12- The Same As Ours
Kain fought the compulsion to yawn as another Sluagh died under his blade. That would be, what, 212? 213? He had forgotten by now; the game had lost its shine around 46. It wasn't that he had grown tired of battle and the half-crazed bloodlust it wrought- far from it. But his demonic opponents were so mindless that the fray had all the excitement and variability of chopping wood. No doubt the Soul Reaver would have taken the edge off the monotony. Pity.
The master vampire frowned in disapproval as one of the Sluagh broke free from the mob to swipe at his stomach. Its talons slid off with a raspy scrape. Kain smiled at it dispassionately, the same expression he would often use before dispatching a particularly bloody death. The talons of his free hand reached out and gouged into the Sluagh with the same detachment. Even when his arm snagged outwards at just the right length, even as he swung the Sluagh by its own bulbous eyeball before the nerves snapped and sent its maimed body spinning into the ranks of its comrades, Kain's movements came with the same apathetic precision.
Although, the Sluagh's wails were unusually rich.
Kain's amusement was short-lived. The screams of the one-eyed Sluagh faded beneath the cries of a hundred Sluagh, so many that even the mindless demons surrounding him glanced away to find its source. Nosgoth's emperor knew what was coming. He grimaced, edging towards the wall as the collective scream spread through the demons like a shockwave. So Ishtar had reached the warp gate. He had expected them to take much longer.
Kain braced himself just before the swell of mental energy tumbled over him. He felt it like a tsunami slamming into his consciousness. He clutched his head, had a vague notion that the demonic screaming had reached its fever pitch, could not focus as forming even that simple thought seared his mind with pain. His eyes opened, to the sight of an endless sea of green limbs clawing at the air in search of relief. Then the pain died, passing as it had come, in a quick wave. He felt a certain rueful gratitude that the attack was not meant for him.
He watched as the maddened demons turned upon each other in desperate frenzy. Yes, yes, he had seen it all before. That delightful breed of madness produced by Ishtar and her treacherous gift.
But my God. How it was entertaining.
The emperor of Nosgoth cast one last look at Avernus Cathedral. If the demons had not destroyed it during their initial assault, they would in the throes of their madness. Good-bye then, Avernus. To you and, perhaps, to the long dead shade of Azimuth, to whom we owe so much.
Kain cast the teleportation spell and arrived within the rubble-strewn chamber just in time to see Ishtar's limp form vanish through the warp gate. His golden eyes watched her go, then turned to follow the trail of blood that led up to the gate. She would survive this battle, for better or for worse. And Raziel would endure the consequences of such. Tragic, really. But happiness was not the ultimate aim of fate. Let the human cattle delude themselves by imagining that things always worked out for the best. Fate was simply a storyteller delighting in high drama and melodramatic sentiments. Kain had long ago surrendered his ability to undo the skein of the story.
He activated the warp gate and followed a different path than the one just traveled by his children. The halls of the abbey echoed as he stepped off the platform and dropped the iron sword that was now bright green with demon blood. Against the enemy he would soon face, such weapons were useless.
Kain teleported again, this time to a chamber deep inside the abbey. Somehow the Rahabim had repaired the windows at the edges of the room. Kain glanced at the platforms nearby, then at the water that filled the room nearly to its ceiling. A single bubble rose to the surface and soundlessly popped.
The master vampire crossed his arms over his chest. "Dachlin."
A sinuous shape rippled beneath the water. Slowly it rose to the surface, revealing the shark-like head of Rahab's firstborn. Kain noticed the thin red plumes that had followed the Rahabim's fangs in the water. "Master."
"Have you prepared adequately for your assigned task?"
"We have, master."
"Then you have until nightfall to see it completed."
Dachlin's head tilted slightly, but he nodded. "Yes, master."
Kain smiled. "Good boy."
