Chapter 39: Kain
It was more than exhilarating, the feel of water against my skin. It was intoxicated, almost rivalling the frenzy the blood lust could install upon one of my kind. I could not resist taking each and every opportunity I could to dive in through whatever lakes were left. The cool feeling was both familiar and disturbing alien.
The feel brought back memories I thought I had lost forever. Memories of when I was still human and able to come into direct contact with water without burning. I remembered I detested washing, regarding it as a common practise hardly befitting a noble of my stature. I learned later I should have relished the experience while I could.
Now I found no juvenile revolution in water's touch. Now, it was the most precious thing in the world to have.
I took the unique opportunity to wash. I had, after all, gone for over a thousand years without so much as a rinse. My hair was dirty and I had no doubt I may even smell. Swimming was not something I had ever learned to do well so I stayed in the swallows of the lake, the waves gently lapping around my waist. Shaking the water clear from my hair I glanced down at my reflection in the water's surface.
A curios impulse suddenly gripped me and reaching down; I cupped the water in my hands and raised it to my lips. I sipped it slowly and let it swirl around in my mouth. It felt as if I was sampling some rare wine and I relished it, before letting it slid down the back of my throat.
I found it surprising I had forgotten what the taste of water was like. It was wholly different to the copper and salty taste of blood and it sat uneasy in a stomach that was unused to it. It would do me little good as my body required blood rather that water. But still, it had been my first drink other than blood since I had been turned over a millennium ago.
For a while, I simply floated on the water's surface and let it carry me back to shore where I had left my clan banner and gauntlets. I kept expecting to wake up to find this all a delusion of a warped mind.
Raziel, or rather his projected form, was sitting on the pebbles waiting for me.
"If you feel satisfied, we do have business elsewhere." He stated as I came to a stop against the stones. "As you yourself have said." I forged a frown, reminded of why I had sought out the Leviathan blood in the first place. I sat up and shook the last few drops of water off me.
"Yes of course." I replied standing up. It was an unusual experience, being wet and it took a little getting used to. Still my clothed required drying so I evoked a fireball spell and let it quietly burn around me. Within moments they were usable and I slipped my clan banner back over my shoulder.
Even from the shore, I could see the unique outline of Malek's Bastion in the distance. Perched on perilous mountain top, the fortress had been the unassailable home of Malek the paladin. Here he whiled away his existence with his soul bound to the armour he used in life as his punishment for failing the circle.
Dissolving into bats, I let them carry me across the distance. Sliding over the canopy's of dead or dying forests until finally I came to the foothills of the mountain itself. The battlements of the bastion stronghold towered an incredible distance above. This place, so devoid of life, offered nothing but pain and starvation for a vampire. But it was here none the less that Vorador and his sect of the Cabal had retreated after his mansion had been attacked by the Sarafan.
I saw now a brief glimpse into Vorador's mind and saw his rationality. The ancient vampire was able to elude his enemies by choosing hiding holes in the last places one might expect to find him, in places hostile to his kind.
His residence in the swamp offered him acidic pain, while his Cabal headquarters in Meridian had been in constant danger of being discovered by the Sarafan. Finally, this vacant stronghold was perched upon the very roof of Nosgoth and I knew from experience was not a place a vampire would feel comfortable in.
My bats reformed on the battlements and not surprisingly I found the courtyards empty. The sun was about to rise and the fledglings under Vorador's command were sheltering inside. From here, I could see the front lines the Sarafan order had erected in front of the bottleneck canyon leading towards Dark Eden. Vorador apparently had not just chosen this location for its unlikelihood of protection.
Kicking the main door open I proceeded inside. The stone corridors were lit with torchlight and the signs of recent habitation were everywhere. The smell of both vampires and humans were everyone, but not a single ounce of fear. Whatever humans were here operated in cooperation with the Cabal completely under their own free will.
"Come Kain, I am waiting for you." I heard Vorador's voice announce to me through the Whisper. I sensed he lay in one of the upper rooms and rather than wasting my time searching for him, I sought out his presence and used a translocation spell to come to him.
