A pair of gold-flecked eyes opened reluctantly, dilated pupils contracting as light superseded dark. The reaction of the brain took longer. Gradually, the viewer became aware that the image before him constituted a cracked, fallen table, around which mulled wine had leached like a bloodstain, interspersed with shards of broken glass. He was dimly aware that the pain that had forced his loss of consciousness had receded to an unpleasant memory, and, placing both claws tentatively against the chill of the obstreperous stone floor, Raziel gingerly raised his upper body to appraise his surroundings. The room was illumined by the pale, roseate glimmer of dawn's first rays, the fire had burned low, and he was alone. He tilted his head towards the overturned table and the broken decanter to see a pair of deep, three-fold dents where his claws had bitten into solid rock. With a further concerted effort, the vampire got to his feet, swaying slightly as his balance compensated for extra weight. With that, recent happenings came crashing back to his mind, and, his skin crawling with dread, he cast a reluctant glance over his shoulder. The dream was true. Curious, he reached around his side and ran a claw down the outer wing-bone. It felt no different to the rest of his skin - completely natural in fact. Tensing his shoulder muscles with every ounce of the iron will centuries of control had placed at his beck and call, he managed to get the wings to twitch. Slightly. Patently unimpressed with this result, he concentrated harder, his mind willing the new muscles, wherever they were, to work. Even his claws hadn't been this hard to master.

A few more minutes' experimentation, and the trick was his. Grinning in triumph, Raziel raised the wings to their full extension with a swishing rush of air. His thoughts, released from their wing-bound prison, turned to his brother's absence. Ere long, he came to the conclusion that Turel had taken the phial to Kain in advance; he could guess his brother's plan - he would present their bounty before the gathering, and then he, Raziel could make an entrance as the proof of the pudding! Fairly bursting with excitement and pride, Raziel departed for the Sanctuary of the Clans.

As the Vampire Lord traversed the various passageways that led ever inwards to the foot of the Pillars of Nosgoth, eliciting astonished glances from the kinsmen he encountered along the way, he came across the indefatigable Antaris. The unfortunate was huddled at the feet of one of the Turelim Elite, hugging his knees, rocking back and forth and emitting an aggravating nasal whining sound. Raziel and the Turelim exchanged knowing smiles, while the Sarafan Lord murmured in oblivious neurosis at their feet.

Restless shadows dappled Raziel's ivory flesh in faded magenta and smoky tan as he made his approach to Kain's throne room. With focussed purpose, the Lieutenant crossed the embossed circular floor, his senses keenly aware of the emotions emanating from his brethren as their eyes followed his every step in pure, unadulterated disbelief. Envy was paramount. He allowed himself a fleeting, self-assured smile. Soon, he and Turel would share their secret, and this assembly would constitute an insuperable pantheon against which not even the vaunted Sarafan war machine could possibly hope to prevail. Filled with elation at this eminently satisfying thought, he failed to notice Kain's look of calculating hatred as his steady, measured stride brought him at last to the pool of daylight that illuminated the centre of the chamber.

Never one for neglecting ceremony, even today, Raziel sank to one knee before his Lord, one arm resting on the bended limb. Bowing his head at first in deference, then in assiduous concentration, the Vampire Lieutenant unfurled first one bat-like vane and then the other, allowing his compatriots and his sire to view the gifts in their unopened state before extending them skywards to their utmost, rigid dimensions. Once the magnificent appendages had been seen in their full glory, he allowed the wings to return to a half-opened state before rising to his feet and awaiting his sire's reaction with confident anticipation.

In sullen silence, the Master Vampire stalked catlike towards his son, his interest centred on the spreading pinions that marked Raziel's disloyalty. His hands hovered a hair's breadth above the fruit of his perfidious offspring's treachery, causing his first-born to turn his head with a low snarl, the delicacy of the new gift all too clear. Without warning, Kain took hold of the tender, unfledged bones that traversed the diaphanous flesh and with a single, violent wrench, tore them free of their moorings.

Agony.

Kain watched in malicious satisfaction as his first-born sank to his knees in mindless torment, the torn and bleeding vanes quivering against their owner's trembling form. Still holding his progeny's bloodied bones in his cruel claws, Kain issued the order for punishment. The Lieutenants, thoroughly shocked by the unforeseen happenstance, exchanged glances tinged with uncertainty and indecision. Before long, Turel took the lead, striding forward with an ill-concealed look of victory to lift one of Raziel's arms. A further harsh command from Kain sent Dumah to his aid, and as the two wrestled the half-conscious vampire to a position whereby he might more easily be moved, Turel chanced a whisper in Raziel's heedless ear.