The vampire lord teleported back to the warp gate, the smile fading into a neutral grimace. He had the other clans to gather, to lead in the last conquest of his reign. Oh yes, he would lead them all, all the bastardized and hopelessly corrupted progeny of this age. He would lead his children to their deaths and call it one last sacrifice. Let the old world die with him, let the ashes of this empire vanish as if it had never been. Even the earth, blighted all these centuries, would heal and forget.
Tragic, really.
Kain sighed, resumed his role, and continued with the next act.
********************************************************
Ishtar lay beside the blood fountain, exhausted but alive, and did not stir. She must not have heard him. Raziel turned away and figured it was for the best.
That had come far too close.
The reaver of souls stared down the hall to the warpgate that had borne them from Avernus. Its glowing green circle had nearly turned red with blood. He looked down at his own claws, then at the cowl whose white markings had been stained brown. There was so much. For the first time in more than a thousand years, the former vampire felt a glimmer of loathing for the gift. The blood of his own child had spilled on his claws and mingled with the blood of demons. It stirred within him some primal anger, a ferocious hatred that had lain dormant even when he had first encountered Kain hours after his awakening in the underworld. This was a much more patient anger. If it had to, it would wait.
Raziel scraped some of the dried blood off his claws and surveyed his surroundings. Even during his vampiric unlife, he had never had reason to journey to Willendorf- the lake surrounding the island-city was deterrence enough for Kain's brood. Yet, why had Ishtar urged him to come here? The blood fountain, of course, but... she must have been to this place before. Otherwise, they would not have had access to the warpgate.
The fallen clan lord glanced at Ishtar's unconscious form and quickly looked away. She needed her rest, and he needed to pass the time until nightfall. Getting a look around couldn't hurt.
Only one other passage led away from the warpgate, and Raziel set down this corridor. Even the spiders had abandoned this place. It stank of dust and stale air.
Raziel's explorations soon revealed them to be in tunnels built into the side of a mountain outside the city. Small wonder; the citizens would not have looked kindly to the placement of a blood fountain within their walls. Not that there were any citizens left to complain. The city of Willendorf had not fared well through the centuries, but unlike Avernus, some of its stone buildings had remained. The soul reaver's gaze looked to the remnants of a castle whose worn-down towers still looked imposing against the pre-dawn sky. No doubt this was the castle of King Ottmar, a man depicted in Kain's boastings as a whimpering coward with no rights to his kingdom. With little else to do, and confident that the ruins posed no threat to his slumbering daughter, Raziel set out to explore the crumbling castle.
Once inside, though, the ruins weren't so enthralling after all. It was little more than a heap of stones set in symmetrical shapes- anything of interest had long since rotted away. Raziel walked through the castle's halls with something akin to disappointment. If there was anything that could utterly repulse him, it was the idea of waiting with nothing to do.
A blur on the opposite wall caught his eye, and Raziel idly crossed what might have been a banquet hall. His eyes were fixed on the only patch of color he had seen so far. Close enough, anyway: it was rust-red, the color of-
He abruptly stopped, white eyes huge. On the wall, in blood or paint that had not yet cracked or faded, was painted the symbol of clan Razielim.
...couldn't be...?
Raziel turned toward the doorway nearest to the wall marking and ran. Let it be true. And the room he entered was testament that once, it had been. His eyes tried to take it in all at once: on the wall, a decorative staff that ended in two pointed prongs and bore the Razielim symbol. A small set of yellowed books on top of a crudely-carved, collapsing shelf. An ornate chest of tarnished brass. Overhead, the clan-flag of the Razielim, its cloth still a vibrant red and protected from the elements that would have weathered it to gray.
The soul reaver hobbled to the center of the room and fell to his knees. The revelation was too immense to comprehend at once, though it could be summarized with few words: some had survived. Hadn't Ishtar told him? Yes. That first conversation in the petrified forest, before the Turelim had interrupted. "In a keep far to the southeast." How could he not have guessed? The southeast was a wasteland... but for Avernus and Willendorf, the ancient cities. Of course, the Razielim would have come here.
But they were gone, even here. Even where they were supposed to have survived.