Sliding away from my first location, I seemed to arrive almost instantaneously inside a small dry stone room. It had a simple table and chair acting as a desk with a tall candle stick burning in a brass holder for light. A collection of books and scrolls were staked up against it. Vorador himself sat at the seat, his eyes already upon me as I emerged out of the spell.
"I have come for what I left with you." I stated simply, burning with far too much anticipation to get into in depth conversation. Vorador simply smiled grimly and pulled against some of the papers on his desk, revealing the brass canister I had left with him for safe keeping. Through the glass window I could see the pure white liquid that was the Hylden's vampire cure.
"Unless you have found a way of entering water without burning this will still be quite useless to you." He remarked callously picking it up in one hand to admire it, before I snatched it away from him.
"What makes you assume I have not?" I asked giving him a short smile. Vorador's own grin faded a little.
"Events are moving beyond my control now." He began, apparently disinterested with whatever I had accomplished while out of his sight. My smile widened as he spoke, wondering if he maintain such an attitude if he knew what benefit I had recently claimed. "The Order is making moves to start their attack. Their siege weapons are almost complete and their forces are becoming more mobilized." While he spoke I realized something.
"That's your task isn't it?" I asked. "You've been given the burden of preventing the destruction of the clans."
"YOUR clans." He added with an angry hint in his eyes. "It would be most helpful if you took some responsibility for them."
"I already am." I guestured off towards the north, implying that technically I had never left them. My past self was still commanding the clans even as we spoke. Vorador apparently did not share my good humour, which I suspect had been due to me newly acclaimed advantage.
"It is not 'just' my task." He continued. "Janos was burdened with it as well, but I fear even our combined efforts are not enough."
"Just where is Janos?" I asked ignoring his words. I could sense the old vampire within the Bastion and the masking presence of so many vampires and humans would do little to conceal him.
"He has taken this last opportunity to scout the Sarafan army to observe them before the battle." Vorador replied leaning back in his chair. "He left just before you arrived." He blinked remembering something. "Also, I have made progress in discovering the origin of the Order's new sunlight magic's." He offered me a piece of paper on the desk. Upon it were arcane runes and nosgothic blood script. They were instructions for various spells and the like and they made little sense to me. "This is an expert from a book I found here in the Bastion." He went on to explain. "This is a mages Arcanum for various spells involving soul magic. Given what Malek had become, I found it rather odd he would choose to have such reading material within his last stronghold.
It states that armour, properly enchanted, can absorb a soul and use its power for various magic traits."
"You believe this to be the method which they use to create that armour?" The sunlight knights that the Order had recently used to decimate the clans and other vampire groups could wield sunlight almost like a weapon. I discovered during my duel with their new leader Sabre, that they did this by use of enchanted armour.
"Perhaps in the same way that Malek's soul was bound to his armour, they may be binding other souls to armour to give them their deadly qualities." The expression across his face was that of uneasy frustration. "However I am not sure how they do this, or how to get around it. The light that armour generates can burn even evolved vampires to ashes." Someone cleared their throat and instantly a very familiar presence made itself known to me.
Turning slowly, I looked back to see Umah standing in the doorway that lead to the outside corridor. I shuddered involuntarily at the sight of her standing there in her shoulder armour, stockings and long gloves. Her appearance was so much like her from the days she had re-trained me in the depths of Meridian that for a brief moment at least I was unable to move.
She looked me directly in the eyes. That was the moment I relived that terrible decision I made to strike her across the throat, spilling what I thought had been her last few drops of life out across the ground.
The look on her face, the pleading glare in her eyes; those had been engrained upon my memories by the fires of hell. That one event finally made me question my reasons for conquest and slowly but surely, as my empire rose and then decayed, I realized I had been wrong. Without a word I placed the canister down on the desk.
"Sire, may I be permitted to speak to Kain alone?" She asked without taking her eyes off me. Vorador glanced from Umah, to me and back again.
