosy color of dusk had been replaced with the blue of evening and stars had
appeared on the sky.
Dogen was there. As I stepped down onto the balcony, he put a blanket
around my shoulders. With the ceasing of the ecstasy of flight, and the
waning of the day into night, the chill of the air made itself known in my
body. I welcomed the rough touch of the blanket and thanked Dogen. Then
the manservant helped me inside. I sank down into the seat in the alcove by
the door and was handed a goblet. The red fluid inside still contained traces
of warmth. I emptied the small vessel and felt some energy return, along with
heat. I nodded at Dogen to indicate my gratefulness.
"Master," he asked. "Shall I gather the court?" I shook my head.
"I need to rest. We will assemble tomorrow instead. However, you may
notify the court that I have awoken." Dogen nodded. "And Kain," I said.
"Tell him as well."
Dogen nodded again, then took the empty goblet, bowed and turned.
Opening the door leading downstairs, he stopped and looked at me.
"Master," he said.
"Yes?"
"How does it feel?" he asked. I looked at him. "To fly?" A smile rose inside
me.
"It feels like nothing else in this world."
Alone in my chamber, I leant back into the seat. I could feel energy slowly
return to my body. Unlike other awakenings, I felt no impulse to gather the
court and acquaint myself with the changes that had taken place in the
domain while I slept. Instead, I felt like shielding the still fledgling marks of
my change to others, to keep it secret for a while longer and enjoy the
freedom it afforded in solitude. I took this need and my lack of curiosity as a
part of the change that had happened in sleep. No source for amazement, but
rather something to contemplate and accept.
I took in the room that had been my private chamber for more than nine
centuries. Everything looked the way I remembered it; the patterned wooden
ceiling, the broad bed by the wall, the darkened wall tapestries telling stories
of old, tales from the time before Kain, the copper colored rugs on the floor. I
looked out at the fire burning at the far wall of the courtyard, opposite the
main gate; a beacon in the darkness to guide travelers approaching the
domain after nightfall. I was at home. Feeling the calm of being in familiar
surroundings settle, I turned my attention from the world at large to my own
mind. After the third change, Kain and we of the first generation had learned
to feel each others' mental presence, no matter how far away from each other
we were. In the beginning this contact had been confusing and even
disturbing, but once taken hold of the mind it felt comforting and assuring. It
was a manifestation of the unity that was moving us, had moved us since the
beginning of time.
I opened my mind for my brothers and felt their presences. Dumah, proud
Dumah was there. As expected, he expressed joy at sensing my presence,
discovering I had awoken. Turel greeted me warmly as well. Then Rahab,
generous as always, saying he could feel the change had been profound.
Then in descending order of ease of contact; Zephon and Melchiah, the latter
once more in a contest with his older brother and being emotionally
distracted by it. I greeted them all with a wish to renew our stories where it
had been broken off because of my sleep, my mood elevated by feeling their
presences. But of Kain I could find no sensation. Surprised I searched more
intently, deeper and wider. There were faint traces, but they were old, dying
embers of his presence from a long time ago, perhaps from even before my
going to sleep. Whatever they had been, they could not serve as sources to
find my master. I wondered. Perhaps he was in a state of change himself. I
would know in the morning, when the message of my awakening would be
submitted to Kain.
Feeling an increased presence of exhaustion in my body, I rose from the seat
and approached the bed. The white covers and pillows had been untouched
for decades but had been kept spotlessly clean and ready for my return. I
parted the sheets and laid down. The weight of my own body created a soft
pressure on the wings, not uncomfortable, only unfamiliar. It would not take
long to get used to. I closed my eyes. Then a dream of flight started up.
Crystal Dynamics and Eidos.
The characters of Raziel, Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah;
property of Crystal Dynamics and Eidos.
Based on the game "Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver"
Metamorphosis
part 1
Change. A transference of one state of being into another and then from there
into yet another caused by the inherent restlessness of energy, always moving
and coming into being as something new, again and again. After having gone
through a change, one can never return to the state preceding the change,
even if the change should turn out to be reversible. The reversion itself would
represent just another change and the perspective differs by each one.
The life of a mortal is an existence under the yoke of change, as the mortal is
always at the mercy of the elements, the shifting seasons and its effect on the
crops, the capricious rulers and their varying demands for taxes and war
material. Then there is the mutable state of the mortal's own desires, his mind
reaching for this state or that, retreating from some and shunning others.
