Once and Future King

Legacy of Kain: Once and Future King

(A continuation fan-fiction for Legacy of Kain: Defiance)

/../- implies vampiric ‘whisper’ a.k.a. telepathy/mental projection.

The Soul Reaver isn’t capable of speech as such, but I gave it dialog anyway to show that Kain can interpret its wordless snark without difficulty? I have no idea. Just go with it.

The End: Chapter 8-

There was something uncanny in the way the fog crept across the lowlands. Its slowly curling tendrils seemed almost hungry as they spilled through the river valleys and over the surface of the distant lake country. The whole of Nosgoth was gradually turning into a series of hill-top islands in a sea of churning grey. Kain pursed his lips as he watched the mist draw closer, seeming to close in on their sanctuary on all sides. At the same time as the ground was swallowed, the sky grew darker, a heavy cloudbank filling in overhead. The little left of the world he knew was akin to a wash of ink on a white canvas. The illusion of solid forest and rocky peaks protruded from the soft haze all around, leaving him to wonder what would happen when those too faded from view.

The feeling was uniquely claustrophobic, Kain found as he studied the phenomenon. Well above ground, and yet still miles before the lowering sky, he felt compressed, thwarted by the nothingness hemming him in both above and below.

Some silent impulse had goaded him to return to where he had begun. The ruined council-hall of the ancients was no different from how he had left it mere days before. Only he was altered by the recent turmoil, battered and confused and still no more certain of his course than he had been before. He looked around at the delicately carved thrones and mural bedecked walls, reminding himself of their reality.

Young Kain had settled himself on one of the massive chairs upon their arrival. In theory the youth was regaining his disquieted composure after surviving the rather unique experience of being borne aloft by Raziel’s uncanny wings. Agreeable the boy might be now, but neither he nor his lieutenant had been comfortable with the idea of the fledgling following them to the tower under his own power. The chance of losing him again, after all the trouble they had just gone through on his account was simply too great.

Truly the pale vampire looked exhausted. Naturally thin faced, he didn’t have the stamina yet to put up with their recent ordeals without something of the stress showing in his countenance. Dark rings under his eyes hinted that the child would do well with a meal and a rest before they tackled their next Herculean endeavor. Had he time or energy to be compassionate, the fledgling’s resigned expression might have solicited him to at least make an effort for the youth. Sadly there was little hospitality to offer in their current aerie, and nowhere in particular that he felt was safe to transfer to, even if they wanted to.

To his credit, the handsome fledgling wasn’t complaining. Instead he seemed content to just watch him in return, holding his own council for once as he watched events unfold. The boy had scarcely said two words since their escape from the pit, and the old monster it contained. Kain wondered what his younger-self was thinking.

“And in the softly tripping gasps of my lord’s weakening breaths… I recognize too my own final passing. Come on to me o’ harbinger of death. Though my knees quake with terror I will not deny thee. For life is ‘ere shadow and fog, and all is ending…” Raziel recited softly under his breath, voice strangely resonant in the dead air.

Kain smiled humorlessly at the old soliloquy, remembering it well. Not one of his favorite poets perhaps, but his child deserved due credit for recalling such an apt verse for their current situation. Strange how readily the remainder of the speech came to tongue when it had been years beyond counting since he’d given it any thought. He neither could recollect the name of the author, nor even the age of the verse’s composition, but the words remained nestled in his subconscious.

“Not for us now the crashing of arms, the trumpeting of furious battle. But instead the slow and crippling rush of time. Our voices once raised in grand and glorious host, now naught but ghostly whispers. Until at last in guilty hush, even those fade to silence.” He quoted back at his favorite, turning to eye the dark haired vampire with grim amusement.

Raziel tilted his head in a wordless salute, acknowledging his recitation. His eldest had always been fond of the more morose poets, Kain suddenly recalled. Probably the author had been one of his child’s clansmen. It wouldn’t have surprised him.

The dark haired vampire rolled his shoulders and shuffled his feathered appendages as he shifted his weight. He was sitting on the throne at the center of the curved arrangement, the Seat of Balance, as it were, although not as the maker of the carved chair had probably intended. Balanced on one foot atop the overly tall backed stone throne, Raziel had one leg stretched negligently down the front of the furnishing, while sitting on the heel of the other folded beneath him. His toe-claws bit into the weathered ornamentation as he held himself on his unlikely perch. With wings to counter balance, he seemed quite comfortable with his place, and to his credit didn’t look half as silly as Kain might have, should he have attempted a similar pose. If anything, it reminded him yet again of his lieutenant’s raptor like nature. Raziel had always had a penchant for seeking out high places.

His alter-ego’s mood might waiver between exhausted and curious, but Raziel silently burned. Done with shouting, his lieutenant seemed content to await his next revelation, or blunder, or both. He fidgeted however, unable to help himself. Kain almost smiled at the characteristic passion the vampire fought to contain. Given the command to fly, he had no doubt that his lieutenant would be in motion without so much as a drawn breath of delay. Just watching him made Kain itch to do something, to act on impulse and to hell with the consequence.

He folded his arms across his chest, ignoring the mystery unfolding over Nosgoth for a moment in order to pace a short circuit back and forth in front of the gathering of thrones. They were safe for now. And while things might seem grim, were grim, he was not entirely without the ability to consider the situation rationally. If only he could think! The world was entirely mute beyond the edge of their chamber, magnifying every little sound he could hear, and making them all the more distracting.

He found himself idly wishing his younger-self would kindly stop breathing so loudly that he could better organize his thoughts and ruthlessly checked himself before uttering the critique aloud. That way lay madness. Kain forced himself to settle, choosing a chair at the edge of the grouping and deliberately sitting in it.

A soft clatter of armor against stonework drew his eyes to his fledgling once again. The boy had made his own conclusions in regards to their next course of action, and had opted to take the opportunity to shed some of his burdensome gear. Kain morosely cast off yet another bit of the battered black armor, adding it to a growing pile of random plates next to his seat. Greaves, gauntlets, hauberk, guards and gendarmes were dispatched with. The vampire didn’t stop until he was down to his padded jacket and leathers. The dirt caked coat was soon unlaced as well. His fledgling inspected it with a tired sigh before prosaically turning it inside out and scrubbing his face with the marginally cleaner inner lining.

It was discomfiting to note how the loss of the armored layers seemed to strip ten years and a hundred pounds off of the already frail looking youth. Kain was struck yet again at how much of a puppy the vampire he was dealing with really was. It was a wonder the vampire grasped anything at all of their current situation. It had to all be fantastically bizarre from the boy’s perspective.

And yet the youth had survived thus far. Would survive far longer still. This was the Kain of prophesy, the one destined to restore the world to balance and rightness for once and for all. Someday this new Kain would evolve to look much as Raziel did now. Kain tried to imagine a more ‘vampiric’ winged version of himself, but couldn’t manage better than a hazy guess. His thoughts drifted back to the murals buried deep in the basement of the Citadel beneath them. The ancient vampires hadn’t had it so wrong after all, when they’d predicted their messiah. Better late than never?

His alter ego felt his examination and looked up, matching his gaze with an expression of resignation.

“Supposing I suggest to you that we set aside the small matter of which of us lives or dies for the moment?”

Kain snorted in agreement. “I am amenable to that. Your assistance in freeing me, below, was kindly done, Kain.”

“Don’t mistake self-interestedness for altruism.” The youth waved aside his praise with a candid look. “What the hell was that thing?”

