The three continued into the depths, Lara's eyes on the move constantly. They seemed to be walking in a long hallway, and the floor of it seemed to be slowly ascending. Murals decorated the walls, various scenes which triggered something in the back of her mind. On one was a large island floating into a sapphire sea. At the top of its peak, a bit of gold from a hidden pyramid within glinted. The next mural was done in dark and shadowed shades, leaving only the impression of something big. The only bright image was a single glaring green slitted eye. The third had several blue crystals lined up, glinting in the light of a prehistoric sun. The fourth and final one was a simple golden ankh with rubies embedded in it and had ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs across the top. Her eyes narrowed at the last one. These were select images from her previous exploits. Someone had known much about her before even she had.

The hallway suddenly opened up to a small outcropping of five feet, then a huge drop. Leaning over the edge, she couldn't see the bottom. About sixty feet out was another ledge that continued into another tunnel. Kain concentrated a moment, then a ball of glowing multicolored light surrounded his form and he appeared on the other side.

"Cheater!" Lara shouted across.

"Always use what you have available," was the retort. She moved to Raziel's side as he looked around. In the center of the ledge facing the opposite side was a round impression with a smaller hole in which large black and dark violet streamers flowed from. Raziel looked down the ledge to the left to see a basin next to him that also had the dark streamers flowing from its center. He walked over to it and bathed the Reaver in the shadows, imbuing the Reaver for a time with the elemental power of Darkness. He moved back to the circular impression and slid the Reaver into the lock. Dark energies flowed out of the edge of the circle across the gap and connected with a similar design on the other side. He removed the Reaver and started across the shadowy bridge.

Lara stepped cautiously onto the moving shadows to find them quite stable, even to her. She bounced up and down a few times on it to make sure, then dashed across the thing for fear of it disintegrating beneath her. She stopped only when she reached the relative safety of the hall next to Kain and Raziel.

"Why didn't you just fly across?" Lara asked Raziel.

"Because you couldn't, and I don't trust my wings to be strong enough to carry two of us."

"And he just forgot," Kain interjected. Raziel glared at him.

"I did not."

"Yes, you did."

Lara shook her head and walked past them. The two followed after her, occasionally adding a cutting remark, but it seemed to be more in jest than anything else. The hallway suddenly opened up to a small room with incredibly high and smooth walls. There was a rumble behind them and a door slid over the entrance, locking them in. Raziel tried to move it and found it to be stuck solid. The walls were unadorned except for a window up about thirty feet. Raziel couldn't reach it by jumping, and Kain quickly found his powers were suppressed by something in the room.

"Raziel," Kain called to get his attention. "Try shifting to the Spectral Realm. My powers don't work here. I want to see if yours do."

Raziel nodded and closed his eyes in concentration. He brought his arms up, palms facing outward and moved each to the right ninety degrees as if he was trying to move the scenery around him. Other than that, nothing happened. He looked at Kain and shook his head.

"No good. So, how do we get out of here?"

Lara, who had been glancing around the room, called, "Boys?"

"I don't honestly know," Kain responded.

"Boys?"

"Oh, wonderful. He who is Guardian of the Pillar of Balance is at a dead end."

Lara opened her mouth to try to get their attentions again, then shook her head and turned to her work.

"You can't say much, Soul Reaver. You're supposed to be the Savior of Nosgoth. You really can't be such here, now can you?"

"I am not the savior," he growled. "And for your benefit—"

"Raziel?" Kain interrupted.

"What?!"

"Where is your concubine?"

"I should leave you in here for that comment," Lara's voice came down to them from above. They both looked up to see the human sitting on the windowsill, the window pushed back and open. She held a coiled rope in hand.

"But since I'm so nice, I won't." She tossed the rope down to them and darted out as they climbed. Outside the window was a fifteen-foot drop that Lara already stood at the bottom of.

"Bring the rope with you, please. And try not to rip it up. It's the only one I have with me."

Raziel quickly coiled it and dropped it down to her. They continued down the next hallway as she walked with a jaunty, self-assured rhythm. Kain and Raziel stared at her in bemusement.

"All right. How did you do it?"

"Not telling," she answered.