There is the appearance and disappearence of family, friends, riches and
power, always coming and going, seldomly resting. And then after a lifetime
of changes, some pleasurable, others painful and yet others unnoticeable, the
mortal falls prey for the final change, death itself.
It is different in the vampiric state. Here, the final change, that of death, has
been turned into a constant, that of immortality. The changing seasons have
little effect on the powers or resources of a vampire since his only needs are
those of blood for feeding and a place to rest during the day. As long as he is
able to feed himself and find shelter, the vampire need not worry about
whether it is this king or that duke ruling the land, whether the winter is long
or short or the crops good or bad.
Instead, he is beyond the concerns of mortals and their striving and futile
attempts at avoiding the unavoidable; death. Beyond the initial confusion of
having to come to terms with the death of death, the existence of the vampire
represents great opportunities for stability and constancy.
Kain was the first of us to go beyond death. He created my brothers and I,
and we in turn created the rest of the vampire legions in Nosgoth. With the
enslavement of humans at the dawn of the empire and the establishment of
power at the broken pillars, a vampiric haven of constancy was created in
Nosgoth.
However, even this existence of stability contained periods of intense
change, not in the external world, but inside. Already during the wars, Kain
changed. After days of exhibiting a mysterious lethargy and disinterested
somnolescence, he fell into a deep sleep from which he could not be roused.
Semi-solid blood which quickly hardened began oozing from his skin. Soon
it covered his entire body like a solid black shroud. It was behind this shell
that the first transformation took place. When Kain rose from his sleep a
week later, he had changed. At first, he seemed no different than before, but
soon the changes that had taken place became apparent. Lord Kain was more
decisive, more energetic and more present. His physical strength and speed
had increased, as had his hunger. His magical prowess had become greater.
Wounds healed even more quickly than before. In our ongoing campaign to
enslave the humans, under the leadership of Kain, we now became
unstoppable. The legions, despite being much fewer in number than their
human counterparts, swarmed the land like hungry locusts under Kain's
expert leadership and soon the last of the human cities surrendered to our
wills.
After some time, Rahab could not be roused from his sleep and blood started
coming from his pores. He changed. Then we all changed, one by one,
becoming almost as strong as our creator. As time passed we experienced
several such changes. Every time Kain would enter the torpor first, then one
of us would follow and then in slow sequence the rest of us. The periods of
deep sleep changed us profoundly, carried us further and further away from
our mortal origins. But even these periods of change, because they repeated
themselves over time, became a constancy in our existence in the new
Nosgoth.
However, the last time I changed, I could not have imagined what form it
would take. Or what form I would take. In the time preceding the change, I
pondered much about the wars nine hundred years ago. At that time, as now,
the humans' religion was the fuel as well as their refuge in their war against
us. Several places in the land the humans had built fortresslike cathedrals to
protect the populace against us and keep them together in their faith, barring
all acceptance of our presence in Nosgoth. The faith of the humans preached
the righteousness of their existence and the damned state of their enemy; the
vampires. The vampires were the spawn of the devil who had been damned
by God and only deserved to be shunned back to hell from whence they
came. The humans' God had bestowed upon them the power to discriminate
between moral and immoral acts, between good and evil. Vampires on the
other hand possessed no such power of discrimination, they were without
conscience. They were not human and as such, were denied any and all rights
of existence. Thus spake the faith of the humans and it was constantly
encountered as combativeness in their lords, relentlessness in their warriors,
resistance in war prisoners, fear in village inhabitants and vengefulness in
their religious texts.
In one respect the humans were right. We, the vampires were faithless. We
had no God except the desire to rule ourselves and to manifest our loyalty
towards our master. Yet, since we had once been mortals, we sometimes, in
private, pondered the reasons for the humans' hatred towards us, our fates
and the causes that had made us into what we were. We all knew the direct
reason for our being. Kain had died and been resurrected by a necromancer
and he in turn had created us. But who allowed these gifts, this magic to
come into the world? Were we not in a way God's creation too? If God had
not allowed our existence, would he not have seen to it that we would never
have walked the earth in the first place? Some of us felt that our existence
and our powers were so strong, they had to have been endowed us by none
other than God himself and mentioned this in private conversation during the
wars when the fighting was especially bitter. In addition, the humans claimed
their God was moral and just, bidding the humans to view their fellow man
with benevolence and respect. However, if God was moral and just, would he
then not look with mercy upon anyone who tried to follow similar codes of
conduct? What about our morals, our conscience? From where could it have
originated? If God was the spark of conscience in both human and vampire,
where was the true difference between man and vampire?