"You brought this on yourself, brother."

Nosgoth's rising sun sent scouting fingers of amber light across the sleeping form that lay in opulent, restful ease on the humblest of beds, all unknowing of the events transpiring beyond the sphere of her senses. The woman shifted slightly in her slumber, a feeling of well-being and security offering a long-awaited surcease from months of hardship. With a cleansing breath, Freya opened her eyes, a wry smile spreading slowly across her features as the memory of a promise made in haste the previous night returned. Resigned to the fact that she could no longer linger abed with this thought implanted in her mind, she rose and stretched, preparing herself mentally and physically for the challenge she had set herself for today: she would shortly be teaching the fledgelings Ninjitsu. A slight wobble as she dressed herself provoked a mild sense of self-reproof as she recalled challenging her new acquaintances to a quaffing competition in the early hours of the morning. A further flash of memory occurred as she opened the door to her chamber, inducing her to make a mental note never to play Truth or Dare with the Razielim again.

Hardly had she left the room when Isca came bounding out from behind a nearby pillar, arousing a suspicion in the woman's mind that he had been waiting there for some time for her to emerge. He grinned with unseasonable jubilation at her bemused greeting and chattered excitedly about the day's promised events as they made their way to the fledgelings' training grounds. Despite the fledge's obvious enthusiasm for the promised acquisition of this new skill, Freya guessed instinctively that there was some other factor lurking behind the boy's overexcited eagerness. Nonetheless, his youthful zest was contagious, and she soon found herself drawn into playful banter about the imminent instruction. Arriving at the training grounds, it became apparent that word had spread, and Freya found herself face to face with not only a large contingent of fledgelings, but also a fair-sized group of the Razielim Elite.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Freya commented, "Good thing you vampires heal quickly, otherwise I don't think your Lord would be too pleased with your condition after this first day's training."

Isca's grin widened. "I doubt anything would upset him today."

"Ah," Freya nodded in intuitive understanding. "They're determining Antaris' punishment."

Isca's grin endured, his smile now reminiscent of a child with a secret it badly wants to be known.

Freya's shoulders slumped. "Alright, I give in. What are you so happy about?"

The fledgeling's answer left her dumbstruck. Never normally given to the frailties endemic in those of a nervous disposition, Freya could feel for the first time in her life the hurricane onset of panic. The corners of her mouth began to tug downwards of their own accord, heart speeding into a nervous, disquieting rhythm, lower limbs threatening to discharge their load without notice. An appalling thought then embedded itself in her mind: what if her reason for being on Nosgoth was to avert this day's tragedy? Guilt consumed her: she should have told Raziel of Kain's betrayal when she had the chance, instead of withholding the information for her own selfish purposes. Taking a quick glance around to get her bearings, she identified the path that led to the Abyss, and thence to the Sanctuary, and took off at a dead run.

Isca's glance flicked from the waiting students to the rapidly departing teacher, and after a moment's perturbed musing, he hurried after her, bewilderment written plainly on his youthful features. A minute's chase brought them level, and the vampire jogged alongside her with annoying ease.

"Where are you going?"

"To stop Raziel from meeting with Kain." Freya realised with some self- reproach that her reasons for attempting to avert the disaster were not wholly altruistic. If Raziel fell to his doom now, she'd never get at the Sarafan documents, and, recent developments notwithstanding, she still didn't want to spend the rest of her life stuck on Nosgoth. "When did he leave?"

"My Lord departed over an hour ago," replied the increasingly puzzled fledgeling. "But you won't catch him - he'll have reached the Sanctuary by now."

"That's exactly where I'm going."

The fledge, seriously alarmed, caught her wrist, swinging her to a halt and advised, "One does not simply walk uninvited into Lord Kain's domain."

Keenly aware that every moment now wasted reduced the possibility of her intervention, Freya shook her wrist free, and used the fledgeling's blatant respect for Raziel as leverage. "If you care anything for your Lord, you'll help me - Kain is going to kill him."

The fledge's crestfallen look assured her of his cooperation, and the two were soon hurtling down the craggy passageway that led to the Lake of the Dead. During their flight, Freya reflected on a tangent notion that entered her head unexpectedly; someone from Earth must have come to Nosgoth in order to have written the game. Disturbingly enough, there was only one other possibility at this juncture, one that she didn't like to consider - she was actually in the loony bin and this was all a symptom of her madness.