"How did you do it?"

"I'm not telling." She paused. "Well, I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

She continued on, a smug smile on her face. Kain shook his head.

"Take your pleasure from this, Lara. It won't last long."

"I know. That's why I'm enjoying it. How often does a girl get to show up a master vampire and a Soul Reaver?" She tossed him a grin over her shoulder and continued on.

"Quiet, wench," Kain growled. Lara laughed in reply. She was in too good of a mood to take offense of something as simple as that.

Suddenly, her laughter stopped and she back flipped, pulling out her pistols and landing between Raziel and Kain. They both looked ahead to see what had gotten her attention. A relatively decayed humanoid had emerged from the ground and started backing away.

"What is that thing?" she demanded.

"An undead guardian," Raziel replied. It pulled its head back, then shot it forward, spitting out a ball of green fluid. Lara spun away from it.

"Ick!" she grumbled in disgust. She aimed the pistol toward its head and fired once, watching, pleased, as its head exploded and it crumpled. Behind her, Kain and Raziel exchanged a look before shrugging simultaneously and Raziel pulled down the tabard to devour the soul. Lara gazed at him, then shook her head.

"It's nice to know that I serve the purpose of feeding you."

"Hardly," he responded. "I could feed myself. You just happen to be here and making my hunting easier."

She shook her head, half-amused and half-uncaring, and continued again down the hall. The walls suddenly opened up into a round chamber about forty, fifty feet across with a pillar shooting out of the floor in the center that was about seven to ten feet in diameter. The room was shaped roughly like a hexagon, with the opening for the hallway taking up one face. The rest had a map of what had to be Nosgoth, the second a bookshelf with books placed on it, the third a clock face, the fourth a model of what Lara recognized to be an atom, and the fifth a pair of bastard swords hung crossed over a shield. She stepped forward to read the writing on the pillar.

Two hands have I,

Though one may be small

Upon my face,

Both see all

Turn the large three dots right,

The shorter between 10 and 11 cleft

Large again back seven times

There's not much more that's left!

Long two marks to the left

Short goes eight dots right

Screeching, climbing, up they go

Until the top is out of sight.

"Hm." Lara's eyes narrowed as she read out the riddle. "Two hands have I . . ."

"A clock," Kain said from behind her, where he was studying the riddle as well. She turned to look at the clock image on the wall to see it was actually a clock, hands movable and all. She walked over to it and scrutinized it a moment. On each of the clock's hands was a painted eye.

"Upon my face both see all," she murmured. "Read me off the poem again."

Raziel's voice coiled through the air to her ears as he read it again. The corner of her mouth twitched upward as she listened to his voice.

"Read it again, slowly this time. These are directions."

As he read it, she moved the minute hand to the fifteen-minute, or number three, position. She paused on the next direction.

"Cleft?"

"A fissure or a gap," Raziel replied. "I believe in this case it means the point between the two numbers."

She nodded for him to continue and she moved the hour hand to the point between ten and eleven o'clock. The minute hand went counterclockwise seven numbers, landing it at forty minutes. The minute hand was then moved another two points counterclockwise, landing it on thirty minutes. The hour hand moved clockwise eight spaces, landing on six, the same spot the minute hand occupied. Behind her was a loud screeching and high pitched whine. She whirled to watch part of the floor around the pillar buckle and shoot up, forming stairs. It took the entirety of five minutes or so for it to reach the top of the pillar and stop. She looked at Kain and Raziel.

"Up we go?"

The trio headed up the stairs, Lara keeping close to the stone of the pillar. She didn't want to test to see if Raziel's reflexes were fast enough to catch her should she go spilling over the edge. They emerged at the top to see a huge antechamber. They stood on one end and on the other was a pair of huge, double doors with a glowing image at about chest height that radiated off golden streamers. The other three sides were filled with archways that gave a long unbroken view of Nosgoth. It also let them know it was nearly nighttime. Lara yawned suddenly and tried to suppress it before either male noticed. Of course, she didn't have that luck.

"You need to rest," Raziel ordered.

She opened her mouth to argue, then stopped as his eyes flashed dangerously. She shut her mouth and an eyebrow raised.

