Chapter2
And stepped out...
...into empty, night-blue sky.
This wasn't Avernus.
Kain began to fall. Behind him, the portal blinked out of existence.
Snarling, Kain spread his arms, seized the fabric of gravity in his claws, and warped it. His descent slowed, then halted, and a breeze brought salt tang to Kain's senses. Far below, waves rippled with white-flecked crests.
They stretched to the horizon.
The oracle had transported him not to Avernus, but evidently, to somewhere above the Great Southern sea. Judging by the lightness in the air, dawn would break in a few short hours.
Kain laughed, the sound far colder than the humid air. Did the oracle suppose that materialization over open water would result in his demise? Water meant agonizing death for lesser vampires, but any ancient was more than capable of traveling to solid ground, regardless of distance.
When Kain found this "oracle" again, he'd tear its temple down around its ears.
But until then...turning himself, Kain scanned the horizon, searching for any trace of land. A broad strip of tiny lights smudged the sea's surface to the northeast.
So many lights – was that land? If so, it seemed unaccountably populated. Unflickering lights blanketed the shoreline in white and yellow stars, stretching inland a very great distance. Freeport? Meridian, perhaps? Certainly not in Kain's own era. Meridian was an enormous city, the largest Nosgoth had ever seen, but even at its height, the capital had contained at best a hundred thousand humans.
In what time did Kain find himself, then? Too late to warn Raziel, or too early?
Damn that oracle! There wasn't any way to find out but to ask, and even if Kain found someone worth speaking to, it was possible that there would be no way back to the correct time at all if the time-streaming chambers were ruined in this era.
Or if they hadn't yet been created.
With a low hiss of annoyance, Kain invoked the powers that would disincorporate his body. His awareness fragmented, senses both diminishing and multiplying as thousands of tiny forms took wing from his flesh.
The bats disliked the water below and the distant lights before them. The fragments of armor and Reaver which each bat contained felt like a pervasive itch in the back of Kain's consciousness. This form was somewhat difficult to control under the best of circumstances – occasionally, when traveling betwixt his sons' abodes, Kain would abruptly find himself instead within his own crypt, returned to sanctuary once again.
The bats weren't even particularly good at scouting – superb sonar allowed them to find a sheltered spot in which to reform Kain's body, but their extremely limited eyesight was of little strategical use.
The bats were, however, very, very fast, traveling many times the speed of any natural beast of air or darkness. They carried Kain to the city's shoreline within minutes and circled, chirping in echolocative song. Kain forced their attention from the clouds of salt gnats and back to the landscape. There seemed to be no end of buildings, all far taller than Kain anticipated. Could the bats be mistaken, their sonar somehow impeded?
One building caught his attention when several bats darted into it and promptly became disoriented, their cries reflecting harshly from large metal blocks. The building seemed many levels high, yet it had enormous open windows. Kain directed the rest of the bats to join their lost brethren, and quickly found a dim corner within the strange structure.
The bats swarmed together, massing, their limbs melting and joining. The process was painful, but familiarly so.
A few seconds later, the weight of his heavy black boots and gauntlets settling around him and the heft of the Reaver once more securely upon his back, Kain opened his eyes.
Well. How… fascinating. This part of the building had no real rooms to speak of. The floor was largely open, shaded by the level above and dotted with thick columns which, presumably, kept the upper layers from collapsing. The columns were certainly necessary – the exterior walls were formed of chest-high metal railings, spaced between short stretches of featureless gray wall. Surely powerful magics must keep the whole edifice erect, though Kain could see no obvious glyphs or arcane devices.
Painted yellow stripes turned the open areas into a kind of a grid, and enormous ramps led to the levels above and below. Strangest of all, however, were the handful of metal contraptions which littered the wide open space. They had wheels, and were covered like wagons, but most were far too small to carry a farmer's goods to market or armored men to war. They also had no hitches for horses or slaves, nor any visible power glyphs. Perhaps they were meant only to roll down inclines? What other purpose could the wheels serve?
Kain looked around, watchful. He stepped out of his corner, mindful of the sound his steel-shod half boots made on the floor, which seemed like stone, but lacked seams or joints. He approached a wagon, one of the smaller red ones, prepared for an attack to be launched or alarm to be sounded.
The carriage did nothing.