“Behold your oracle, child. Or at least, that’s what the ancients called it.” Kain let his head fall back against the cool surface of his throne, “Now ask me what it really is, and I will be compelled to admit that I know little more than you do on the subject.”

Tilting his head to take in his younger-self’s disgusted expression he then turned to where Raziel artfully crouched. Still cozy atop Balance’s elaborate throne, the winged vampire met his look with a raised eyebrow. Kain couldn’t help but find the familiar look endearing, despite himself. “I don’t suppose you can enlighten us?”

“Call it what you like.” Raziel smiled bitterly. “Elder God, Wheel of Fate, Eater of Death… it has many names, each more grandiose than the last.”

Shaking out his wings, he looked out at the fading horizon with a brooding frown. “As to what it is? It is a parasite. For all its claims and pretty speeches, it is not the source of life for this world. As far as I’ve seen, it creates nothing. Provides no particular service. It benefits no one, save for itself. It simply consumes, forever eating and growing…”

“To what end?” The fledgling voiced the question that Kain was thinking. Folding his legs together, and tucking them underneath him in an enviable display of flexibility, the youth sought a more comfortable repose against the back of his oversized chair. “What does the fiend hope to achieve?”

“I cannot speak of more than vague suspicion.” Raziel shook his head.

Kain felt a pang of disappointment in the silent confession. Not even his prodigal son knew the answer to that mystery. A pity. He’d been hoping the boy had been privy to the fiend’s secrets. In the end, did it matter what the beast’s intention was, so long as it was thwarted? But then, how was he to know what he was thwarting, if he didn’t know what the monster sought to achieve? Certainly, it wanted him dead, that much was clear. Or if not dead, then otherwise crippled. It didn’t want him and his Reaver acting in accord. A point in Raziel’s favor it seemed. Regaining his ability to speak and act at will, had definitely seemed to throw the false-god off its stride.

“I suspect that in the end, consumption of all set before it may be its primary and only function.” Raziel offered. “For it seems to delight in setting the natural order in disarray in a manner best guaranteed to create ample fodder for its appetite.”

Young Kain made a sour face. “If that’s truly the horror’s ambition, it seems to have succeeded.” The youth balled up his padded shirt between his restless hands, considering their situation. “All we’ve done is provide a few minutes worth of indigestion before the main course.”

“This is very likely.” Raziel sighed in agreement.

“I’m not yet inclined to give up.” Kain mused aloud. “Between the three of us here, there may still be a way out of this morass.”

His lieutenant gave him a morbidly curious look. The boy across from him favored him with outright disbelief. Kain gestured to the room at large, “Consider, both of you. This is not the first time that I’ve had the luxury of witnessing the end of the world. I’ve seen Nosgoth tumble to parched dust, be washed by floods, scorched by apocryphal fire, sink into dank misery by Hylden rule… each time there has been a chance, a moment of uncertainty, a way out.” He folded his hands together as he spoke his thoughts of the past several minutes, the idea crystallizing for him even as he gave it voice. “The face that I am standing once again on the edge of the abyss is not what interests me in these events…”

“What then, old one, do you find so interesting in our present situation?” His younger self asked cynically, tossing his make-shift towel across the space between them.

Kain caught the rag, surprised at the simple courtesy. He took a moment to wipe his face and arms free of the worst of the grit he had picked up in their recent battle before passing it along to his lieutenant. “What interests me, Kain, is that this time, it isn’t my , well, our fault. I didn’t do this.” He gestured to the fog enshrouded countryside. “I didn’t see this ending coming.”

“What difference does that make?” The pale youth blinked at him, non-pulsed. “Do you suppose yourself omniscient?”

Raziel simply frowned, elegant eyebrows furrowing as he considered the concept. Unlike the fledgling, his long-time lieutenant had a certain affinity for the interconnectedness of the various timelines they’d explored. Seeing that the vampire grasped at least something of what he was thinking, Kain addressed his favorite directly. “Consider, Raziel. Every apocalypse Nosgoth has faced has been the result of one, or the other of us failing into a trap of the beast’s making.”

“Whether you, or I, or both of us fail doesn’t matter, the ending is always the same. The world inevitably fails with us, one way or another.”

“Had you opted for death as a youth…” Raziel inferred thoughtfully. “The Pillars would have failed, the Hyden freed, and I would have been left behind to be claimed as ‘Blight’… but… surely they’d have used me to kill the Elder God before damning the world to oblivion.”

“No doubt our many-eyed adversary had a host of plans ready for Moebius and his pet humans to overthrow the demons before they could do the slightest harm.” Kain supplied. “Likewise, if as a youth, I could be convinced to destroy or abandon the Reaver…”

“As you did in this Raziel’s future?” His lieutenant asked archly.

He overlooked the goad in favor of continuing his narrative, “If I stupidly forsook the Soul Reaver due to the false-god’s meddling, I’d have been a fine partridge for plucking at any point along the way. No amount of knowledge, or arcane power, would save a Scion who was not armed with the only means of the beast’s undoing. I would have simply been its tool, first scouring the land of Saraphan, and then in turn, being defeated by its minions.” Kain shook his head. “The world might last longer, and be a mite prettier, but it would still end just the same.”

“Where as in our future, you neither chose death, nor set me aside, but instead cleaved to life and Reaver both. Neither of us wholesome or balanced alone, but neither of us precisely ‘failed’ either?” Raziel easily followed his reasoning, wings fanning wide as he considered the implications. “We hung in a limbo of our own making. Uniquely balanced in our imbalance for a millennia… until you killed me, of course.”

“It was either you or I.” Kain pointed out gently. “Did you think that your evolution would have stopped where it had, child, if I hadn’t abbreviated your existence? You saw what became of Turel, did you not?”

“Yes.” The dark haired vampire tilted his head, studying him with cool intensity. “You foresaw what I’d become? My final form?”

Kain smirked at the memory of what the time stream had shown him, and at Raziel’s evident interest. Strange that the man had never considered it before? His lieutenant still had a few blind spots after all. “Our future was crawling towards an inevitable war between you and I. One from which neither we, nor Nosgoth would emerge.” He shrugged. “Rather than wait for that purposeless finale, I chose to tip the balance deliberately, of my own will, in my own way.”

“To best serve your own ends, you blithely cast me down to a fate worse than death.” Raziel stated with patently false disinterestedness. The Soul Reaver flared in his grip with his repressed outrage. “I thank you kindly for that, Kain. Do not imagine that I forget it.”

“I’d be very much surprised if you had.” Kain sighed, not interested in a fruitless argument about the past. “It was not done blithely, but deliberately? Yes. I stand as I am accused. It was by no random chance you were killed.”

“I cast you into the unknown, Raziel.” He met his lieutenant’s uncanny stare without flinching, seeing no reason to prevaricate. “Somehow it seemed to me, after all my researches, that you could do what I could not. I as Balance could not escape my fate, I was tethered to the Wheel’s cycle just as surely as the humblest serf. Even my death was part and parcel of Moebius’ plans. But you, child, you were a mystery. Your brothers, I could trace their destinies from beginning to end. Their origins, their human lives, their resurrection and even eventual defeats, all of it was an open book to me, thanks to the time streaming chamber’s magic. But you were a different story. You who’s origin and ending were one and the same. Where was the sense in that? It was then I realized the secret of what you were. A paradox. You couldn’t exist. You shouldn’t exist. And so I unmade you, to see what might happen.”