We pondered long and hard on these questions. Although each man arrived at
an answer in his own conscience or left the questions altogether, we never
reached a consensus on them. After the wars ended, few encountered
anything but enslaved humans and saw little to their cathedral fortresses and
rigid faith and we forgot the old questions. However, with the listlessness
that preceded the sleep of change, I had much time for introspection. I
pondered these questions but reached no conclusion, only a gaping hole of
unknowingness that with the approaching torpor slowly faded into apathetic
indifference. Sensing it was time to surrender to the sleep of change, I fed
well, entered the changing chamber with its dark walls and dimly burning
braziers and let the deep sleep envelop me.
The previous sleeps had been dreamless and empty, save for a few energetic
movements in the state between sleep and wakefulness, but this time the
period of change was filled with dreams of the world as it was prior to the
first change, before Kain, when I was human. I remembered a field, running
through it, being a child, seeing the sun as a blazing circle in the sky, feeling
a warm breeze on my skin. Wearing a jerkin of fabric so rough it chafed the
skin on my wrists, seeing sunlight shining on a grey stone floor through a
stained glass window. The dreams were vague, their contents forgotten as
soon as they came into being. I only knew they were peaceful and that they
filled me with an intense and surprising longing for what had been but which
I could not remember. It was a long time since I had not felt the hunger of the
body and in the dreams of the world as it had been, the hunger had still not
become present. My soul was, for the first time in centuries, at peace. The
feeling of rest, of standstill, permeated my being. Time came to a halt. I was
asleep for three decades. When I woke up, I had changed.
The cocoon was wafer thin. A faint light filtered through its lacy structure.
The difference of the shell at every change never ceased to amaze me. The
first time it had been thick, like hardened mud and difficult to destroy. I
remembered the panic of waking up inside it, the weakness of the body, the
gnawing hunger, the determined yet futile attempt at breaking the thick shell
which only caused more loss of energy and another failure of breaking the
confinement, turning into a deepening spiral of despair. Eventually, Kain
appeared and plunged a dagger through the side of the cocoon, splitting it
open, releasing me from its claustrophobic interior. Having experienced the
sleeping and waking enough times to become confident, I never fought the
changes. But because of the unfortunate first time experience, the immediate
awakening always held faint traces of fear.
I rose left hand and the cocoon fell apart at my touch. It turned to a thin layer
of dark dust, which was easily swept aside. I looked up at the dimly lit
ceiling and gently inhaled to sample the air of the room. The scent of slow
burning aromatic herbs reached me, additions to the lit braziers as a focus for
the returned. I sat up, feeling the movements of the body being as I
remembered them. I wondered what changes this sleep had brought. In the
past, some changes had been apparent immediately upon awakening, such as
the alterations of the hands and feet. At other times, the changes had been
more subtle, such as the light hearing. Usually, there would be one apparent
change of the body accompanied by one or more subtle changes of the mind.
The new powers would always require some period of adjustment, either
spent reveling in the change or occasionally, mourning the loss of certain
aspects of the body. But what awaited me at the waking side of the sleep this
time I would never have been able to anticipate.
Externally, two leathery pale wings folded out of my back, stretched on a
frame of skinless yet sturdy bones. The wings were as broad as the length
between my shoulder and elbow and tapered to a narrow triangle at the tip. I
gently tested the movement of the base of the bones and felt the entire frame
shift with undulating movements. The wings were as mobile as my arms.
Then I discovered the subtle change that the wings carried with them. The
touch of moving air on the surface of the wings opened up something inside;
the thirst of flight, of unencumbered movement, an heretofore unknown pull,
an impulse in need of immediate satisfaction.
I rose from the slate on which I had been sleeping, feeling more air move
along the surface of the wings, deepening the need they were causing. Cold
touch of the tiles of the floor. A door with a brass latch. I slowly opened it,
then started up the dark spiraling staircase that lay beyond. At each turn of
the staircase was a window and through it I could see an enticing light. With
each step, the need to climb higher grew stronger. I passed the heavy door
leading into the keep and the other members of my clan. It would have to
wait. I ascended the staircase to the door that marked its end and opened it.
My private chamber.