Raziel brushed his claws along the brass chest, watching the edge scrape roughly against the tarnish. A piece of the corroded metal gave way, falling into the chest and inside he glimpsed armor, the animal-shaped top of a ceramic jar, the spine-like rope of a beaded necklace. He looked away. The spines of the books were still readable. One read, in gold-leaf script, "The Dumahim and the Prince of Donkeys."
Kain's firstborn son lowered his forehead to his knees.
And for the first time, the shard of the dark power that joined him with his wings sprang to life. When he opened his glowing eyes, he saw through time.
********************************************************
Strane looked exhausted. His golden eyes stared glazed and half-closed into space, and blood-sweat gathered like tiny red orbs on the skin of his forehead. He could not falter. His claws closed around the arm of the long-dead corpse laid in front of him as if to keep his own body from blowing away. His fanged grimace spoke of how much energy he was pouring into the spell.
Nearby, Morek shifted his weight from one hoof to the other nervously, watching as the clan's oldest survivor teetered on the edge of exhaustion. At times, it seemed Morek would crush the ceramic jar in his claws from nervousness. But he would not intervene. All the clan members knew how important this was. If Strane failed to spawn a new fledgeling... Morek shook the thought away and thrust the ceramic jar under Strane's nose.
Strane's eyes flared into a sharp glare. "Save it... for the fledgeling." Barely a gasp. But the smell of the blood in the jar had helped rouse him.
"Don't drink, and there won't be a fledgeling," Morek said.
Strane hissed but his eyes had unfocused again. For better or for worse, the younger vampire sensed that the spell was coming to a close. He swallowed, claws tight against the jar, and waited.
Strane doubled over the corpse, his breath coming in frenzied gasps. Morek shuffled backwards and watched with panicked eyes. What would he tell the clan-?
The older vampire rested his palms on the floor, now stretched over the corpse. The sweat poured in bloody rivers down his face, dripping between his parted black lips. His hair was matted with clots of his own blood. But his upper lip curled defiantly even while his lungs shook with ragged breaths. For the clan, for the clan. Find the soul, drag it back, prove that the fatherless Razielim had more to do than sit in their keep and wait to fade away. For the clan-
Strane choked and nearly fell backwards as a piece of his own soul tore itself free. It was like vomiting razors. The spark fell from him, cautiously perched on the skin of the woman's corpse. He leaned back on his elbows, barely managing to keep his eyes focused on the body, and was aware of Morek's shuffling hooves nearby. Waited.
The woman's back arched as the reanimated corpse drew its first breath.
"Yes..." Morek whispered.
"Yes," Strane said, his voice weary. The bloodied vampire leaned forward, brushing back the woman's long black hair. His fledgeling had stopped breathing, as was normal when the new vampire realized the function was no longer necessary. Her entire body shivered, and her half-rotted arm shakily rose to her chest, where three slash-marks were beginning to close.
"It's alright," Strane said. The fledgeling's eyelids flickered rapidly, and he smoothed her hair again. "It's alright," he repeated, and her body stilled. Strane smiled and took the jar that Morek handed to him. Not his prime choice for the fledgeling's first meal, but it had to do. He had not fully expected to succeed.
"You did it." Morek grinned stupidly. "You... we... can-"
"Yes," Strane said. He was so tired. He let the fledgeling smell the blood, smiled and smoothed her hair when her mouth opened like an expectant baby bird. "Ah, daughter, you cannot imagine what joy you have brought us all." He smiled again as he tilted the jar to her lips and she began to feed. "My little Ishtar."
********************************************************
Raziel found himself in the same room, now derelict and abandoned. The vision was so dreamlike- vivid as anything he had experienced while it was occurring, and dimly-remembered once it had passed. He slowly rose to his feet and glanced out the crumbling window. The sun would rise within the hour. He thought of Ishtar sleeping, Ishtar being born to the Razielim survivors.
He left the room. The soul reaver sensed, inside, that searching for further evidence of his clan would be futile. There had not been very many, and they had not left much of a mark, not even in the castle they had taken as their home.