Opening his hands in a gesture of wonder, he looked thoughtful up at his confounded lieutenant. “And just so… I discovered another secret. As you were never provably alive, death could hold no dominion over you.”

Kain watched the dark haired vampire closely, wondering what Raziel made of it all. His favorite’s mouth was pressed into thin line, biting back any outward expression of his thoughts. The vampire’s body all but vibrated with the intensity of his displeasure however. Realizing that he’d never likely get a better chance to ask, Kain felt more than capable of braving one of his lieutenant’s outburst in soliciting an answer to a question that had been puzzling him for the better part of a thousand years or more. “Where did you come from, Raziel? Do you remember?”

“Come from?” The winged vampire looked at him as if he’d gone mad. His mood shifted as he took on the new and unexpected inquiry. “What do you mean?”

“Who were you before you joined Moebius’ service? Where were you born? What was your lineage?” Kain clarified, honestly curious. “No vampire remembers their life before… But you who have died and lived again, ought to be able to…”

Raziel frowned, perplexed, considering the question. “I don’t know.” He spoke at last. “I cannot even recollect for myself being Moebius’ lapdog, Kain, which I well imagine I must have been, after encountering my past-self.”

Flipping his wings in a gesture of unconscious anxiety he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. “My first memory is as it always was, my resurrection. My last will undoubtedly be my re-investiture into the sword.” He held the blade up, considering its serpentine length. “Perhaps I came from nowhere.”

“It is a very real possibility.” Kain mused softly. “Perhaps your very existence was brought about by one of Moebius’ little intrigues.”

“What. You’re saying that he transformed me from sword to man just so that he could try and persuade me to undertake his cause instead of yours?” Raziel blinked and stared at him again, grimacing in disbelief. “That’s a distinctly twisted notion, even for you, Kain.”

“Is it?” He shrugged. “What better way to subvert a supposedly incorruptible force? To offer freedom of choice was to make you vulnerable to manipulation at the moment of your choosing. What better way to lessen your power?”

“That’s macabre.” Raziel shook his head. “That’s too far fetched.”

A snort of laughter distracted them from their dialog. Kain turned to note his younger-self was watching their argument with tired amusement. “The pair of you really do squabble like old hens, you know.” The handsome fledgling pointed out.

“You’ll do no better when your time comes.” Raziel counseled morosely.

“Probably not.” The fledgling agreed. “But for what it’s worth, I’m with Kain in this. I don’t claim to have the intimacy with the time-streamer that you both seem to feel, but from what little I gleaned from him, a crack-brained scheme for turning a sword into a man seems just the sort of thing that would inspire him.”

“Kain has a point.” Kain drawled idly. “You have to admit, Moebius and twisted plotting go hand in hand.”

Raziel threw his head back and laughed, not exactly a happy sound. “God you’re right. He never did anything by halves.”

“Thought he was mad as a magpie, myself.” The youth added darkly. “All that time-bending, it can’t be good for a person’s wits.”

Exchanging a long look, Kain refused to be baited by his lieutenant’s ironic expression. He had been mad before undertaking his prolonged walks through history via Mobieus’ machine, it was doubtful the device had done him any further harm. Raziel simply shrugged at his silent rebuttal, smiling to himself as he let the comment go un-remarked upon.

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“Can I ask you a question?” The young Kain stared at Raziel thoughtfully, breaking a companionable silence of several minutes.

“You may.” Raziel acknowledged the handsome vampire, turning on his perch to better study the youth.

Kain looked up, distracted from a return to his unpleasant reverie by the cordial exchange. Stripped of his armor and much of his pride, at least for the moment, his former-self rested his elbows on his knees as he waited with them for the end of the world. Sitting in the overly ornate throne of the old empire, Kain looked as though he belonged in the ancient citadel, more-so perhaps than either himself or Raziel did. Contemplation was a good look on the youth. A pity the boy didn’t undertake the exercise more often. Then again, woolgathering was an old man’s pursuit, so it was hardly surprising that the boy didn’t have the knack for it quite yet.

“You truly are the Soul Reaver made flesh?” The fledgling gazed up at Raziel, not bothering to hide his fascinations with the vampire’s wings.

“I am.” The dark haired vampire agreed calmly.

“And this one, he is truly Kain, but from a different future than yours?”

“It’s a trifle more complicated than that.” Raziel shrugged, feathers shifting with the movement. “But for the sake of brevity, let us say that he and I… have a history.”

The youth raised an eyebrow at the cryptic reply but didn’t argue it. Kain was grudgingly impressed to see the sudden increase in maturity. Could it be that the boy simply needed to hear it from someone deemed ‘impartial’? What an utter farce. That in the end, it would be Raziel who would talk some sense into the boy where he could not? Too fascinated by the dynamic between the two, he held his tongue and let the Reaver possessed vampire work his magic.

“Before, you were inclined to murder me. But then you saved my life from that… thing. Now you are all gentility, why the change?”

Raziel had to pause at that, clearly needing to run through the events leading up to his awakening with his own alter-ego. The winged vampire stared through the arched windows at the rolling clouds surrounding the tower as he held silent council with himself, smiling faintly at what had to be an interesting explanation from the vampire he had been that morning. Kain sorely wished he could be a fly on the wall of that dialog, but as both sides of the discussion were held inside his ally’s thick skull, he was obliged to be content with reading his looks.

Raziel shook his head, grimly amused with his earlier antics. “It seems I must beg your pardon for that, Kain. Sins of the father should never be borne by the sons. Although in your case, it would be better to be said that you cannot be held accountable for your own future choices. When I nettled you at the shrine, I was more than a little convinced that you were inevitably to become a man I was not proud to know.”

“And now you think that there is some hope for me after all?” Young Kain’s face twisted briefly with annoyance. “I’m much obliged to you.”

“Who’s to say what it is that made you the way you were in the future? Who’s to say what it will take to ensure you do not repeat those mistakes? Or contrive to make different ones, and end up like that surly bastard over there.” Raziel gestured to where Kain stood.

He stared at his past self a moment and then looked askance at his lieutenant. Wondering whose side Raziel was on now. As impossibly contrary as his child could be? It was hard to say. The light was fading fast from the sky. Clouds gathering in dense grey rollers, as they blotted out any hint of sunlight.

“The beast. Back at the shrine. In the lake.” Young Kain began again, slowly working through the revelations of the day. “It… Is it a god?”

His lieutenant fanned his massive wings, still entertained by their span, from the look of it. “I am inclined to believe it is an impostor. But then, not being god does not in any way mitigate the fact that it is powerful. It exists outside of our understanding of space and time. It may be that we have no hope of ever out maneuvering it. In that sense, yes, it could be said to be god-like.”

“And the Hylden?” The fledgling asked, curious. “Where do they fit into all of this…? Do they serve this pretender-god?”

“I should think not.” Kain chuckled darkly. “Nothing so simple, child. The Hylden have their own agenda, which is not entirely opposed to ours, in regards to the beast. Sadly, in all other ways their ambitions are antithetical to our cause and so they cannot be allowed to act unconstrained.”

“The enemy of my enemy is still not my friend.” The youth parodied the cliché cynically. “How inconvenient.”

“Truly.” Kain shrugged in agreement.

The wind picked up, ghosting through the old tower with a mournful lowing, bringing with it the misty scent of decay and damp. All eyes turned towards the broken balcony as they assessed the new development, but there was nothing much to see. Their view was shrinking steadily, the world contracting around their hiding place. The Pillars, or rather what was left of them, were slowly but surely engulfed, disappearing without a trace into the silent wall of shadow swallowing the land. It was beautiful in is way, but confusing as well.