The familiar room was filled with the rosy light of dusk coming in through
tall vertical windows and a door with clear glass set in its middle. I
approached this door, opened it and walked outside onto the balcony. After
the darkness of the changing chamber, even the subdued light of the dusk
was enough to sting my eyes. But the revulsion of sunlight, which had
accompanied the vampiric body since the beginning, was gone. I knew the
fading rays of dusk were not strong enough to harm me. The breeze was still
warm from the sunny day. A faint smell of smoke was in the air. I walked up
to the stone balustrade that edged the balcony, then climbed it. The slight
wind sang in my ears, filled my being with a want impossible to resist. I
fixed my eyes on the distant mountains, feeling the space separating myself
and them, and without knowing how, I was in the air. For a heartbeat I felt
fear, fear of falling and hurtling towards the ground. But then the wings took
over. They guided my first flight, filling the longing of movement, then
gently emptying this need; the desire for flight emptied and filled in one long
cycle. There was no need to think or calculate. I need only be.
That first flight, filled with joy and gratitude for the change, is almost enough
to wipe out the memories of what followed. I was in rapture of the newly
received gift. Grateful, and also proud. I knew the members of my clan
would receive the same gift themselves and this would be our mark for the
future. It would be my gift to the children.
After an unknown length of time, I returned to the balcony balustrade. The
rosy color of dusk had been replaced with the blue of evening and stars had
appeared on the sky.
Dogen was there. As I stepped down onto the balcony, he put a blanket
around my shoulders. With the ceasing of the ecstasy of flight, and the
waning of the day into night, the chill of the air made itself known in my
body. I welcomed the rough touch of the blanket and thanked Dogen. Then
the manservant helped me inside. I sank down into the seat in the alcove by
the door and was handed a goblet. The red fluid inside still contained traces
of warmth. I emptied the small vessel and felt some energy return, along with
heat. I nodded at Dogen to indicate my gratefulness.
"Master," he asked. "Shall I gather the court?" I shook my head.
"I need to rest. We will assemble tomorrow instead. However, you may
notify the court that I have awoken." Dogen nodded. "And Kain," I said.
"Tell him as well."
Dogen nodded again, then took the empty goblet, bowed and turned.
Opening the door leading downstairs, he stopped and looked at me.
"Master," he said.
"Yes?"
"How does it feel?" he asked. I looked at him. "To fly?" A smile rose inside
me.
"It feels like nothing else in this world."
Alone in my chamber, I leant back into the seat. I could feel energy slowly
return to my body. Unlike other awakenings, I felt no impulse to gather the
court and acquaint myself with the changes that had taken place in the
domain while I slept. Instead, I felt like shielding the still fledgling marks of
my change to others, to keep it secret for a while longer and enjoy the
freedom it afforded in solitude. I took this need and my lack of curiosity as a
part of the change that had happened in sleep. No source for amazement, but
rather something to contemplate and accept.
I took in the room that had been my private chamber for more than nine
centuries. Everything looked the way I remembered it; the patterned wooden
ceiling, the broad bed by the wall, the darkened wall tapestries telling stories
of old, tales from the time before Kain, the copper colored rugs on the floor. I
looked out at the fire burning at the far wall of the courtyard, opposite the
main gate; a beacon in the darkness to guide travelers approaching the
domain after nightfall. I was at home. Feeling the calm of being in familiar
surroundings settle, I turned my attention from the world at large to my own
mind. After the third change, Kain and we of the first generation had learned
to feel each others' mental presence, no matter how far away from each other
we were. In the beginning this contact had been confusing and even
disturbing, but once taken hold of the mind it felt comforting and assuring. It
was a manifestation of the unity that was moving us, had moved us since the
beginning of time.
I opened my mind for my brothers and felt their presences. Dumah, proud
Dumah was there. As expected, he expressed joy at sensing my presence,
discovering I had awoken. Turel greeted me warmly as well. Then Rahab,
generous as always, saying he could feel the change had been profound.
Then in descending order of ease of contact; Zephon and Melchiah, the latter
once more in a contest with his older brother and being emotionally
distracted by it. I greeted them all with a wish to renew our stories where it
had been broken off because of my sleep, my mood elevated by feeling their
presences. But of Kain I could find no sensation. Surprised I searched more
intently, deeper and wider. There were faint traces, but they were old, dying
embers of his presence from a long time ago, perhaps from even before my
going to sleep. Whatever they had been, they could not serve as sources to
find my master. I wondered. Perhaps he was in a state of change himself. I
would know in the morning, when the message of my awakening would be
submitted to Kain.
Feeling an increased presence of exhaustion in my body, I rose from the seat
and approached the bed. The white covers and pillows had been untouched
for decades but had been kept spotlessly clean and ready for my return. I
parted the sheets and laid down. The weight of my own body created a soft
pressure on the wings, not uncomfortable, only unfamiliar. It would not take
long to get used to. I closed my eyes. Then a dream of flight started up.