Kain

Chapter 17

I had last met this…woman, when Vorador sent me to gather information about the Sarafan Lord's device. It was from her that I acquired my ability to use telekinesis, a gift which was passed on in varying amounts to my sons. We had not had long to speak however, as the Sarafan lord interrupted our conversation when he attacked her abode. To help me carry on with my endeavour, she teleported me away from the danger. For a while, I assumed that she had simply burned when the Sarafan set her house ablaze. Yet here she was.

Surprisingly, the fact that she was obviously a Hylden did not bother me as much as it should.

"And what business is that?" I asked her, replying to her statement. She smiled coyly, before walking over to a set of spiralling stairs that led down from the balcony.

"We are both in a position where cooperation would be in our best interests. I require a service from you, and you require a service from us." She began, descending down the steps. From the 'US' part, I assumed she meant the princess Alicia of Willendorf, who sat nearby with an amused smirk on her face.

"Go on." I added, giving the human girl a side-glance. By now the Seer had reached the floor and I could see her properly. She had the physical properties of other Hylden, the bone quills spiking out from her shoulder blades and on the side of her head and the arched feet. She had brown hair however and she lacked the skeletal, yet insect like appearance of those I had seen in the demon dimension.

I mused that perhaps that hideous appearance had been another of the effects of prolonged imprisonment with the demon realm.

"Several thousand years ago, your kind and mine were at war over something as trivial as religion. In distaste, I left the conflicts to venture across the northern borders of Nosgoth to more peaceful surroundings." She began, seating herself down in one of the chairs. "My people lost and were banished. I too would have been drawn in, had I not managed to escape the effect of the pillars by being beyond the borders of Nosgoth at the time."

"How convenient for you." I began; staring at her with levelled eyes. I knew better than to trust her word of course. There was much more to her that what met the eye and taking the word of someone like that was sheer folly. Moebius had taught me that much at least.

"But it seems my civilisation had a trump card to use against you and your allies in case of defeat." She didn't have to add anything more, I already knew the story. "And so, there in lies our mutual interest. I want my people to be free, and you want to rid of the curse. One task that can not be completed without the other."

"And precisely what assistance could you offer me that would be worth mine?" I asked, getting slightly impatient.

"As a seer, I can see into the time stream, past or future. But the visions are not for me to select." Her statement did little to melt my suspicions. That simply made her more like Moebius than I was comfortable with. "The path the future will take is unclear to me, so to make it turn out more favourable, I offer you the one thing you require. Direction."

"Direction?" I repeated with a raised eyebrow. The Hylden lady smirked.

"You have the power, but no means of using it. You know your ultimate destiny, but have no way of achieving it."

"And you could supply me with it?" She was offering to be my advisor, at least that was what I thought. She would be disappointed. I had no need of advice and was less inclined to use it. The last time I had listened to advice, I ended up changing history for the worse. Either way, there was something missing from the equation. "And what would you expect in return?"

"Help with my own endeavour of course." The release of the Hylden. If I was honest, I would admit I had contemplating the possibility myself. Those trapped in the demon dimension were utterly insane and warped to far from their former selves to be saved, or at least that was what I had believed. Once outside the demon dimension, the effects of prolonged exposure to that realm began to reverse themselves.

Hylden however had been trapped in there for so long, it might take decades for them to regain their sanity, not to mention their good looks.

"And precisely what interest do you have in all this human?" I asked, turning back to the princess, who up till now had been an outside observer to the conversation. She sat there with a plain smile that concealed her true emotions on her face.

"My needs are simple." She replied, apparently harbouring none of the characteristic fear her kind often expelled towards me. "The lion of Willendorf has been tamed under the whip of the Sarafan for centuries. I want to restore the kingdom to it's rightful statues, and helping you expose the Sarafan for the butchers they are is the only way I can achieve that. The Sarafan are skilled at killing vampires, but when it comes to a full peasant revolt I'm willing to bet they'll have trouble." She wasn't lying, that I could instinctively tell, but there something else too. Something she was holding her tongue about. "Regardless of the beliefs of the vampires, not all humans revere the Sarafan as gods. There are a great many who would be willing to risk their lives to help you, if it meant destroying the Sarafan once and for all."

These two were not to be trusted. That one fact had been clear from the moment I stepped through the door. But still, for the moment at least, we had a common goal.