'The Soul Reaver worried about little old moí?' she thought to herself in interest. 'What in hell is going on here?'

Kain had walked to the edge of the floor to look out at his world. He really did have things to do and he needed to feed soon. And now seemed like the perfect time to leave the two alone. They needed to spend some time together, anyway. He turned back to them. Things just needed to be poked the right direction, then left alone. Of course, he'd have to keep a close eye on them, but he'd be back in the morning.

"I'm am going out to feed, and I have a few things to settle. I'll be back in the morning."

"See what I mean, Lara? He doesn't stay around for too long."

Kain grinned, showing his long fangs and enjoying the shudder from the human. "Oh, I'll be back."

"Inevitably," she shot in retort.

He concentrated a moment, then a multicolored light surrounded his form and he disappeared. She narrowed her eyes, then turned back to look at Raziel. An uneasy silence fell between the two.

"So."

"So."

She blinked at him a few times, then started to lean down to build a fire. After a moment of thought, she shook her head and sat down. The moon and stars were bright enough here that she didn't need the light and the breeze that came in through the arches was warm. She looked up at Raziel's glowing eyes.

"Why and what are you doing here?"

He sighed deeply and sat down. "At the moment, entertaining a very strange woman."

"That's not what I mean," she responded. "What have you been involved with in this world? Why are you what you are?"

He reached up and pulled the tabard away from his face and folded it carefully before setting it down nearby. A sad smile touched his lips. He didn't look up at her as he pulled out a small black book entitled, Dark Chronicle. She flipped it open to the first page and watched as images furled into life, moving as if it was some recording of his memories. His powerful voice entered her mind, explaining each scene, each thought . . .

Kain is deified. The Clans tell tales of Him. Few know the truth. He was mortal once, as were we all. However, His contempt for humanity drove Him to create me, and my brethren.

I am Raziel, first-born of His lieutenants. I stood with Kain and my brethren at the dawn of the empire. I have served Him a millennium. Over time, we became less human and more . . . divine. Kain would enter the state of change and emerge with a new gift. Some years after the master, our evolution would follow. Until I had the honor of surpassing my lord. For my transgression, I earned a new kind of reward . . . agony.

There was only one possible outcome – my eternal damnation. I, Raziel, was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings – to burn forever in the bowels of the Lake of the Dead.

Tumbling, burning with white-hot fire, I plunged into the depths of the abyss. Unspeakable pain . . . relentless agony . . . time ceased to exist. Only this torture, and a deepened hatred of the hypocrisy that damned me to this hell.

An eternity passed and my torment receded, bringing me back from the precipice of madness. The descent had destroyed me, and yet, I lived.

The chronicle continued to account his meeting of the Elder who rescued him from the eternal agony of the Lake of the Dead, then through his training and the destruction of his brethren. She felt his emotions at reuniting with Kain, his former lord and executioner. She beheld the ghostly form of Ariel, advising him and helping him with what she could. She watched as Raziel learned of his heritage: that he was once a Sarafan knight. And she felt his anger and hatred as he faced down Kain once again.

"At last. I must say I'm disappointed in your progress. I imagined you would be here sooner. Tell me – did it trouble you to murder your brothers?"

Did it trouble you when you ordered me into the Abyss?

"Eternity is relentless, Raziel. When I first stole into this chamber centuries ago, I did not fathom the true power of knowledge. To know the future, Raziel – to see its paths and streams tracing out into the infinite . . . As a man, I could never have contained such forbidden truths. But each of us is so much more than we once were. Do you not feel with all your soul how we have become like gods? And as such, are we not indivisible? As long as a single one of us stands, we are legion. Our futures are predestined. Moebius foretold mine aeons ago. We each play out the parts fate has written for us. Free will is an illusion."

I found the Tomb of Sarafan, Kain. How could you profane a priest by turning him into a vampire?

"How could I not? One must keep his friends close, Raziel – and his enemies even closer. Who better to serve me than those whose passions transcends all notions of good and evil?"

The Sarafan were saviors, defending Nosgoth from the corruption that we represent. My eyes are opened, Kain – I find no nobility in the unlife you rudely forced on my unwilling corpse!