Surely if the Pillars were the heart of the world, they would be the last to be absorbed? Looking at Raziel out of the corner of his eye, Kain couldn’t help but feel, as much as see, the invisible radiation of power off of the vampire, off of the sword bound to him. The Soul Reaver shivered and burned in the muted light of the chamber. The unbelievably powerful paradox inherent in the sword maintaining their tiny corner of reality while all around them the world crumbled and fell?

He wondered whether it was a good thing that the sword sustained them, or not. Were they preserving the last hope for the world? Or were they simply the wrench in the gears as the universe sought to reset and repair the damage he and Moebius had wrought?

“We can’t just stand here and do nothing.” His fledgling-self voiced the obvious. “Surely one of you two has some plan by now?”

“I was supposed to be dead by now.” Kain snorted.

Raziel gave him a dark look. “And I’m supposed to be a sword. What do you propose?” He gestured expansively. “Perhaps you’ll rip my throat out, then walk into the fog and hope reality takes the hint and leaves the boy alone to finish the job for us?”

“Something like that.” He grimaced; not liking the blunt way Raziel had interpreted his half-formulated-plan. “But it would be cleaner, and more to the point if we turned it the other way. The Reaver’s edge would provide more certainty to me than the fog might. Better that I die explicitly then it to be left ill-defined. Once I am gone it would be a simple thing for you to absorb your future-self, would it not?”

“And what of Janos’s heart?” The dark haired vampire looked askance at him. “Or had you forgotten?”

The youth stared back and forth between them, confused. “Janos Audron? What has his heart to do with anything?”

“It’s yours.” Kain replied absently, matching Raziel’s glare with one of his own. “And no, I hadn’t forgotten. But surely if the ancient was caught in this.” He gestured at the mist. “That particular paradox is no more. Reality will adjust in such a way to ensure that only one heart remains.”

“Insufferable.” Raziel sighed.

“I have the Heart of Darkness?” Young Kain stood up, hand pressed to his chest as he looked down at himself in consternation. Turning to stare at Kain, the fledgling asked again. “We had the Heart all along? Those Saraphan fools turned the whole of Nosgoth upside down looking for it for two centuries, and it was in us the whole time?”

“Well, in you in at any rate.” Kain raked his claws through his hair, forcing it into a vaguely tidy mass. Somewhere in his final skirmish with the Elder God the leather tie holding it back from his face had been lost, leaving it loose in the eddying breezes. Not for the first time since starting his cat-and-mouse game through time with Raziel, he wondered why he hadn’t cut it in the past few centuries of waiting. It hadn’t seemed to matter at the time, he supposed. But now the long strands were a terrible nuisance. “I’ve been doing without for a few days now.”

The youth gave him a perplexed look but was smart enough to not pry further. Kain looked him over and found himself not entirely without hope. The boy was clear of corruption, and awakened to the Oracle’s meddling, surely it was enough. What more could one heartless-old-vampire do? The only cure for youthful idiocy was time. He could hardly go holding the boy’s hand for the next hundred years. Kain would have to make his own way in the world.

If Raziel would consent to return to his living prison in the sword, everything might yet resolve itself quite tidily. He felt the vampire’s eyes on him, certain that his lieutenant could guess his thoughts. Raziel didn’t seem well pleased. His lips twitched downwards as he read his look. “Martyrdom doesn’t become you, old man.”

“I thank you for your vote of confidence.” Kain drawled. “It’s either him or me. I believe we are all of us agreed? It needs to be me that goes.”

“By all means, since you’re volunteering.” His fledgling agreed candidly, “The sooner the better, from the look of things.”

“This feels…” Raziel shook his head. “I do not like being forced, Kain! First the false god, then Moebius, now you!” He beat his wings against the air in frustration. “What is it about your death in that always seems so horribly contrived? We’re playing into their hands all over again. I can feel it in my bones. I will not allow it. Not after we’ve come so far.”

“There is no they any more, child.” Kain pointed out as the encroaching fog now lapping the base of the citadel. “There is no more Nosgoth, not for us. We stand on the brink of being cast out of the time-stream all together. Now is not the time to debate! Now is the time to act!”

“And yet I am still free.” Raziel studied the Reaver bound to his hand with spectral fire, face grim. “The choice is still mine. I will be no man’s slave. If I am to mortgage my soul for the rest of eternity for you, I’ll do it on my terms.”

“Raziel!” Kain protested as the dark haired vampire vaulted from his perch to land between him and the youth. Seeing the vampire raise his sword to strike, he left off his scolding and let his hands fall to his sides.

“Any last words?” Raziel cocked his head to the side, studying his face intently. “Anything at all?”

For a brief but silently humorous moment, Kain wondered what Raziel expected him to say. An apology? A declaration of some sort? Both were equally useless now. He simply shrugged, waving the vampire forward to complete what he had begun back at the underground shrine. Raziel sighed in annoyance at his silence. His alter-ego watched stone faced. God only knew what the fledgling would do in a century or two when he stumbled onto Raziel’s grave. The warning he might have given the boy died on his lips. Kain was no fool. He’d realize that this timeline would have no bearing on his own once the temporal eddy was resolved.

“So be it then.” His lieutenant acknowledged.

Kain blinked in stunned horror as Raziel reversed his grip on the blade mid strike, driving it backwards and into the fledgling’s chest. The Soul Reaver twisted and sliced upwards like a bolt of living lightening, cleaving a monstrous wound through half the young vampire’s chest and severing the tendon and bone of his neck as if they were made of paper and twigs. Raziel turned with his cut, free hand reaching into the remains of the gurgling vampire’s chest to retrieve his accursed heart. Young Kain fell with a stunned expression, blood rapidly pooling around his broken body as it collapsed against the marble.

Staring down at the carnage he’d casually wrought. Raziel tilted his head in a genteel salute to the fallen. “Vae Victus, child.”

“Raziel.” Kain had to try twice to overcome his surprise. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Witnessing the impossible ought to have become easier to cope with after the first few shocks Raziel had dealt him in the past day or two, but this final blow was entirely unexpected. Pausing to consider, he wondered, truly, why he was surprised. When had the boy ever listened to him sensibly in all of this? Why in heaven’s name did he expect the vampire to start now? He forced himself to not grind his teeth at his favorite’s latest lunacy.

The dark haired vampire considered first the bleeding heart in on hand, and then the serpentine length of the Soul Reaver in his other. Under his firm glare, the blood lingering on the sword’s edge was sucked beneath the surface, absorbed into the ravenous light of the blade. Within moments the weapon burned as clean and bright as before, seeming all the more malicious with its slaked hunger. Chore done, Raziel humored him with a half-smile. “I should think it obvious, Kain. I’m choosing.”

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Kain stood at a loss as his own history lay cooling on the floor. The youth’s pale corpse was painted liberally in red, his shirt all but torn off his chest with the ferocity of the Reaver’s blow. His neck and breastbone crushed beyond all recognition. Heartless, there would be no way for the vampire to recover from such a wound. He was well and truly dead. Unless the mystical organ was returned to him, and soon, his own history was now erased. Kain wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of Raziel’s action, or just reach out and strangle the fool. For his part, his lieutenant seemed wholly unconcerned by his random act of murder. He was more interested in studying Janos’ heart than the body he’d pulled it from.

