Chapter 27

KAIN

The sky broke open as it began to rain, thunder and lightning lashing across the sky like whips before the droplets fell. The land opened up to receive the water it seemed, the half dead trees around suddenly stirring with renewed life as it hit their brown leaves. While most of the plant life had lost the will to live, small feral animals darted out from their hiding places to drink from the puddles culminating on the ground. Predators took the opportunity to hunt, striking at their prey for the first time in months. The rains were becoming less and less frequent and this for all was a blessing. But no amount of water was going to bring these edifices before me back to life.

The pillars of Nosgoth stood crumbling in decay, their cracked remains barely even teen foot high. In their pure state, they stretched on so far they appeared not to have any end. Now they were nothing but short remains damned to slow erosion. Perhaps, I thought as I stood before them silently, this was a sign. Despite everything I had done to overturn the disastrous future I had seen, despite all the changes in history, despite my defiance of fate itself; the decay of Nosgoth seemed inevitable.

I was purified; meaning that for the first time in my entire life, I was a suitable candidate for the Pillar of Balance. But there in lay a dilemma. I would be a perfect Guardian candidate only for the pillar in the time from whence I came, the time of my empire; but those pillars were dead. Not a drop of their sustaining energy left in them. They were only useless hunks of stone towering above my throne. The set before me now were still alive, but only barely.

Yet this Pillar still thought the Kain at Dark Eden was it's representative and it's corruption stayed. Silently I laid a hand against it, wishing I could just talk to it. Maybe then I could somehow…persuade it to choose the Scion of Balance as it's Guardian rather than Kain the destroyer.

"Changing the mind of a rock." I sighed, before sinking down to sit with my back to it's ruin.

Ariel, the Balance Guardian was not here. She had been released, called to the spirit forge in the vampire citadel to empower the Reaver with the final elemental force. Through this, and not my acceptance of death she had willed for so long, did she find peace. If only all of us were so easily allowed to go. I had to gone on, struggling in a dying word against enemies so strong they threatened to overwhelm me.

I was getting nowhere fast.

The Druids, the Sarafan and the Elder God were making plans for the destruction of my entire species and I had no idea how I was going to stop them. I was outnumbered, their generals had skills on par with my own and their plans were an utter mystery to me.

Well, perhaps that was untrue. I did know some things about them. For whatever stratagem they had devised, they needed to be close to the Pillars. But that begged the question, what could these near lifeless husk offer anyone?

This 'Time of Election' the Druid Aurora spoke of, what could it be? All I know is it had to be significant. Aurora had called Sabre, the current leader of the Sarafan, my challenger at that crucial time. But what did that actually mean?

The rain matted my hair, causing to cling to my shoulders. While I was not immune to water's acidic touch, I had built up a tolerance to it that allowed my to stay out in the rain without being scorched. Only my son Ruhab had been completely immune to waters touch. Oh how I longed now for his powers, to have been lent them briefly. With them I could have had the entire vampire race cured of the curse by now. The canister I left with Vorador could be broken open and we could all simply fly away.

"Things are rarely that simply Kain." Raziel told me with passing sadness, but strangely he did not contact my telepathically to say it. Instead his familiar voice seemed to come from directly to my side. Glancing around I saw a translucent shape sitting next to me. It was Raziel! His ghoulish form was sitting there with his arms crossed on his knees; the ruined fabric of his wings fluttering from behind his back in the wind. His clan drape drawn up over his nose to conceal the lower half of his face.

"Raziel." I began reaching out to touch him, only to find my hand going right through his body.

"I'm afraid I'm still inside the sword." He told me with a short sigh. "What you see here is just a projection I'm casting from within." He looked away, blinking his featureless eyes several times.

"How are you doing this?" I asked with raised eyebrows, trailing a talon through his left shoulder; seeing my hand going completely through his transparent form. "The Previous incarnation of the reaver never displayed that talent." Raziel was silent for a moment, staring off into the black gloom.

"I've had some time to dedicate some thought to that mystery." He announced. "If I've simply been going around in a big circle then something had to keep that circle going. Some event that repeated itself time and time again to ensure that I as kept trapped by the Reaver." I nodded once.

"You entering the Sword." Raziel shook his head in response.