And yet... how could he not try?
The day saw Raziel prowling the remains of the castle and wandering the ruins of the streets in search of further signs from his clan. As he had anticipated, the search was largely in vain. For all he could tell, they had simply vanished.
One other object of interest was found, when the sun was fading into the west, beneath a well-preserved building whose markings distinguished it as a fortress of the Sarafan. As were all the buildings on the outside, this one was bleached colorless by the elements. But the inside of this structure was another matter entirely.
Raziel knew it when he saw the faint gleam emanating from somewhere at the end of the staircase that led into the ground. He tilted his head as his steps carried him down- the air here was just as stale as the rest of the ruined city. The light could not be coming from torches.
The soul reaver stepped from the staircase and into what looked like an imitation cavern. The room held nothing but man-made stalagmites that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. At the middle section of each stalagmite, where its width was thinnest, the stone ended. In its place were bars of light forming a glowing cylinder that connected the top of the structure to the bottom. When he came closer, Raziel saw that they were not bars of light- they were glyphs, forming a cylindrical cage in the middle of each stalagmite.
He stared at the bizarre structures for several moments, one eyebrow quirking and falling into place again. The room was huge and contained nothing but rows and rows of these edifices. Clearly, a powerful magic radiated from each one- ages after the time of the Sarafan, age had barely touched these.
Then, faintly, he heard the familiar buzzing of a soul untethered from its body. He tilted his head, and realized he had been wrong. It was not one soul, but many. Very many.
Realization slowly dawned on him. He looked again at the rows of glyphcs, ignoring, for the moment, the soul he could barely see imprisoned within them. One glyph he recognize, the most prominent of all: the symbol for fire.
Raziel backed away to stare at the endless rows of these miniature, man-made hells. More clearly now he heard the captive souls, twisting in agony as they had since the time of the Sarafan more than a thousand years ago. And beyond that, the echo of his own words: "The Sarafan were saviors, defending Nosgoth from the corruption that we represent."
A sickening feeling welled up where his stomach had been. He ascended the stairs much more quickly than he had descended them.
********************************************************
Ishtar woke with the smell of blood in her nostrils. But she barely noticed, despite the hunger it stirred inside. She awoke also to the sight of the stones in front of her.
She sat up, fully healed from the wounds of the night before, and turned her head. Her sight moved with her. Try as she might, she could not disable the gift; for once the dark power could not be exhausted. As if eager for the night ahead, it blazed up and down her being, giving her the eerie feeling that she was burning from the inside out.
The last sign, then, Ishtar thought. The final twist of the knife.
The vampire waited patiently, then stood. A moment later, Raziel appeared from around the corner.
"Are you ready?" Ishtar said.
"That was my question to pose." He looked away as if preoccupied. But she understood. "Are you... alright?"
"It was nothing a good day's sleep couldn't cure." She leaned backward until her spine cracked to emphasize the point. "And now... I do believe we have a grand finale to perform."
"Would it be so difficult to phrase that sentiment in less fatalistic terms?"
"Yes."
"A shame."
Ishtar smirked, let it fade when she noticed her own bloodstains on Raziel's cowl. The fatalistic saw omens all around.
With nothing left to say and no preparations left to conduct, they walked toward the warpgate that would take them to the pillars.
********************************************************
*AI*
A big welcome to Silmuen, a big welcome-back to Mana Angel, and a big chocolate bar to VladimirsAngel for reading all that in (kind of) one sitting!
This is just to say that the next update may be slightly delayed. I have about... 30 pages of reports/papers/response journals to write for this bizarre, sadomasochistic ritual that they call Finals Time, so all the worthwhile things in life have been pushed down the priorities list for now. :\ Also, I figured I should post the Big Bang in one fell swoop, since it spans more than one chapter. Not doing so would be the cliffhanger of cliffhangers... and I already learned my lesson when it comes to that. *covers eyes*
Thanks for putting up with me. ;) Till next time...
