URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 – CALL TO ARMS
Chapter 5
Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos & Crystal Dynamics
For a long moment, Kain and I stare at each other in mutual disbelief.
Well. He's staring at my face, I'm staring at his ribcage.
There's a…a…
How do you mention it?
Excuse me, Mr Kain, you appear to have a hole…
Hi, I can't help noticing you seem to have lost something…
Kain blinks at me, seeming disorientated, and that in itself is scary enough. If he doesn't know what's going on, what chance do I have?
He looks as if the foundations of his certainty have been demolished, quickly and ruthlessly. And the fact that we both look like an accident in an operating theatre is not helping. I can't stop staring at the butcher's-shop mess that was his chest. He appears, however, to be recovering himself – after his first gasp of shock he is rapidly regaining his old poise.
"I remember you," he says, eventually, and my relief at this is ridiculous to behold. The last time I met him I had quickly de-evolved him into a savage young killer with no regard for human life whatsoever. Yet, somehow, I'm glad he hasn't forgotten me.
I had forgotten something myself: quite how alien he looks, up close.
He sits on the mattress and as yet makes no move to get up. His eyes flick from his own wound to the various abrasions and splits in my skin, and he frowns.
"I…am not dead," he says to himself, after a moment's careful thought. The pain must be incredible, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. I flex my knees experimentally and let out an undignified yelp of agony.
Kain strokes aimlessly at the ragged hole in his torso as if interested in the texture of his own torn skin, and then pushes himself up in a graceful, smooth movement that would put a human dancer to shame. Standing, he towers effortlessly over even my tallest bookcases. The thin light from the bulb plays poorly on his craggy face and gleams from his yellow eyes. One hand is still clutched to the gash in his chest, and the other is hanging aimless and empty at his side.
No sword.
What happened to him? What, thinking about his ridiculous power logically, can possibly have happened to him?
"What has happened to you?" he asks, brusquely. "Are you again undergoing some form of duress that requires my services? Another… " (and he gropes for the long-ago word) "…hospital I need to get you to? I do not appreciate being at the beck and call of some feeble human girl."
I have no answer to that. My legs will still not hold me, and so I cannot escape from his annoyance.
And that is all it is – annoyance. His emotion pushes at me like heat from an open oven, but this is not Kain in anger. He's only mildly put out by his sudden incursion into the human realm. This is Peeved Kain.
I get the horrible feeling that he's saving his anger up for something really worthwhile, and when Furious Kain is unleashed, god help anyone who happens to be in his way.
"I cannot be here," is his next observation. He starts to pace, and in a spat of temper sweeps all my games, action figures and books to the floor.
Denial welcomes its newest citizen. I resist the urge to hide under the duvet, for it will do no good, and concentrate, like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, on getting my legs to work properly.
Kain gives me a sudden, suspicious stare, and sniffs. The black feather on the floor stirs under his cloven feet.
"Janos Audron has been here," he says. "Where is Raziel? Tell me!"
He takes the distance between me and him in a single stride and grabs me by the collar.
Don't shake, please don't shake, I think my teeth are loose…
"I don't know," I manage, and he looks stricken at that, as if something terrible is about to happen and there isn't a single thing he can do to prevent it.
I have truly never seen Kain look stricken before. It's as if just for a moment the hard layers were wrenched away and all there was left was this immense weariness, reluctance to accept the situation...yes, and fear, too.
It's beginning to make me think I really should have tried harder to complete Defiance. I got stuck in Avernus when business began to boom, and just haven't had the time to make it to the end.
The similarity of Kain and Janos's injuries, however, is not lost on me.
Kain drops me, ignoring my hiss of pain as my bruised skull is jolted, and paces harder.
He's going to wear out the carpet if he's not careful…oh, god, the hysteria is well and truly setting in.
"Why can I not leave?" he explodes, after a few minutes of this tiger-in-a-cage impression. "I should be dead, and yet I am not. I should be in Nosgoth, when I clearly am not."
He whirls on me and the look in his eyes is anything but friendly.
"It is you," he accuses. "It has been you all this time. I should kill you."
And with that simple statement, he puts his considerations into action and pounces on me, unbelievably fast, with fangs bared.
Two things happen.
One, I am stupidly aware of inconsequential things. Kain's blood from the gaping hole in his chest is staining my robe as his massive body presses down on mine. Bloodstains do not easily come clean. This robe is a goner.
Two, I am bringing my hands up to try and defend my already scarred throat. It has felt his teeth before, and all rationality demands that I prevent this from happening again. And in my left hand is the first thing that I could grab to put between myself and him…
The game manual makes an almost comical papery slapping noise as it hits Kain in the face. He growls at the interference, but as he reaches out with one arm to grasp my throat and the other arm to pin my wrist, the growl is abruptly curtailed in favour of stunned silence.
I am in too much pain to really give him my full attention. Plus, the world is beginning to acquire that pretty shade of grey that precedes unconsciousness as Kain's grip does its job of cutting off my air supply.
He is staring at the picture on the cover. I am forgotten, a sad sack of skin, blood and mortality hanging from his hands. The picture is his world, and everything else is merely window-dressing.
My gasping as I approach strangulation must have interrupted his reverie, because he relaxes his grip in irritation and sits down on the edge of the mattress to read the little booklet.
I claw my way back to consciousness with reluctance, because the dull aching in my jaw and cheeks is now becoming a hot, sharp pain, and realise how small that booklet looks in his claws.
He reads quickly. No-one could ever accuse Kain of being all brawn and no brain. When he is done, he looks back at me and the expression in his eyes is unreadable.
"And you have…played this?"
Although he recalls meeting me, and recalls the games, it is still hard for him to voice the concept, and while I struggle to answer, he shakes his head in negation.
"It is not important. You come with me."
He gets up, tucking the booklet away (do those trousers have pockets or has he just slipped it into the waistband?) and pulls on my wrist to make me follow him.
The yell I give voice to as my legs take my weight again for the first time is practically unrecognisable as human. Even Kain looks vaguely startled.
"I will not carry you," he begins, as if the concept were as ridiculous as carting a beef cow around with you under one arm.
And at that point my voice returns to me. I wish it hadn't, because, judging by the remark it comes out with, it has returned several hours before my brain.
"C-can I at least get s-some clothes?" I stammer, and watch his heavy, horned brows draw down in exasperated disapproval.
"To have humoured you in this manner, Janos must really have become a bleeding heart," he says, eventually. "And thus, so must I."
I fight to read his expression for almost a whole minute, before realising that he is almost smiling at me. Kain has just made what must be his first pun in centuries.
Should I laugh, do you think?