"You needn't ask child." He said rising from his chair and striding past her towards the door. It was more than evident from the smile on his face that he was going to ease drop in some fashion. He closed the door behind him and left the two of us alone.
Silence endured. I certainly was not going to start this conversation.
"So Kain, am I permitted to exist now?" She asked suddenly adopting a short grin. I forged a frown in response. "After all, I stand here before you; now perhaps we can exchange words."
"And which would you like?" I asked almost contemptuously, narrowing an eye at her. "An apology perhaps?"
"Don't be patronizing." She snapped angrily, then without warning stepped forward to violate my personal space. She reached up and gently traced the outline of my chin with the back of her hand, moving softly down until she reached my lips. "I can sense the change not just in you but in all of Nosgoth." Her tone was ominous. "Now is the time for new beginnings, where old prejudices and angers can be left behind for us all to begin anew." She leaned closer to a point she as was almost directly up against me, her eyes staring heavily into mine. "I am prepared to forgive you Kain. Why are you not prepared to forgive me?"
"Is that what you think?" I asked pushing her back a little. "That I still hold you in contempt for taking the Nexus stone from me?" She looked a little confused. Clearly those had been her thoughts. "Oh Umah, it is not you I blame." I told her putting my hands on her shoulders. "I find it much easier to forgive others than it is to forgive oneself." Her eyes refused to turn away. "This path I take, it is not to further my abandoned ambitions or even for my own vanity. I do this so that I might be given some forgiveness and attain redemption."
"In whose eyes?" She asked trying to regain some composure.
"My own." She slumped her shoulders at my words and sighed.
"I want to…" I heard her eventually mutter. "But neither of us can return to how it was before we betrayed both each other and ourselves. But do we have to meet with scorn for a mistake we both made?"
"You didn't make the mistake Umah." I told her softly. "You were right not to trust me. That was a sane decision that now I applaud. I am the one in the wrong."
"If I had taken the Nexus Stone from you then it would never have happened." She added weakly.
"And what then?" I asked her. "You were right. I would have destroyed the Cabal to solidify my own hold on Nosgoth and wouldn't have given it any second thought." Without even thinking about it I gently put my hand against her cheek. "I want to thank you."
"For what?"
"For betraying me." Her face adopted a very confused expression. "If you hadn't, I might never have questioned my pointless pursuit of power." Umah put her hand against mine and held it close to her.
"So, does this mean you have discovered what 'faith' means?" She asked.
"I suspect faith can mean many things." I replied, but then gently lifting my hand away. "But I suspect I have not yet been permitted to even use the word never mind understand its ultimate meaning." Umah looked disappointed.
"And since when have you allowed anyone to simply 'permit' you something?" She asked. "Whose blessing and forgiveness are you hoping to gain?"
"First and foremost, my own." I looked away towards the window just beyond Vorador's desk. The northern mountains formed a silhouette on the horizon. "And then perhaps that of Nosgoth itself."
Rudely and without warning, Vorador thrust the door open nearly hitting me in the back with it.
"Believe me I hate to interrupt." He began and I saw Umah grimace slightly. "But Janos has just returned and his news is dire." He didn't need to continue. Through the window I watched as a steady tide of men began to march from the Sarafan front lines, formed into disciplined ranks, they slowly made their way towards the canyon entrance to Dark Eden.
"The battle has begun." I stated. "Then I must waste no time. I will open this canister and release the cure to our brethren before they can be slaughtered."
"I doubt, even if you accomplish your task, you will be that fast." Vorador stated. I was forced to admit he was right. The ancient Hylden city lay just west of Steinchencröe, which itself was a considerable distance away. Even travelling using my bat form I would never make it there before the conclusion of the battle.
I was left with only one option.
"That being the case…" I began, slowly drawing the Soul Reaver, letting the blade hiss and I raised it up. "I believe that I am required to shed some blood."
"As am I." Umah added.