"You may have uncovered your past, but you know nothing of it. You think the Sarafan were noble, altruistic? Don't be simple. Their agenda was the same as ours.

"You nearly had me, Raziel . . . But this is not where – or how – it ends. Fate promises more twists before this drama unfolds completely."

Lara saw through Raziel's eyes as he met Moebius, the so-called Time-Streamer she had heard of, but never seen. She experienced his battle through the temple, out into the open, his meeting with Kain again:

. . . I have pursued you here for one purpose – you will pay for your betrayal, and Balance will be restored to Nosgoth.

"And whose will is satisfied then, the will of Raziel, or Moebius?"

Would I be better manipulated by you, Kain? Now turn and face me; the chase is over.

"This isn't a chase, Raziel – we are merely passengers on the wheel of destiny, describing a perfect circle to this point. We have been brought here for a reason. I have seen the beginning and the end of our story, however – and the tale is crude and ill-conceived. We must rewrite the ending, you and I."

Face me, Kain. Even you shouldn't die a coward's death.

"Isn't it customary to grant the condemned a final request?"

I recall no such courtesy from you.

"Indulge me, Raziel. All I ask is that you listen. This is the sublime moment of our undoing, Raziel – the ineffable fulcrum upon which swings the entirety of our history. This is where all of Nosgoth is betrayed. In this instant, Ariel – the Balance Guardian – is murdered by dark forces bent on overthrowing the Pillars. Her spirit is just now tearing free, lost in the ether, trying to find its way here. You have already seen how she comes to haunt these Pillars—"

—Bound here by your refusal to die. You are the reason this land becomes diseased – as long as you remain alive you condemn Nosgoth to an eternity of decay.

"Be still, Raziel. See this. As Ariel dies, I am being born to take her place as Balance Guardian. Such is my destiny."

Raziel and Lara both watched the Pillars turn gray, corrupt, and begin to crack, their pristine shine lost to the blackness of betrayal.

. . . my god . . .

"At the moment of my first cry, Ariel's beloved – the Guardian Nupraptor – finds her corpse. Wracked with grief and tormented by suspicious of treachery, Nupraptor plunges into a madness which overflows and infects all of the Guardians, who are symbiotically bound.

"Including me.

"The repercussions of Ariel's assassination were expertly calculated . . . The entire Circle descends into madness and I am tainted at the moment of my birth – instantly rendered incapable of fulfilling the role destiny has prepared for me."

Shall I show you the same mercy you showed the rest of the Circle, then? You blithely murdered them to restore their Pillars, yet your hand faltered when it came to the final sacrifice. What makes you exempt, Kain? You're merely the last man standing. Why condemn me for simply carrying out what you hadn't the courage to do yourself?

"Let's drop the moral posturing, shall we? We both know there's no altruism in this pursuit. Your reckless indignation led you here – I counted on it. There's no shame in it, Raziel – revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest. Hate me, but do it honestly.

"Thirty years hence, I am presented with a dilemma – let's call it a two-sided coin. If the coin falls one way, I sacrifice myself and thus restore the Pillars. But as the last surviving vampire in Nosgoth, this would mean the annihilation of our species. Moebius made sure of that. If the coin lands on the reverse, I refuse the sacrifice and thus doom the Pillars to an eternity of collapse. Either way, the game is rigged."

We agree then that the Pillars are crucial, and must be restored?

"Yes, Raziel. That's why we've come full-circle to this place."

So after all this you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die so that new Guardians can be born.

"The Pillars don't belong to them, Raziel . . . they belong to us."

Your arrogance is boundless, Kain.

"There's a THIRD option – a monumental secret, hidden in your very presence here. But it's a secret you have to discover yourself. Unearth your destiny, Raziel. It's all laid out for you here."

You said it yourself, Kain – there are only two side to your coin.

"Apparently so. But suppose you throw a coin enough times . . . suppose one day, it lands on its edge."