"Very well." I began. "You have my interest. If you do not lie in your throats, we have common ground."

"Good." The princess began with a smile that reminded me for much of Moebius I couldn't help but inwardly shiver. "The seer has told me you seek knowledge of the Druids of bane, the one presently in control of the Sarafan order." I shot the Hylden women a side glance.

"That I do." I replied as the Seer forged a smirk.

"The Druids are an ancient order, dating back to the time of the Pillar's corruption. Their ultimate goal is revenge on the vampire who killed the founder of their sect." The princes smiled smugly. "Which would be you I believe." She ignored the scowl I sent her and carried on. "When the Sarafan lord was defeated, the Order became uncoordinated and nearly collapsed. Then, at the last second, they elected a new leader which saved them from being disbanded. This new leader is a high ranking cultist amongst the Druids and their Eye of God, a man called Sabre." The name did not ring any bells for me, so I let her continue. "Pooling their resources, the Sarafan were quickly back in control, but with the Glyph magic now gone, they were forced to abandon Meridian to search for a new stronghold. The fortress of the first order has gone since collapsed into ruins, and so my father, another high ranking Druid offered Willendorf to them."

"Tell me…" I began, looking down my nose at her. "If your father endorses the Sarafan rule, then do you, his own daughter defy him?" Alicia chuckled, finding my question overly amusing.

"My father is a puppet, a simple minded fool too easy swayed by the rambling of priests. He would sacrifice the glory of the kingdom just to satisfy some invisible and most likely, none existent deity." I suddenly found a new respect for this girl. She had a very sharp tongue, notable ambition and a most astonishingly of all for a human, a brain in her head. Most royals I had known were inbred degenerates, yet here seemed to be an exception made flesh. "The seer offered me help in wresting the throne away from the Sarafan, in return for my assistance as a spy for your quest." I cast another glance at the seer, who remained as unreadable as ever.

"You risk death." I told her. "If the Sarafan, or even your dear father discover your intentions, you will die. And I am willing to wager the experience will be less than pleasant." Strangely, she did not seem concerned with my statement.

"Nothing can be gained without tasking some kind of risk. And overthrowing the Sarafan rule after two hundred years of dictatorship, is something I am willing to risk death for."

A thought passed through my mind that my admittedly low opinion of humans had been down to the machinations of a select handful. Many of their kind were actually decent people and hardly cowards. True they could never measure up to a vampire in strength or courage, yet they had a certain nobility of their own.

"I can hardly see the Sarafan being ordered around by any outside influence." I began. "Not without something to secure their alliance anyway."

"Correct. The Order and the Druids never saw eye to eye on anything, yet Sabre had something, something they would do anything to claim and that, as they say, sealed the deal."

"And that something would be?"

"Even I don't know everything." She replied flatly. "But given enough time to snoop, I'm sure I can learn more." Something told me to keep an eye on this one. While a useful ally, it would be unwise for me to trust her. She had great ambitions, and clearly would shake hands with the devil to satisfy them. "As for the Druids themselves, before they started pulling the strings of the Sarafan that is, they originally held away over the denizens of the western settlements. Particularly in Zeigstuhrl." That name rang a bell, a very loud bell at that.

It was there my life as a nobleman ended, and my life as a vampire began. There that my destiny was set in motion. "Unfortunately, my own intelligence resources stop just short of the Great Southern Lake. So if you want information, I suggest seeking it out there."

"This…Sabre." I began. "Is he anything special, or simply a figurehead for their movement?" The princess grimaced.

"Oh…he's something alright." She replied with a hint of distaste in her voice. "Hardly anything like a figurehead. Wilful, forceful, self opinionated and….

"And he tried to court the young Princess Alicia here more than once." The Seer added with a short giggle. Alicia now looked very irritated.

"Anything…as I was saying, Sabre is the Grand Master of the Druids. After he claimed dominance over the Sarafan, he started going by the title, Arch-Knight. He spends most of his time personally commanding his warriors. Whenever he's not at the front, he stays here in the Castle with my dear Father." Her tone on the word 'dear', was flat and hinted at sarcasm. "They convene with the other high ranking members of their sect in their private chamber at the top of the keep."

"And what lies in there?" I asked. She shook her head.

"That, I am afraid, is beyond my knowledge. All but the Druids themselves are forbidden to enter that room. Even the guards unless summoned."