*/AI*
Kain fought the compulsion to yawn as another Sluagh died under his blade. That would be, what, 212? 213? He had forgotten by now; the game had lost its shine around 46. It wasn't that he had grown tired of battle and the half-crazed bloodlust it wrought- far from it. But his demonic opponents were so mindless that the fray had all the excitement and variability of chopping wood. No doubt the Soul Reaver would have taken the edge off the monotony. Pity.
The master vampire frowned in disapproval as one of the Sluagh broke free from the mob to swipe at his stomach. Its talons slid off with a raspy scrape. Kain smiled at it dispassionately, the same expression he would often use before dispatching a particularly bloody death. The talons of his free hand reached out and gouged into the Sluagh with the same detachment. Even when his arm snagged outwards at just the right length, even as he swung the Sluagh by its own bulbous eyeball before the nerves snapped and sent its maimed body spinning into the ranks of its comrades, Kain's movements came with the same apathetic precision.
Although, the Sluagh's wails were unusually rich.
Kain's amusement was short-lived. The screams of the one-eyed Sluagh faded beneath the cries of a hundred Sluagh, so many that even the mindless demons surrounding him glanced away to find its source. Nosgoth's emperor knew what was coming. He grimaced, edging towards the wall as the collective scream spread through the demons like a shockwave. So Ishtar had reached the warp gate. He had expected them to take much longer.
Kain braced himself just before the swell of mental energy tumbled over him. He felt it like a tsunami slamming into his consciousness. He clutched his head, had a vague notion that the demonic screaming had reached its fever pitch, could not focus as forming even that simple thought seared his mind with pain. His eyes opened, to the sight of an endless sea of green limbs clawing at the air in search of relief. Then the pain died, passing as it had come, in a quick wave. He felt a certain rueful gratitude that the attack was not meant for him.
He watched as the maddened demons turned upon each other in desperate frenzy. Yes, yes, he had seen it all before. That delightful breed of madness produced by Ishtar and her treacherous gift.
But my God. How it was entertaining.
The emperor of Nosgoth cast one last look at Avernus Cathedral. If the demons had not destroyed it during their initial assault, they would in the throes of their madness. Good-bye then, Avernus. To you and, perhaps, to the long dead shade of Azimuth, to whom we owe so much.
Kain cast the teleportation spell and arrived within the rubble-strewn chamber just in time to see Ishtar's limp form vanish through the warp gate. His golden eyes watched her go, then turned to follow the trail of blood that led up to the gate. She would survive this battle, for better or for worse. And Raziel would endure the consequences of such. Tragic, really. But happiness was not the ultimate aim of fate. Let the human cattle delude themselves by imagining that things always worked out for the best. Fate was simply a storyteller delighting in high drama and melodramatic sentiments. Kain had long ago surrendered his ability to undo the skein of the story.
He activated the warp gate and followed a different path than the one just traveled by his children. The halls of the abbey echoed as he stepped off the platform and dropped the iron sword that was now bright green with demon blood. Against the enemy he would soon face, such weapons were useless.
Kain teleported again, this time to a chamber deep inside the abbey. Somehow the Rahabim had repaired the windows at the edges of the room. Kain glanced at the platforms nearby, then at the water that filled the room nearly to its ceiling. A single bubble rose to the surface and soundlessly popped.
The master vampire crossed his arms over his chest. "Dachlin."
A sinuous shape rippled beneath the water. Slowly it rose to the surface, revealing the shark-like head of Rahab's firstborn. Kain noticed the thin red plumes that had followed the Rahabim's fangs in the water. "Master."
"Have you prepared adequately for your assigned task?"
"We have, master."
"Then you have until nightfall to see it completed."
Dachlin's head tilted slightly, but he nodded. "Yes, master."
Kain smiled. "Good boy."