The pair came to a skidding halt as the tunnel terminated abruptly above the teeming waters of the vortex, where the turbulent liquid churned and spun like some Nosgoth-born Charybdis. Below them, in plain sight but infuriatingly beyond reach on the bare earth of the rocky land-bridge, Raziel's fate was about to be sealed. The gap between the ledge on which they stood and the light shale of the central rock, easily traversable to vampirekind, was beyond Freya's human capabilities. The woman kicked the sandstone wall in frustration.

Isca, his eyes wide in absolute incomprehension, watched open-mouthed as Turel and Dumah dragged the insensible form of his revered Lord to the edge of the chasm, his recently flaunted wings hanging in flaccid, bloody tatters at his back. Some unknown and unpredicted force gripped Isca then, fuelled by recent years of instruction and adventure at Raziel's side, and with a low growl of menace, the fledgeling grabbed hold of his companion and threw himself from the ledge.

Turel surveyed the situation with a feeling that bordered on ecstasy. He could never have conceived that his plan would bear such fruit. His intention had been to see his brother brought low by their invidious master, but this! This was something new. His interest in the intrigues of human society, and even those of his Elite - whom he considered far below him - was waning, and as he looked deep into the turbulent waters of the Abyss, he knew that this one pivotal event would change everything that was to come. He gripped his sibling's arm with renewed purpose.

Isca and Freya hit the ground at the opposite end of the plateau, rolling to lessen the impact. They got to their feet in perfect tandem, mere metres in front of the Master Vampire himself, whose attention, despite the fact that he faced them, was focussed on the drama being enacted at the edge of the vortex to his rear.

"Cast him in."

Those words. Those crucial, damning words. It was over. The next few moments passed with nightmare sluggishness as, sword in hand, Freya joined Isca in a desperate, hopeless race for the edge of the cliff. Before they had gone halfway, they were intercepted by Rahab, who batted the fledge aside to crash senseless against the unyielding rock, and took a steely grip on Freya's sword-arm, impeding further progress. The woman's futile attempts to free herself were met with mocking laughter.

A moment's struggle at the edge of the precipice, and the sombre air was rent with the insufferable scream of the wrongfully damned. Raziel was hurled from the eager hands of his brethren to be delivered to the eternities of torment that awaited him in the burning embrace of the Abyss.

Silence reigned as the Lieutenants' minds reeled with the comprehension of their actions. The feeling that enveloped them now was one of Pyrrhic freedom, of ruthless power. Their world, their future, their destiny was forever changed.

Wrenching her arm free from Rahab's oblivious grasp, Freya turned on the perpetrator of the duplicitous deed. "Hypocrite!" she spat. "How could you do this to your own son?" Her question was followed by a lengthy tirade of ill-advised criticism as she vented her guilt and frustration on the indifferent Vampire.

Kain followed what he could of the woman's babbling until annoyance took the place of curiosity and he drew the Soul Reaver. Freya caught her breath - the weapon was nearly as big as she was. She also recalled, with not a little trepidation, that it was said that Kain never drew it unless he intended to use it. A glance to her rear showed that Turel and Dumah had rejoined their siblings, and stood in an intimidating, implacable line, waiting for their Lord's next command. Her gaze returned to the Master Vampire and she saw her death in his pitiless eyes. Even as the realisation took hold, Kain's face began to waver, slowly and ineluctably taking on the shape and proportions of the tribal mask on one of her African hangings, his expression changing from one of grim pleasure to one of cheated consternation as his quarry vanished into thin air.

Freya looked around her, hardly daring to move. Home. Could it be? She turned full-circle with her katana stretched out at her side, noting nothing different in the appearance of her comfortably-furnished lounge. With a bewildered shake of her head, she sheathed the sword and replaced it on its wooden stand. As she hesitantly withdrew her hand, she wondered why she'd been going for the weapon in the first place. She hazarded a swift glance around. No burglars. She shrugged self-deprecatingly at her own paranoia and returned to the kitchen to finish making that much-needed cup of tea.

Author's notes:

I wasn't going to describe Raziel's execution - you all know what happens. In fact, if you're anything like me you've seen it a million times, but I decided, what the heck?

Oh yeah, worry ye not, this is FAR from over. ; )

Deionarra: I hope you realise that "Good kicking" in the last chapter was all your fault! ; )