Like that's ever stopped you.- Raziel muttered and I could feel him rolling his none existent eyes.

"Tell me Seer." I began to the Hylden woman. "What guarantees do I have that once the Hylden are released, that they will not start on some insane plan of genocide and domination?" The last time they earned a parole from the demon dimension, they nearly destroyed all life in Nosgoth. I was not about to risk it.

"I can not guarantee such a thing. Their anger has brewed for eons and will be difficult for them to set aside." She admitted. "However, once outside the confines of that realm, they will slowly revert back to their old selves. All they need is time." A lot of time, I mused. The Sarafan lord had been outside the demon dimension for two hundred years and had still been quite insane. If eons warped them into the monsters they now were, eons would be needed to repair the damage.

"And how do you propose to give them that time?" She smiled seductively.

"There is a place in Nosgoth, where time means nothing. It's creator made it a focal point for temporal distortions. A being could spend uncountable eons in that place, and only a day would have passed outside the walls." I set my face in a deep frown.

"The Eternal Prison." I had been there myself once before. It was not a location I would return to willingly, as the horrors contained without were greatly disturbing, even for a vampire. The seer nodded in agreement.

"Once contained within the prison's walls, they will have all the time they require to heal their minds."

"I have been to this place before. You would trade them one prison for another. The confines of that place are just as bad as the demon dimension." I smiled grimly. "And believe my, I've seen both." The seer shook his head.

"I do not intend for them to suffer there, but that is a conversation for another time." Her expression grew ominous. "As for the direction I promises, you are set on the path of the Scion. You have overcome time itself in order to tread down this road and now you have, you need to know where you are going." She managed a smile. "The Human, the former Sarafan knight Janos Audron befriended. Ewoden isn't it? Vorador sent him north to investigate the Seroli and their seers. Once he returns to the mansion, he will have news for you." I raised an eyebrow as she looked off into space. "Vorador has finished his research and has new information as well."

"Good or bad?" I asked sceptically. She smiled

"Why not go and find out for yourself?" I snorted loudly in reply.

"For one seeking to be my ally, you keep a lot of secrets." Her smiled deepened. It was an innocent sort of smile, yet just beneath it I could sense the dark humour brewing in her soul. Not malevolent, but relishing in itself none the less.

"We will speak again soon Kain and believe me, you will find my services most useful."

Suddenly, the door to the entrance of the Princess' chamber shook as something smashed into it from behind, straining against the lock. Instantly the hilt of the Soul Reaver was in my hand as I shot around to face it.

The door shook again and I could hear the metallic clanking of footsteps of men in armour began swathing in like a draft.

"Open the door vampire, we know you're in there!" A rough voice shouted.

"That treachery is this?" I hissed back at the princess.

"Don't blame me for your sloppy attempt at stealth Kain." She retorted angrily. "Now conceal yourselves, quickly." The Hylden Seer just seemed to vanish all of a sudden, like she had never even been there. As for me, I evoked another of the power's Raziel had 'lent' me. The elemental power of darkness shrouded my body from sight, rendering me completely invisible.

Just then, the doors opened up and a company of Sarafan soldiers barged into the room, their swords and other weapons drawn. They were just regular soldiers and not the light wielding kind.

"Where is he?" They demanded of the only visible on in the room.

"Where is who?" The princess asked, sounding irritated that she had been disturbed.

"The vampire. One was detected in the keep." A solider told her. The princess scoffed at him.

"As you can see, I'm the only one here. And I protest at a group of men bursting into my chambers without invitation." The soldiers grumbled loudly, lowering their weapons. Even though they had sway in the city and the keep, the Princess still had enough authority to have them beheaded if displeased.

"A stranger was reported entering this chamber." Their leader announced, his eyes squinting at her through the visor of his helm.

"Yes, that was a noble from the west. He was here to discuss trade with the Order." The princess told him adamantly. "Be grateful you didn't burst in while he was still here, you could have destroyed a valuable negotiations attempt that would have kept you gentlemen armed and well fed." They all suddenly looked very sheepish. "Now get of my room!" As they turned to leave, Alicia silently gestured to the open balcony window with a smile. She was telling me to leave while the getting was good and I was inclined to agree with her. Quickly I shot outside, then dissolved into bats and was on my way.