The vampire lord teleported back to the warp gate, the smile fading into a neutral grimace. He had the other clans to gather, to lead in the last conquest of his reign. Oh yes, he would lead them all, all the bastardized and hopelessly corrupted progeny of this age. He would lead his children to their deaths and call it one last sacrifice. Let the old world die with him, let the ashes of this empire vanish as if it had never been. Even the earth, blighted all these centuries, would heal and forget.
Tragic, really.
Kain sighed, resumed his role, and continued with the next act.
********************************************************
Ishtar lay beside the blood fountain, exhausted but alive, and did not stir. She must not have heard him. Raziel turned away and figured it was for the best.
That had come far too close.
The reaver of souls stared down the hall to the warpgate that had borne them from Avernus. Its glowing green circle had nearly turned red with blood. He looked down at his own claws, then at the cowl whose white markings had been stained brown. There was so much. For the first time in more than a thousand years, the former vampire felt a glimmer of loathing for the gift. The blood of his own child had spilled on his claws and mingled with the blood of demons. It stirred within him some primal anger, a ferocious hatred that had lain dormant even when he had first encountered Kain hours after his awakening in the underworld. This was a much more patient anger. If it had to, it would wait.
Raziel scraped some of the dried blood off his claws and surveyed his surroundings. Even during his vampiric unlife, he had never had reason to journey to Willendorf- the lake surrounding the island-city was deterrence enough for Kain's brood. Yet, why had Ishtar urged him to come here? The blood fountain, of course, but... she must have been to this place before. Otherwise, they would not have had access to the warpgate.
The fallen clan lord glanced at Ishtar's unconscious form and quickly looked away. She needed her rest, and he needed to pass the time until nightfall. Getting a look around couldn't hurt.
Only one other passage led away from the warpgate, and Raziel set down this corridor. Even the spiders had abandoned this place. It stank of dust and stale air.
Raziel's explorations soon revealed them to be in tunnels built into the side of a mountain outside the city. Small wonder; the citizens would not have looked kindly to the placement of a blood fountain within their walls. Not that there were any citizens left to complain. The city of Willendorf had not fared well through the centuries, but unlike Avernus, some of its stone buildings had remained. The soul reaver's gaze looked to the remnants of a castle whose worn-down towers still looked imposing against the pre-dawn sky. No doubt this was the castle of King Ottmar, a man depicted in Kain's boastings as a whimpering coward with no rights to his kingdom. With little else to do, and confident that the ruins posed no threat to his slumbering daughter, Raziel set out to explore the crumbling castle.
Once inside, though, the ruins weren't so enthralling after all. It was little more than a heap of stones set in symmetrical shapes- anything of interest had long since rotted away. Raziel walked through the castle's halls with something akin to disappointment. If there was anything that could utterly repulse him, it was the idea of waiting with nothing to do.
A blur on the opposite wall caught his eye, and Raziel idly crossed what might have been a banquet hall. His eyes were fixed on the only patch of color he had seen so far. Close enough, anyway: it was rust-red, the color of-
He abruptly stopped, white eyes huge. On the wall, in blood or paint that had not yet cracked or faded, was painted the symbol of clan Razielim.
...couldn't be...?
Raziel turned toward the doorway nearest to the wall marking and ran. Let it be true. And the room he entered was testament that once, it had been. His eyes tried to take it in all at once: on the wall, a decorative staff that ended in two pointed prongs and bore the Razielim symbol. A small set of yellowed books on top of a crudely-carved, collapsing shelf. An ornate chest of tarnished brass. Overhead, the clan-flag of the Razielim, its cloth still a vibrant red and protected from the elements that would have weathered it to gray.
The soul reaver hobbled to the center of the room and fell to his knees. The revelation was too immense to comprehend at once, though it could be summarized with few words: some had survived. Hadn't Ishtar told him? Yes. That first conversation in the petrified forest, before the Turelim had interrupted. "In a keep far to the southeast." How could he not have guessed? The southeast was a wasteland... but for Avernus and Willendorf, the ancient cities. Of course, the Razielim would have come here.
But they were gone, even here. Even where they were supposed to have survived.