"You would naturally think so, but no. It was not my entering the Reaver, but my entering it unwillingly that set the circle going." I stared at him, forcing an expression that begged him to explain further. "Think about it Kain, if I entered the blade against my will I would have fought against it with every ounce of my sanity and lost. I would have become the ravenous, deranged spirit and the circle would start again. But instead, I accepted the role and eased myself gently into the sword. My sanity remained completely intact. From within, I find I can do more than even I imagined." I was silent for a moment, contemplating his words.

"Although even if you can project an image of yourself that stills leaves you trapped in a sword with no physical form." Raziel flicked some wet hair out of his eyes.

"True, but for the moment I still needed inside the blade." I chuckled out load and stood up, brushing a few strands of white hair out of my face. Telekinetically I called the Reaver Blade out, the hilt flying to my open hand. The eye sockets on the skull were just as dark and empty as ever, but the blade itself sparked now and then with the elemental and spiritual energy contained therein.

"What good is a blade this strong if I don't how and where to use it?" I asked. Raziel glanced up at the sword, his own body for all practical purposes and I could see the shudder pass over him. It was like looking at oneself from the outside.

"Great good Kain, and I can give you all the direction you need." Glancing up, I saw a solitary figure standing on top of the crumbled Balance Pillar. A Hylden female, one all too familiar.

"Ah Seer. I was wondering where you scuttled off to." Lightning broke the sky, silhouetting her streamlined form before she dropped gracefully down to land beside the Balance pillar. "Our last conversation was cut brief was it not?"

"Indeed a shame vampire, which is why I'm here now." She replied folding his arms. Her gaze wandered to my right, to the translucent shape of Raziel standing beside me. From her expression I could tell that she could see him. Apparently this new form of communication my first born was experimenting with was not just for my own benefit. "Well hello there Raziel." The translucent ghoul beside me blinked in surprise.

"You know me Hylden?" He asked sounding perplexed. The seer forced a large smirk, her blue eyes alight with inward humour.

"Redeemer and Destroyer, Pawn and Messiah. We have met or perhaps we have yet to. The difference for a seer is sometimes less clear than it is to others."

"Enough of these riddles." I stated cutting in. "I'm presuming you didn't come here to bombard us with portents." Her smile faded a bit, and I sensed that had been her intention at least for a small part.

"No, I am here because; as I stated before, I need your help."

"To free the Hylden?" She paused at the statement.

"Yes." The seer began again. "I know of a way to release them without unleashing their vicious wrath upon Nosgoth, but only you can aid me in this task. In return, I can offer you aid." Raziel and I exchanged glances.

"Go on." My first born began. The rain began to pour down, falling like heavy bolts upon skin and thunder broke the silence.

"Eons ago, when the war between your kind and mine was at it's peak, when it became clear that the awful stalemate was never going to end; both species began devising weapons to deal the death blow to their enemies. The Hylden's creation was the Mass, the deadly creature within the ancient device you destroyed below Meridian, Kain." I remembered that all too well. A spoor like animal, clinging to the cavern ceiling like some giant creeper plant; sucking vital liquids up from a red lake below.

A creature capable of destroying any living thing but with a whim, but as a instinct driven animal had been incapable of malice against the vampires. So the devices itself was created, to channel it's energy forcefully out into Nosgoth. Using the blood of it's designer, I poised the beast and it died swiftly.

"Yes, and that of the vampires?" I asked. She gestured to the nine pillars behind her.

"The very pillars before us of course." The seer replied. "The vampires completed their weapon first and my kind were banished. The rest of the story you know, but what is relative unknown is that the pillars themselves had an overall designer; the first Balance Guardian."

"The first?" I asked looking a little puzzled. "And who was this?"

"His name was Baal." The Hylden simply stated, letting the name hang in the air for a moment. "Of all the vampire Elders he was the most intelligent, powerful and respected. It was he who first devised the concept of the pillars and their magic's. Baal, along with his eight companions became the first guardians. As the first Balance Guardian he was the one to lock my people away in the demon dimension by combining his power with the eight others. He and he alone could open and shut that realm using the pillars."

"Shame he is not here, he would have helped you a great deal." Raziel commented dryly. The seer regained that all knowing smirk.