“But this too, is a paradox.” Raziel held the bleeding heart aloft, frowning as he watched it quiver, still very alive despite its lack of body. “What a strange marvel it is, this orphaned heart. Such a pity it cannot continue to exist.”

“You’ve doomed us all, child.” Kain tore his eyes away from the corpse of his youth to point out the simple fact. “You’ve unmade me. I no longer exist.”

“You think?” Raziel tilted his head quizzically, mannerism more akin to his litch-self than anything his future-self might do. “I’m not yet convinced that is the case. You don’t credit your own durability. I’m inclined to think this other one was merely an obstacle in our way.”

“You don’t mean that.” Kain frowned. “There must be a ‘Kain’! Who else can reestablish the vampire race! Who else will resurrect you and begin the inevitable cycle of the Reaver? Who else can restore the Pillars? All the other guardians are dead, child! The Pillars while tattered were not dissolved yet, not while the boy lived! If they fall now, the Hylden have won!”

“Won? Surely you exaggerate. The Hylden have won exactly the same as the rest of us, nothing. If the Pillars fall now, Nosgoth falls with them.” Raziel gestured vaguely at the thick mist blanketing the world around their tower. “Look at it. It is dissolving. The barriers between life and death are all but vanished. The whole of the world is becoming nothing but spirit. Time, space, and dimension are all meaningless now. It’s all one and the same. Is that what the Elder God has been hoping for, all this time? I wonder…”

“Use the heart and restore Kain!”

“Why? ” Raziel snapped back. “Why must we waste precious time on a vampire who will need a millennium of practice in order to fully grasp the challenge he faces when we already have a Kain that suits our purpose?” Speaking in plural as his dual nature came to the fore, the winged vampire held the heart out of Kain’s reach, as if expecting him to lunge for it.

“The Elder God must have known all along that we would be compelled to choose your earlier self.” The winged vampire paced back and forth as he stated his case. Shirtless and wild-haired from their escapade underground, Raziel still seemed to glow with the energy contained within him. His fury and frustration were one and the same as the Reaver’s fire.

Kain had the vague impression that the vampire would have grabbed his shoulders and shaken him, if only his hands weren’t full. Raziel pivoted and stared at him, eyes alight with an inner realization.

“That is what it meant by crowing that it had already won! Don’t you see? Choose the expected Kain, and one way or another, the monster would be the one picking the tune to which the world dance, as before!”

Raziel shook his head at the twisted logic of it. “Trying to coddle history into a new course and then stepping aside won’t work, Kain. The minute you die, the damned squid will just wrench it all back the way it was, and everything will have been for nothing!”

Kain wondered if perhaps he was still a little mad. Some of what his lieutenant was raving about made a strange sort of sense. Had his favorite child truly seen the final layer to the ancient evil’s trap? Or had they both lost what little was left of their grip in the face of the timeline’s impossible tangle? He reached out a hand to catch Raziel’s shoulder, halting the vampire’s energetic pacing before it gave him a headache.

“I couldn’t let that happen…” Raziel met his look with eyes burning golden bright. For good or ill he was confident in his rationalization. “So I, we, borrowed a page from your particular songbook and did the one thing the fiend couldn’t have expected. I based my decision not on what made sense, or what ought to be, but purely on the merit of the contenders. I chose a Kain to serve. Not a perfect one, perhaps, but a far better example of one than thus far exhibited by any reality I’ve seen.”

Staring at him as if he was stupid, the vampire sighed expressively. “You, Kain. You are the Scion of Balance, the Soul Reaver’s master. You are the one I chose and none other. And god help me, when given the chance to change my mind, given another me to debate the choice with, I still chose you!”

“Janos’ heart cannot restore me, child.” Kain pointed out softly. “I’m as much of a paradox as the boy ever was, more so.”

“I know.” Raziel agreed, calm now that his point was made. He stared at the abortively pumping organ in his hand, weighting it against his palm with a considering look before setting it down on the seat of one of the ancient thrones. He wiped his bloody palm along the side of his battered leathers as he turned back to Kain to finish his thought. “No this spare heart is not the answer. It belongs to another, or shouldn’t exist at all. You’re perfectly right in saying it cannot restore you.”

Raising a finger to clarify his plan, he smiled grimly. “But there is another heart here that might apply, and it is one that will not be missed.”

“Whose?” He blinked, confused.

“Mine. Kain.” Raziel raised his free hand, touching his breastbone thoughtfully. “Ours.”

“No.” Kain shook his head at the preposterous notion. “No that is impossible.”

“Don’t be so stubborn, you old fool.” Raziel hissed, suddenly furious again. “You need a heart! You said it yourself! There is a heart here for the taking. A vampire heart, vital and strong, a heart capable of supporting even you.”

“No.”

The vampire shook his head, laughing softly but with little humor. “Here I am, offering you my heart, Kain, after all the misery and trouble you’ve put me through. And you say ‘no’? You really are the most insufferable bastard in the world… Would it kill you to show a little gratitude for once?”

“I will not let you do this. I will not lose you again!”

“You’ve already lost me.” Raziel pinned him with his uncanny stare, cynical smile twisting his lips. “Whether by water, by 'Reaver, or by simply vanishing into the ether as a temporal impossibility, I have already served you, Kain, and I have already fallen. This is simply another means to an already written end.

My future-self will never leave this moment, just as your fledgling there, will never leave this moment. This is the dead-end with which we shall trap the false god in order to beat him at his own game! This is the edge of the coin, Kain, the impossible possibility you sought! Best of all, since we will play within the confines of the continuum, the false-god can’t stop us! From this moment forward there will be only one Kain…. And one Soul for the Reaver. The rest is just excess meat and wasted breath.”

“No!”

“You’re usually more eloquent.” The vampire sighed wistfully. “As far as conversations go, our last is not shaping up to be particularly memorable. Do try a little harder, Kain. This may be the final time you ever speak to me…”

Pausing, Raziel grimaced as he considered the possibilities. “Unless of course, you fuck up your next future as badly as your last. In which case I suppose we’ll meet here again; and again… And again.”

Raziel folded his arms across his chest, grimly entertained. Striding to the edge of the nearest balcony, he stared downwards at the emptiness rising to meet them. The wind had risen to a gale while they’d ignored it, catching his thick dark hair and whipping it back against his skull, ruffling his feathers with the strength of its passage. Raziel half turned, staring back at him from over his shoulder. Once again Kain was struck silent by the rare beauty of the vampire’s face.

He tried to place the feeling, but the words took time to find. It wasn’t that he was afraid of his offspring. That’d never been a sentiment he was particularly guilty of. But there was something… awe, perhaps?

Kain wondered how it was possible that he was Scion and not the man standing before him. Beautiful, proud, absolutely assured, Raziel seemed to put him to shame simply by existing. The Soul Reaver, both flesh and steel, had become a beacon of light against the coming storm. Stranger still was how oblivious the vampire was to his own power, convinced that he still needed his approval, his acceptance. Did he genuinely believe that he was still the lesser being? Or was his deference simply out of habit?

“How may times have we done this already, do you think?” Raziel leaned against a battered section of stone railing, granting him a genuine smile for the first time since his awakening. The expression was a trifle weary.

“Is this truly the first time we’ve stood together in this place, Kain? Perhaps we have always stood here, making the same mistakes over and over, stumbling in a circle like drunks in a fog… Our never ending ordeal stretched out in an infinite series of mediocrity.”

He shook his head in mock despair. “Already I find myself thinking even the apocalypse is a better alternative then being trapped like this forever.”