Kain stalked slowly around it. Glassed windows revealed that the carriage contained a small chamber cramped with a pair of legless chairs, a bench, a wheel, and a number of switches and dials, some of which seemed vaguely reminiscent of the time-streaming chambers' controls. The front of the wagon – he assumed it was the front -- had been styled to seem a little like eyes. He passed a clawed hand in front of one white, glass-covered, eye-like socket. The metal device made no response.
Several small sheets of paper had been placed on the front window of the carriage. Kain plucked them free. The papers were uniformly very fine, without the slightest roughness, and were covered on both sides in alien sigils which bore relation neither to bloodscript nor to any other text in Kain's wide experience.
Very gingerly, Kain laid a hand on the front of the carriage and pushed. The whole contraption rocked backwards, then slid the bare width of a talon. Kain's claws left three deep creases as he removed his hand. Strange. It seemed that magics prevented the carriage from rolling, yet did nothing to protect what was evidently a thin and very fragile metal skin. It was difficult to fathom the purpose of such a device.
The large, railed windows drew Kain's attention next. The floor on which Kain stood appeared to be almost thirty feet off the ground, yet other edifices rose even higher, and blocked most of the view. A narrow alley passed below, and to Kain's left, he could just make out a row of shopfronts, each topped by strangely illuminated signs.
More signs and paper notices covered almost every surface along the alley's walls. The missives seemed to be written in the same script as the papers on the carriage. A few of them had pictures along with the unusual text, but many contained nothing but dense lettering. This too was outlandish -- pictorial signs had been much more common than actual writing in all Kain's eras. It was almost as if the humans of this era were… universally literate.
What a bizarre notion.
Kain could see – and smell -- a number of humans already moving about. The breeze smelled of brine, the acrid bite of tar or burning oil, and yes, a great many humans. But oddly, the most distinctive scents of human cities were diminished or absent. The foul rot of open sewers, the caustic fumes of tanneries, and the underlying puss-ridden malaise of disease – such scents were all but missing. What manner of creature constructed such a city? And the humans below – at what labors did they toil in this unsoiled place?
There were too many humans below to risk vaulting over the railing. Few actions alerted the vampire hunters to one's nature quite like falling five times one's height, and Kain had no particular wish to attract attention, nor to thereby perhaps change the course of history. The sooner he found a way from this time and back to Raziel, the better.
Kain turned and started towards one of the big ramps, hoping for a way down and, with luck, out. His boots kept up a constant clatter; the steel shanks that reinforced the sides brushed the ground with each step, the sound echoing throughout this strange layered complex.
Kain paused, waiting for the echoes to die out. Sounds of an awakening city were beginning to fill the air, but from this structure, Kain could hear nothing of interest. He knelt, loosening the buckles that attached the plates to refasten them a bit higher. It was difficult to manipulate the buckles without the assistance of a human slave – Kain's talons, though highly dexterous, simply weren't meant to fit in tight places.
Melchiah, with his slender talons, had never had a problem. The vampire had been a natural armorer, unquestionably skilled with metal plates, and of course, with leather. It had been he who designed the boots to protect an evolved vampire's comparatively vulnerable ankle joints – for while wounds to skin or muscle were merely painful annoyances, an arrow through an ankle or wrist could leave that limb crippled for hours.
How long had Melchiah knelt at Kain's feet, measuring, prodding, trying on prototypes? There had been times when half-finished designs on rough paper littered the throne room steps. But the end result had been worth it – clever leather-and-chain joints allowed a nearly full range of motion and the durability to withstand the kinds of stresses only a vampire could exact, while the layered half-inch steel plates offered unparalleled traction and complete protection. The boots also each weighed as much as a human child, but the weight was a negligible price to pay.
Kain tightened the last hidden buckle and stood, stamping to settle the armor into place. The side plates now rode an inch higher up Kain's calf, though one hung just a little crooked. Melchiah would have been horrified, he'd have dropped to his knees and begged to be allowed to readjust Kain's armor. Even as a week-old fledge, Melchiah had always been enormously concerned about the physical wellbeing of his Sire and brothers. In fact, he'd….
"Well well, aren't we the walking masquerade violation?" Baring fang, Kain refocused in an instant. The voice was rough, gravelly, abrasive. The figure to which the voice belonged looked much the same, with the addition of greenish, brown-mottled skin.