Raziel brushed his claws along the brass chest, watching the edge scrape roughly against the tarnish. A piece of the corroded metal gave way, falling into the chest and inside he glimpsed armor, the animal-shaped top of a ceramic jar, the spine-like rope of a beaded necklace. He looked away. The spines of the books were still readable. One read, in gold-leaf script, "The Dumahim and the Prince of Donkeys."
Kain's firstborn son lowered his forehead to his knees.
And for the first time, the shard of the dark power that joined him with his wings sprang to life. When he opened his glowing eyes, he saw through time.
********************************************************
Strane looked exhausted. His golden eyes stared glazed and half-closed into space, and blood-sweat gathered like tiny red orbs on the skin of his forehead. He could not falter. His claws closed around the arm of the long-dead corpse laid in front of him as if to keep his own body from blowing away. His fanged grimace spoke of how much energy he was pouring into the spell.
Nearby, Morek shifted his weight from one hoof to the other nervously, watching as the clan's oldest survivor teetered on the edge of exhaustion. At times, it seemed Morek would crush the ceramic jar in his claws from nervousness. But he would not intervene. All the clan members knew how important this was. If Strane failed to spawn a new fledgeling... Morek shook the thought away and thrust the ceramic jar under Strane's nose.
Strane's eyes flared into a sharp glare. "Save it... for the fledgeling." Barely a gasp. But the smell of the blood in the jar had helped rouse him.
"Don't drink, and there won't be a fledgeling," Morek said.
Strane hissed but his eyes had unfocused again. For better or for worse, the younger vampire sensed that the spell was coming to a close. He swallowed, claws tight against the jar, and waited.
Strane doubled over the corpse, his breath coming in frenzied gasps. Morek shuffled backwards and watched with panicked eyes. What would he tell the clan-?
The older vampire rested his palms on the floor, now stretched over the corpse. The sweat poured in bloody rivers down his face, dripping between his parted black lips. His hair was matted with clots of his own blood. But his upper lip curled defiantly even while his lungs shook with ragged breaths. For the clan, for the clan. Find the soul, drag it back, prove that the fatherless Razielim had more to do than sit in their keep and wait to fade away. For the clan-
Strane choked and nearly fell backwards as a piece of his own soul tore itself free. It was like vomiting razors. The spark fell from him, cautiously perched on the skin of the woman's corpse. He leaned back on his elbows, barely managing to keep his eyes focused on the body, and was aware of Morek's shuffling hooves nearby. Waited.
The woman's back arched as the reanimated corpse drew its first breath.
"Yes..." Morek whispered.
"Yes," Strane said, his voice weary. The bloodied vampire leaned forward, brushing back the woman's long black hair. His fledgeling had stopped breathing, as was normal when the new vampire realized the function was no longer necessary. Her entire body shivered, and her half-rotted arm shakily rose to her chest, where three slash-marks were beginning to close.
"It's alright," Strane said. The fledgeling's eyelids flickered rapidly, and he smoothed her hair again. "It's alright," he repeated, and her body stilled. Strane smiled and took the jar that Morek handed to him. Not his prime choice for the fledgeling's first meal, but it had to do. He had not fully expected to succeed.
"You did it." Morek grinned stupidly. "You... we... can-"
"Yes," Strane said. He was so tired. He let the fledgeling smell the blood, smiled and smoothed her hair when her mouth opened like an expectant baby bird. "Ah, daughter, you cannot imagine what joy you have brought us all." He smiled again as he tilted the jar to her lips and she began to feed. "My little Ishtar."
********************************************************
Raziel found himself in the same room, now derelict and abandoned. The vision was so dreamlike- vivid as anything he had experienced while it was occurring, and dimly-remembered once it had passed. He slowly rose to his feet and glanced out the crumbling window. The sun would rise within the hour. He thought of Ishtar sleeping, Ishtar being born to the Razielim survivors.
He left the room. The soul reaver sensed, inside, that searching for further evidence of his clan would be futile. There had not been very many, and they had not left much of a mark, not even in the castle they had taken as their home.