Kain snorted with dark amusement at the thought. Their conversation didn’t feel repetitive? He probed his memories carefully, but there was no help there. Nothing in what he recollected was accounted for in the detour the timeline had taken over the past several days. Maybe the Elder God was right. His memories were no longer going to realign themselves with the timeline because he had been excluded from it already. But if what Raziel presumed was true, he’d be able to rejoin that timeline in the young one’s place.

The dark haired vampire crossed the distance between them as he meditated on the proposal. Raziel was standing at his shoulder before he really recognized his presence. The Reaver crackled in the vampire’s fist, making Kain’s skin itch with the potency of its aura.

“What will become of you, in all this?” He turned to his lieutenant, sensing the bindings of fate tightening around them the ripples of Raziel’s choice echoing through their shattered reality.

“I will be… as I always have been.” Raziel could not hold his stare for long, preferring to look towards the vanished horizon. Never as poker-faced as his brothers, the vampire wrestled a silent moment with his regrets. “Ah well.” He turned back to Kain, and reaching up, clasped his shoulder, giving comfort when it ought to have been the other way round. “We do what we must.”

For the second time in so many minutes, Kain stood astonished as Raziel did the unexpected. Sliding his hand from Kain’s shoulder, his lieutenant unhesitatingly plunged it into his own body. His fingers took on a shadowlike aspect as they passed through his skin and bone without visible injury. The memory of his child’s wraith performing just such an intrusion into hisown body made Kain grimace in sympathy. The ‘in’ hadn’t been the problem. It was the ‘out’ that had proved excruciating.

It was no different for Raziel.

The Reaver flared brilliantly as the vampire doubled over, voicing a ragged shout as he tore free that which had no business being taken from a living body. His lieutenant sagged forward and down, knees giving way as he managed the impossible. Claws and fingers looked all together too real, as they broke through the skin and bone of his ribs, his heart clutched safely in his own palm.

Blood flowed freely down his stomach, mesmerizingly red in the pale half-light all around them. Panting in agony Raziel braced himself with the Soul Reaver, using it as a prop as he tried to stand.

Hissing in instinctive sympathy, Kain crouched next to his lieutenant, resolved that nothing was worth this grisly scene. Only the sword’s magic, and Raziel’s twinned soul, could allow such a drastic form of self-mutilation to be non-fatal. A normal vampire would have died instantaneously from such an injury. The command to his offspring, to put the abused organ back, to use his sword’s strength to heal himself and forget the rest, died on the tip of his tongue. No longer needing to stand to complete his ugly work, Raziel simply concentrated his efforts on the logical step next step.

Any useful commentary Kain might have offered was forgotten in favor of swearing at the sudden and painful assault from his offspring. His lieutenant somehow found the strength to drive his clenched fist forward into Kain’s ribs.

Knocked back, off his feet and against the wall just behind him, there was no resisting the sudden strike. Strength unbelievable, Raziel drove his hand into Kain’s body as he had mere days before, reopening the earlier injury he’d sustained in order to deposit the very organ he’d been missing. For a moment Kain was granted the altogether unique sensation of arteries and vessels fusing together and then to his amazement, he felt the new muscle contract. His entire body pulsed with the heart’s initial effort. After so many days of stillness, the motion in his veins felt uncomfortable, unfamiliar.

Kain gasped again as he felt his ribs suddenly ease back into their proper place. Raziel’s hand and arm becoming spectral in appearance as he slowly withdrew his limb leaving behind nothing more terrible than the old scars Kain had always worn. The Reaver’s fire was running down both of his lieutenant’s arms now, a hint of it flickering within the terrible wound he had given himself.

For a silent eternity the dark haired vampire slouched forward, resting his head against Kain’s shoulder, the pair of them too weak to move.

“Raziel…” He found his voice, little better than a whisper, and raised a shaking hand to support the vampire’s shoulder. His tired fingers passed easily through the solid looking body pressed against his. Blinking, Kain found he could see the pattern of the ancient floor ties through the smoky grey mass of Raziel’s wings. The vampire pulled away, staggering to his feet and back several paces as his body was surrounded with translucent blue fire. Raziel was but a shadow compared to the Reaver’s ascendant glory.

“And thus I end…?” Raziel wondered aloud as his soul was drawn forth into the blade clutched in his hand. His body steadily lost first color, and then any pretense of solidity, as he sagged to his knees once again. The vampire’s words were little more than a whisper weirdly distorted, as if spoken from miles away.

Kain couldn’t help himself, reaching out in horror even as his companion became more specter than man. His limbs were slow to respond, body still partially numb from the injury Raziel had given him.

Beneath his healed ribcage, his new heart stuttered and skipped a beat as it settled gingerly into its second home. The tips of his claws easily passed through the fading remains of his lieutenant as the Soul Reaver finished its cruel work. “No, damn it. Not again.”

“Woe to the conquered.” Raziel’s ironic whisper came to him in the instant before the broad length of the blade clattered to the ground.

Kain stared down at it in horrified fascination for a moment. The wrathful blue glow that had consumed his ally was still burning brightly in the skull’s eye sockets. The whole blade seemed to burn brighter still. “Raziel?”

Mindful of his sore ribs, he sank to his knees and slowly reached out to claim the hilt. His questing hand was repulsed by a kinetic burst, and yet again he blinked as something both ethereal and familiar slipped free of his grasp. Spirit energy radiated out of the blade and formed a spectral cloud that just as quickly dispelled, whisked away on some astral breeze. For a minute he dared to hope that his lieutenant had won free of his fated prison, but looking down he saw that the blade it left behind was very much as it ever was. The Scion must have his weapon, and the Reaver must have its soul.

His second attempt to claim the weapon met with no interference. Kain sighed in relief to feel the familiar wrappings beneath his claws again. Even during the most distressing times, the Reaver blade had been his constant companion. It was oddly comforting, even given the recent events, to have it back in his hand again.

/ Raziel? /

He tested his blade with a thought. The outpouring of recognition/concern/regret from the soul trapped within was both immediate and powerful. Kain cursed himself even as he sighed in relief. Raziel was bound into his eternal prison, but otherwise unharmed by his outlandish plan.

Exhausted, Kain took stock of his surroundings. The lonely hall of thrones around him was just as it had been before. The wind tore through the broken panes of glass on the various balconies circling the chamber, howling through the holes in the walls. They sky beyond was leaden grey, tinged weirdly green as if heralding a summer cyclone. He stared dumbly at the odd color for a moment, before turning to take in his more immediate circumstances. Forgotten on a chair, Janos’ heart still quivered with unlife, now of no use to anyone. Of Raziel’s body there was nothing left. Only the Reaver remained. Kain propped himself against a convenient chair, and finding that he had no audience to impress, used its armrest to slowly pull himself to his feet. He felt every one of his years pressing down on him as he caught his breath. His chest ached fiercely where the Reaver, and Raziel’s claws had done their cruelly necessary work. Rubbing at his scars gently, he was forced to concede that it had probably been the only way. Still, if given an opportunity for a repeat performance, he might just insist that the child give him a bit more warning.

Trying to imagine how a conversation of that nature would go. He shook his head and chuckled slightly. Lifting the sword so he could look it in the ‘eye,’ Kain smirked at his past and future ally. “That’s twice you’ve cracked my ribs this month, child. I’m beginning to think you find it entertaining.”

The sword flickered with what could only be described as playful malevolence.

“Yes, yes.” Kain nodded and shifted himself so he could collapse into the chair properly, letting his head fall back against the carved surface as he inspected the gathering storm. “I suppose I deserved it.”