Over the ages, Kain had become familiar with a number of languages. He spoke thirty-seven distinct tongues fluently, from the crude yapping of barbarian swamp tribesmen to courtly dialects engineered for elegant and deadly verbal duels. He knew fragments of hundreds of languages more.
Kain understood not a single one of the gnarled creature's words.
The creature stood at similar height to a human, though the way it lounged against the metal railing beside the descending ramp made it seem shorter. It looked a bit like a vampire, though a young one -- smelled a little like one, too. Fang tips showed as the green fledgling smirked.
But no vampire fledge would ever dare face Kain down. Even if they didn't know him by sight, the fledges of Kain's sons simply knew their grandsire, knew that the blood which sung in their veins answered to one source alone. Which meant that this… creature… was either no kin of Kain's, or was extremely dim-witted.
And either way, Kain felt no compulsion to be the least bit gentle in extracting information. The Reaver came to hand with a softly eager keening, glad of the impending violence. "Tell me what place this is," he growled, stepping forward threateningly, eyes fixed upon his target.
The small green creature seemed astonished that it had been seen, though it certainly hadn't been hiding particularly well. The creature frowned and adopted a look of inward concentration. Nothing, so far as Kain could tell, happened.
Kain advanced another step. Last change, little fledge. The creature looked down at itself, as if checking for something, and looked back up at Kain, its confusion growing. "Uh. Gangrel? You're not a Nos…" it started.
Kain leapt, feinting with the sword, preparing to seize the creature with his free claw.
With a squeak, the green humanoid darted away, vaulting down the ramps, slipping between guard rails.
Kain hissed in annoyance and lunged, heavy cloven hooves goring the concrete. He phased through the railings midair, transitioning from physical to blood-mist and back with a hair's-breadth to spare.
The vampire-like creature was fast; Kain had it give it that. Two floors down, it darted into a side room and flung shut a heavy door just as Kain reached the ground. Kain didn't slow, didn't stop to check if the door was even locked. Ripping the door off its hinges barely even slowed him down.
The side room was quite small. Boxes made of strange, stiff paper were stacked high along the walls, and more familiar mops and brooms splintered when the remains of the door crashed into them.
The vampire-thing was frantically lifting up on a metal disk set flush into the middle of the floor.
With a single bound, Kain cleared piles of debris. One great cloven foot slammed down in the center of the metal disk, crushing the fledgling's gnarled, clawed fingers.
Kain seized the gasping thing by its throat, forcing eye contact. "Now," he said, very calmly, as he began to sort through its mind, seeking language skills first. "You're going to tell me everything you know... and I do mean everything."
Swift as a hunting spider, a force seized Raziel, dragged him down. The wraith hardly had a moment to scrabble for the edge before he stuck bottom with a brittle crunch. Old bones and wetter things crushed and scattered from the impact.
And in the darkness, something very large began to move.
A great shape began to shuffle out of the darkness. Raziel tensed himself. The god of the pit was massive, monstrous, its limbs disturbingly-jointed. It smelled at the air with its horrible snout.
Raziel stepped to the side, hooves making only the slightest of sounds against the smooth-worn floor. But the creature's enormous ears twitched, following him, as the creature tracked Raziel's attempt at evasion.
The beast snarled, exposing fangs longer than Raziel's arm. "I smell no blood..." Angered now, it abandoned any attempt at subtlety. Its feet struck the ground, shaking it with every step. The beast craned its next back, blindly seeking the platform where its worshippers no longer stood. "Throat cut first, blood gouting, then it falls into the pit... The sacrifice is rejected. You will know my wrath…"
No response emerged from above. The monster turned and approached Raziel closely, sniffing. The wraith held utterly still, uncertain.
The god of the pit jerked, as if startled. It hissed. "Not possible. No. It could not be…"
Raziel quickly found himself tiring of this game. The wraithblade coiled around his arm. "Stand away, monster," he growled.
"No. That voice -- not possible. I know that voice... but he fell. The abyss, he ended there."
The wraith's eyes narrowed. "I did not fall into the abyss."
The beast seemed to smile, less than half-sane. "Oh, it remembers that, does it? "
"I was thrown in, by my own brethren."
"I heard what you did to them... And now you have found me at last," the monster snapped its jaws.
Raziel's eyes widened, understanding at last. He breathed his brother's name. "Turel…"