And yet... how could he not try?
The day saw Raziel prowling the remains of the castle and wandering the ruins of the streets in search of further signs from his clan. As he had anticipated, the search was largely in vain. For all he could tell, they had simply vanished.
One other object of interest was found, when the sun was fading into the west, beneath a well-preserved building whose markings distinguished it as a fortress of the Sarafan. As were all the buildings on the outside, this one was bleached colorless by the elements. But the inside of this structure was another matter entirely.
Raziel knew it when he saw the faint gleam emanating from somewhere at the end of the staircase that led into the ground. He tilted his head as his steps carried him down- the air here was just as stale as the rest of the ruined city. The light could not be coming from torches.
The soul reaver stepped from the staircase and into what looked like an imitation cavern. The room held nothing but man-made stalagmites that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. At the middle section of each stalagmite, where its width was thinnest, the stone ended. In its place were bars of light forming a glowing cylinder that connected the top of the structure to the bottom. When he came closer, Raziel saw that they were not bars of light- they were glyphs, forming a cylindrical cage in the middle of each stalagmite.
He stared at the bizarre structures for several moments, one eyebrow quirking and falling into place again. The room was huge and contained nothing but rows and rows of these edifices. Clearly, a powerful magic radiated from each one- ages after the time of the Sarafan, age had barely touched these.
Then, faintly, he heard the familiar buzzing of a soul untethered from its body. He tilted his head, and realized he had been wrong. It was not one soul, but many. Very many.
Realization slowly dawned on him. He looked again at the rows of glyphcs, ignoring, for the moment, the soul he could barely see imprisoned within them. One glyph he recognize, the most prominent of all: the symbol for fire.
Raziel backed away to stare at the endless rows of these miniature, man-made hells. More clearly now he heard the captive souls, twisting in agony as they had since the time of the Sarafan more than a thousand years ago. And beyond that, the echo of his own words: "The Sarafan were saviors, defending Nosgoth from the corruption that we represent."
A sickening feeling welled up where his stomach had been. He ascended the stairs much more quickly than he had descended them.
********************************************************
Ishtar woke with the smell of blood in her nostrils. But she barely noticed, despite the hunger it stirred inside. She awoke also to the sight of the stones in front of her.
She sat up, fully healed from the wounds of the night before, and turned her head. Her sight moved with her. Try as she might, she could not disable the gift; for once the dark power could not be exhausted. As if eager for the night ahead, it blazed up and down her being, giving her the eerie feeling that she was burning from the inside out.
The last sign, then, Ishtar thought. The final twist of the knife.
The vampire waited patiently, then stood. A moment later, Raziel appeared from around the corner.
"Are you ready?" Ishtar said.
"That was my question to pose." He looked away as if preoccupied. But she understood. "Are you... alright?"
"It was nothing a good day's sleep couldn't cure." She leaned backward until her spine cracked to emphasize the point. "And now... I do believe we have a grand finale to perform."
"Would it be so difficult to phrase that sentiment in less fatalistic terms?"
"Yes."
"A shame."
Ishtar smirked, let it fade when she noticed her own bloodstains on Raziel's cowl. The fatalistic saw omens all around.
With nothing left to say and no preparations left to conduct, they walked toward the warpgate that would take them to the pillars.
********************************************************
*AI*
A big welcome to Silmuen, a big welcome-back to Mana Angel, and a big chocolate bar to VladimirsAngel for reading all that in (kind of) one sitting!
This is just to say that the next update may be slightly delayed. I have about... 30 pages of reports/papers/response journals to write for this bizarre, sadomasochistic ritual that they call Finals Time, so all the worthwhile things in life have been pushed down the priorities list for now. :\ Also, I figured I should post the Big Bang in one fell swoop, since it spans more than one chapter. Not doing so would be the cliffhanger of cliffhangers... and I already learned my lesson when it comes to that. *covers eyes*
Thanks for putting up with me. ;) Till next time...
*/AI*