Even with his eyes closed he could feel his firstborn’s presence along his arm, warming and energizing him through the hilt of the Reaver blade. As galling as it was to have to sacrifice the handsome vampire a second time – or was this the third? – he was selfishly glad to have their private communion restored. “Your generosity, and your large-mindedness, Raziel, I have no way to thank you for. But let it be said, just the same. I could not have done this without you. Whatever comes, I will not forget that.”

The ground shuddered beneath him as the streams and flows of time fought valiantly for a route through the madness of the day’s events. Morbidly Kain tilted his head to consider the corpse forgotten nearby. How ironic that the body should have slipped his attention even for a minute, especially since it was his own. The somewhat vivisected remains of his younger self lay sprawled artistically where Raziel had let him fall. Young, arrogant, and in the end, more of an inconvenience than an ally; still, Kain wondered that he ought to feel something other than mild amusement at the thought of his own history cut short.

How the fates were going to unravel this particular puzzle was indeed a mystery, no matter what Raziel had speculated. Warmth curled up his arm from where he gripped the blade. His child offering what comfort he could in his current state.

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The air shuddered around him; the tower did the same. Kain blinked as the walks and ceiling crumbled and lifted away, seeming blown off by the powerful winds sweeping over him, save that the dissolution of the building happened with neither noise nor effort. Bricks and shingle seemed to come undone and float away as if by design rather than by the wrath of the storm. Given an unfettered view of the sky, he marveled at the swirling churning motion of the clouds. Not just greens, but blues, reds, and tawny yellows were hinted at in the maelstrom. The sky taking on a chaotic aspect as reality shifted to compensate for the changes being wrought.

Between one tremor and the next, Kain looked around and frowned, realizing that his other self had vanished. Not a bloodstain or a lock of hair from his younger self to signal his passing. The Heart of Darkness, likewise, had been swept away.

“And now the moment of truth.” He mused. Pushing himself upright, Kain resolved to face his destiny standing, if for no other reason than that he didn’t want to be caught lazing about on his ass if the world was truly coming to an end.

“What now?” He shouted at the air at large, one hand still pressed to his chest, still surprised to feel a heart beating where nothing had stirred for days.

“We cannot go back to the way things were, I’ve cut off that pathetic narrative once and for all!” Challenging the sky was not one of his more rational moments, but it was satisfying just the same. Strangely, he got the impression that the storm was listening. Drawing breath, he found his voice stronger when he continued.

“Which way will we turn now? Once more ground under the rim of the accursed wheel?! I stand fast! Let the wheel be broken!” He drove the Soul Reaver point-down into the dusty soil. It flared brightly at the gesture, seemingly as defiant as he was, if less vocal in its displeasure.

From windy maelstrom to absolute stillness; Kain stood suddenly in a vast silence. The hair on the back of his neck prickled at the sensation of energy gathering above and around him. What little was left of the world looked bent and distorted, as if seen through a thick and warped glass pane. The ancient thrones resembled pieces of bizarre artwork, twisted and stretched into impossible shapes. The floor bent and rippled when looked at out of the corner of his eyes like the surface of the sea done over in tiles. Lost was any sense of height or distance.

He looked past the edge of what had once been a balcony and saw only grayness, a sea of nothing lapping at his tiny domain. The solitary feeling left him grimacing in anticipation.

But there was no confrontation.

Indeed, he wondered, whether there was anyone still existing whom he could confront.

How could one fight against reality itself? He peered through the murky blur around him, habit more than anything making him seek out the familiar shafts of the Pillars. For a timeless moment there was nothing but darkness on the horizon. Kain squinted, and despite himself, prayed.

“All I wanted was for there to be balance.”

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The breath that the world had seemingly been holding was exhaled in burst of spiritual enlightenment. Kain felt it, not so much on his skin, but beneath it. The machinery of entropy, the inevitable slide into nothingness, was slowing to a halt around him. He closed his eyes as the blinding feeling of power swept over him, and upon opening them again, found himself standing on familiar ground.

Underfoot was what remained of the platform from which the Pillars had stretched up and down, from the root to the crown of the world. He grinned to see that there was no gaping hole this time, no evidence of his recent battle with the elder god at all. The carved runes and inlay on the shrine’s floor were unmarked by time or corruption, but rather looked fresh-made. Only their colors were off, the whole of the world suffering from the same washed-out looking grey hue.

The Pillars themselves were as insubstantial as the rest of the world, shadowy mirages of their former selves cast in phantasmal white. Without having to be told Kain found himself certain in the knowledge that it was his choice, whether they returned in their glory, or if they, and the rest of the world, vanished from all existence. Such had been the magic woven into the magical edifice that they and the whole of Nosgoth were forever bound together, the one with the other.

Kain turned slowly in place, studying the misty shadows beyond the edge of his modest periphery. There were consequences, which ever route he chose. He could feel the build up of time, of fate, swelling behind him with every breath, like the river he had always compared it to. His will was the dam stopping the flow. Once the choice was made there would be no regaining control over the torrent. At his side Raziel’s sword shivered in his hand.

“Is it truly, my choice?” Kain whispered to himself, astounded. “As simple as that?” Answered by the absolute silence around him, he exhaled in soft amusement. It seemed anticlimactic, some how. “Very well.”

Raising his arms in benediction, he performed for himself, for lack of a better audience. “Let there be light.”

The Pillar of Balance incandesced out of the blurry background, white and pure, a brilliant anchor to cling to when surrounded by chaos. Kain smiled as the other Pillars acceded to his will, resonating with their fulcrum as they redefined the foundation of the world. Far more than just a magical prison for the unwilling Hylden, the Pillars contained the essence of Nosgoth, what had once been a grand geas for taping into those reality-defining forces for military gain would now be used to restore the world from the brink of nothingness. From their deep-rooted constancy, the rest of Nosgoth took form once more.

The Pillars of Dimension, Energy and Time took shape first. The triad wove together form and structure from chaos, defining what was, and what wasn’t, and what could be. The Pillar of Nature returned from darkness in a wave of green and gold, blue and brown. What was formed was given life, and the life had a newness and freshness to it that Kain had never dared to hope for. Like a shadow into the light, the pillar of Death sang its melancholy song in counterpoint to Nature’s fanfare, subtly shading the innocence of rebirth with a certain world-weary grace and lassitude. Far from being upset at the implied mortality of his creation, Kain nodded acceptance at the darkness, recognizing it for what it was, a necessary part of life.

His eyes then turned towards the Pillars of Conflict and States. What was a world after all, without the various creatures to inhabit and make use of it? Everything evolving, changing, transforming from one moment to the next, survival demanded such energies, well checked by the more benign forces of the dominant Pillars. From the twin beacons of light, came the muted echoes of men and beasts restored to life. The distant chorus of shouts and cheers grew as the people of Nosgoth rediscovered themselves, not sure of what had just befallen them but aware of some great event having taken place. Kain ignored them for a moment in favor of considering the final Pillar.

Mind awakened slowly, almost as if embarrassed at having caused the chaos in the first place. He chided it gently – as if scolding a reluctant child – and it grew in strength. With its final awakening came a more-complete sense of self-realization than he had ever thought possible.

Kain considered his position at the center of the world, and for a moment of absolute clarity, could see every possible outcome of his every choice. The infinite variety presented him was both overwhelming and deeply satisfying. With the Pillar of the Mind’s help, he very quickly narrowed the multitude of paths down to one general direction, a way forward for the world, and for himself, but he hesitated on making the final choice.