She watched Raziel met again with the Elder, and then encounter the vampire Vorador for the first time. She felt the pull of history as he denied the fate to kill Kain, and instead, spared him. He forced Moebius to work his time-streaming device, but Moebius pulled out one last ace and propelled Raziel into the future. He met up with Ariel and the Elder again, and found the ruined aerie that once housed Janos Audron. She followed silently as he made his way back in time, met Janos, and saw his death. She felt the anger, hatred and burning rage that filled Raziel as he made his way to the Sarafan temple to get Janos' heart back. The sense of betrayal as he found out Moebius' position in it all, and his destruction of his brethren again, this time as humans. And when it was all over, the Reaver, now conjoined in its ethereal form and its physical form, turned its hunger on him and impaled him, devouring his soul.

(WARNING: SR2 SPOILER!!!! AS IN THE ENTIRETY OF THE SOUL REAVER'S SECRET!!!)

The Reaver was never forged to be a soul-stealing weapon . . . the ravenous, soul-devouring entity trapped in the blade was – and always had been ME. This is why the blade was destroyed when Kain tried to strike me down – the Reaver could not devour its own soul. The paradox shattered the blade.

She felt the pain, and felt Raziel's sense of betrayal as Kain suddenly showed himself. He urged Raziel to give into the feeling, and soon Raziel just could not hold out against the Reaver's power anymore. It was too powerful . . .

. . . And then . . . a growing sense of vertigo, and the familiar displacement . . . the paradoxical moment when my twinned soul hovered both outside and inside the Reaver blade . . . This was the instant – the glimmer of temporal distortion – Kain had been counting on all along. This was the edge of the coin – the minute flicker of probability upon which he had gambled everything.

Kain had lunged forward and pulled the Reaver out of Raziel, saving him and reshuffling their future. But something had gone wrong. They had shifted it too far, and Kain's eyes were filled with a horror of what the price had been to save Raziel. Making a cryptic comment about walking into the trap of the Hylden, he grabbed Raziel and told him Janos must stay dead . . .

But Kain's warning was lost as I slipped into the spirit realm, too weak to maintain my physical form . . . And there, waiting for me as always, was the Reaver – the wraith blade . . . my own soul, twinned and bound eternally to me. And I realized that I could never escape my terrible destiny . . . I had merely postponed it.

HISTORY ABHORS A PARADOX.

Lara closed the book slowly and reached up, surprised to find a tear sneaking down her cheek.

"My god," she whispered quietly. "Raziel, I . . ." She trailed off, unsure what to say. What could one say to someone whose fate had been chosen that he was doomed to die no matter what?

"Do not pity me," he growled, and she saw that he did not look up at her as he said it. She moved over to him and placed a hand against his cheek, forcing him to look up at her.

"I do not pity you. But you do have my sympathy."

His claw slid up and curled around hers. To her surprise, his skin was warm. She found herself halfway leaning down toward him, halfway being pulled as he drew her by his grip on her hand. His lips gently met hers, a barest touching of lips. When she didn't protest or didn't pull back, he added pressure, intensifying the connection. Her other hand went to the side of his face as his claws curved around to the back of her head to hold her against him. Their lips pressed in toward one another, a meeting and melting of flesh into the depths of ecstasy. One of his claws slid down her body to wrap around her waist and pulled her close against him. Her arms quickly shifted and moved around his body, gripping him against her.

They maintained the burning kiss for an indefinite amount of time until Lara pulled back slightly, not enough to move away, but enough to see his face. He wouldn't let her go, anyway. The two just looked at each other for a long while.

"Raziel, tell me something."

"Yes?"

"How long has this uncomfortable awkwardness been between us?"

"I honestly don't know," he responded truthfully.

"But Kain did, didn't he?"

He sighed. "I would assume so. He's not happy unless he's meddling in something. It seems to be his life-long goal. It would also explain why he's stayed around so long."

"Or maybe it was just necessary," she retorted. The two fell silent again, then moved toward one another.

"Raziel . . ."

"I know." His voice was soft and she could feel the breath of his words slide across her skin, causing her to shiver in desire.

"But . . . I can't . . . It's—"

"Lara, Lara, Lara," he interrupted softly, shaking his head. "You worry too much. Just go with it. Nothing will come of it. Think of it as one night that's a gift in a normal woman's life."

"My life is anything but normal," she managed out around his lips before giving into him.