"Yes it would, but then I don't need him. A descendant would do just as well. As part of his bloodline, they would inherit that same privilege." I could see now her plan. She intended to use the power of the pillar's architect to open the gateway to the demon dimension, guide her people back into Nosgoth and, if she was to be believed, take them somewhere to regain their grip on sanity.

"And just who is this 'descendant'?" I asked, almost reluctant to hear the answer as a foreboding sense of dread began filling me all of a sudden.

"Why Kain you have met the man already." She stated coyly.

"I have?"

"Baal once took a human Seroli student as his lover." The Hylden seer explained. "And she sired him half human and half vampire off spring. Afraid of scandal as cross breeding was forbidden by their religion, Baal had her and her young spirited away to live away from the vampires. They left the Vampire cities in the west and travelled north, along the mountains until they settled in Nosgoth's most north-eastern region. There they remained long after the Hylden's banishment, their bloodline carrying on throughout the ages.

Their line continued and eventually they came to aristocratic wealth; thought empowered by divine right by their blood connection to the ancients. Eventually the scion of that family became their leader, a much beloved…" She paused, looking me straight in the eye with a wide smile. "…boy king."

"William!" I asked out load in alarm. "William the Just was Baal's descendant?" She nodded once at me. Even Raziel looked stunned. She relished in the surprised looks on our faces.

"Do you recall how well he wielded the Reaver when you met him?" She asked. "Swordsmanship that exceeded any possible human skills." I did recall all too well. Moebius manipulations had pushed the two of us into confrontation and he had made sure we were both armed with the Soul Reaver.

The blade met itself in the past and time was left unstable at the paradox, allowing for an alteration of history to occur. That alteration came when I slew the boy king, changing the future so he would never become the tyrant known as the Nemesis but at the same time igniting the war against the vampires Moebius had been wishing for.

"Even if he is, there your plans fail." Raziel stated. "William is dead. He can help no one." The seer feigned an upset look, obviously faking the disappointment.

"Oh yes, he's dead; but then again…" She paused to lean back against the pillar. "Both of you have been at some point, but here you stand."

"What exactly are you suggesting?" I asked impatient for her to get to the point.

"Just what I need you for." She began. "I need you to revive William's corpse and in doing so bestow unto him vampiric un-life. Only then can he open the pillars completely and end my kind's banishment." There was a brief silence, the only thing to break it being the constant patter of the rain and crash of thunder.

"And just why would I do this thing? Forgive the crude phrase, but what's in it for me?" I asked folding my arms. I had no love for William. I had seen him destroy cities and kill thousands, impaling them on spikes. Reviving the Nemesis and giving him vampire strength did not seem to me like a good idea.

"Two rewards." The seer began holding up to fingers. "One, further down your path you will need him to help you personally; and two." Her smirk showed itself again. That insufferable smile that instantly showed that she knew more than I did. It reminded me of Moebius far too much. "If you do this favour for me, I will reveal to you the location of the Leviathan Blood."

"And just what is that?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

"A blood Fountain, created by Anarcrothe the Alchemist." She carried on. "Even before the corruption of the circle, the Alchemist himself dabbled in substances and arcane science beyond his understanding. Fascinated by the condition known as vampirism, he desiccated many corpses of your kind brought to him by hunters. He became convinced that he could harvest the strength of the vampire if he found a way to remove all the weakness such as being burned alive in water.

And he succeeded, partially. Anarcrothe changed one of the Blood Fountains and to the vampire that drinks from it, a great advantage comes."

"What does it do?" Raziel asked sounding intrigued. The Hylden seer pushed herself off the pillar and stood before us, her drenched from the air a her simple clothe drippings soaked. Her nipples stood out through the fabric and I caught Raziel casting them a stare. When he noticed my attention he looked away pretending that something else had caught his eye.

"I does only one thing." The seer began raising a finger. "The vampire that drinks from it if Anarcrothe got it right; is remove from that vampire his frailty to water's touch completely." I stood there, looking at her with wide eyes. "Yes Kain, once consuming Leviathan blood you can swim to that Hylden city and unlock that canister." Once more that smirk reappeared. "But you will only find that Fountain if you do as I say."