There were always consequences.

The Soul Reaver shuddered again at his side, as if feeling his worry, and in looking down at it, Kain found himself asking the Pillars for more alternatives.

It was true, the Wheel could be broken, fate forever undone. The option was in front of him. All he had to do was take it. Nosgoth would never again walk a predestined path, his life, and the lives of all, would be free of constraint.

But the price?

Kain winced, finding it unpalatable. Certainly the beastly parasite, and the Hylden would be swept from the board, but so too would the Pillars, their geas unraveled and undone. Also, there was Raziel to consider. A world where the Soul Reaver had always been a blade, never a man? He saw without wanting to, how it would come to pass.

Raziel being written out of existence as an inconvenient paradox, never having had been, never to be again.

Kain rubbed his chest habitually, it would be a world where he wouldn’t have had a need for the gifted heart, or time streaming, or lieutenants. He foresaw a utopia in the truest sense of the word, a place where everything was perfectly balanced. In such an idealistic place, what possible use could there be for a Kain? He couldn’t fathom it. Grimly he foresaw being bored to tears within a matter of months. Perhaps there was such a thing as too much perfection?

“No.” He murmured to himself as he sought a different tactic. “No there has to be an alternative that isn’t completely intolerable.”

Shuttling through alternatives with the help of the Pillars, Kain began to explore trade-offs that he could and couldn’t accept. The Wheel would turn at least one more time it seemed, before he could declare his final and utter victory. This time however, it would spin on a course of Kain’s making.

In order to assure himself of Vorador and Janos as allies, he accepted that he would be saddled with Sebastian and the others. In order to guarantee the Hylden were marginally contained, he resigned himself to the lingering irritation of the so-called ‘elder god’ beneath the skin of the world. Eliminating Moebius from the skein of history was possible, but the wars themselves could only be muted, not done away with. He foresaw the raising of his lieutenants, Raziel in particular, and considered it a more than fair trade.

Of course, raising his first born anew meant that a paradox would be yet again formed. He glanced down at the sword, and then back into the paths that Time and Mind had laid out for his inspection.

Raziel reborn would indeed be a paradox, one that could not last, if he ever planned to break free of destiny. One revolution of the Wheel would turn, marked by the span of his firstborn’s life. No matter what he tried to offer in exchange, Kain could find no way of stopping the inevitable cycle. A Raziel raised to serve him must in turn be a Raziel condemned to return to this moment, to infuse the Reaver for Kain’s future victory. He gritted his teeth at the irony of it. The one thing he wanted most of all, was impossible. Free will and Raziel at his side. He could have one, but never both?

“Damn you child, why must you always make things so difficult.” He glared down at the sword in his fist. The blade flickered uncomprehendingly.

Time was running out. Kain could feel the forces building along his spine, Time and Death, States and Energy all tied to the Wheel of Fate, wanting to move again beneath his feet. The world was fighting to start its lumbering course down the path he had all but chosen.

“There must be some way!” He argued with the Pillars around him. Balance pulsed once, regretfully. The Pillar of the Mind blanked out all but the one path into the future.

The Pillar of Time flared to get his attention. Staring at it he almost smiled. In its brilliant light he saw the flickering of a thousand years of history, all to come. Fuzzy in places, crystal clear in others, Kain witnessed war, peace, the founding of his empire as it should have been. Raziel stood where he always had, at his lord’s side, looking as confident and beautiful as his alternate self had only moments ago. Time accelerated and Kain could not look away. Raziel was gone in a blur; the how and why unseen. At least it wasn’t the lake again. He didn’t want to consider whether he’d have the stomach to sacrifice his first born to the ancient parasite a second time.

He watched himself standing alone as the final paradox resolved a thousand years in the future; fate and destiny broken once and for all. And then… the Pillar of Time seemed to imply.

“And then what?” Kain asked bitterly.

The future. Came the surprisingly pithy reply.

The great unknown spread out before him, a time when all predictions had to stop, when all oracles went blind. It was impossible to say that he would never see Raziel again, after the child’s sacrifice. It was impossible that any thing would or wouldn’t occur. That was the whole point of the exercise, after all.

Free will.

Surely if he wished to see his first born again, he would find a way to make it happen in that far distant future where anything was possible? The grain of hope offered was pathetically small, but Kain was no stranger to that. He took what was offered with what grace remained him and in an exhaled breath, let the moment of divinity slip away.

Once again he was surrounded by a blur, but this time the sense of motion was both inside and out. His thoughts and memories re-aligning to take on revised parameters as the world shuddered and shifted, adapting to its new continuum.

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Opening his eyes, he found himself in front of a set of Pillars as real and concrete as they ever were; the Reaver blade a muted presence in his grip.

He was Kain, the only Kain there ever was.

The fact that he knew that there had been a younger version of himself running around this morning was immaterial. From now on, he would take up his previous life, filling the gap Raziel had so thoughtfully carved out for him. It meant reliving quite a bit of what he had already done, and doubtless some explaining of his altered appearance to those few who he had called friends in his early years. But he felt optimistic that in this new and renewed Nosgoth there would be at least some novelty in the repetition.

If nothing else, there was Raziel to look forwards to, even if he would be obliged to wait a hundred years before resurrecting the knight and his Saraphan brothers.

In the mean time he would just have to amuse himself by putting down the minor irritation of the Hylden and any plots that the ancient squid might concoct. It would have to suffice to keep him entertained while he waited.

The sound of massive wings beating against the air interrupted Kain’s otherwise pastoral musings. Glancing up he smirked at the odd shaped shadow coming over the trees. Janos Audron had succeeded in his modest quest, his erstwhile child well in hand, dangling from his arms like a truant green puppy as the ancient vampire glided over the trees. He raised a hand to hail them both as Janos circled in to land, setting his offspring down and coming to his own feet a few yards later.

“It is done?” The ancient wasted no time in coming up to him, anxious and pleased all at once. “We have been redeemed? Kain, I had so hoped, after so long, finally there can be peace. Innocence restored.”

“Almost.” Kain agreed, nodding at Vorador as the perplexed vampire joined his maker in front of the Pillars.

“Almost?!” Janos gave him a worried look.

Vorador frowned, studying him carefully. “I know you, vampire. And yet I do not.”

“I am Kain, old one.” He couldn’t help but grin at the old bastard’s confused expression. He’d forgotten how delightfully soberminded the old vampire could be. “You’ll remember, it wasn’t that long ago. I invited myself to your mansion and you lectured me at considerable length on etiquette and social obligation. You see me now as the Scion of Balance, which, whether you believe it or not, was as much a surprise to me as it is for you.”

Vorador drew back in shock, staring hard at him. “The Kain I know is barely a fledgling, an arrogant little ankle biter with some delusions of grandeur. He had some potential, I grant you, but considerable growing up, and wising up to do before I would ever…”

“I would hope that I have done both, since we’ve last spoken.” Kain smirked, unable to not antagonize his old mentor after so many years of not having the pleasure. “Several thousand years’ worth, all totaled. I trust you will do me the honor of not fearing for the safety of your ankles anymore.”

“What do you mean ‘almost’?!” Janos desperately tried to get back to the topic of immediate interest.

Kain shrugged. “I could not undo all the problems of our world in one fell swoop. Not and have Nosgoth be at all recognizable when I was done with it. So I was obliged to take a partial resolution for the moment.”

“But the Hylden!” Janos cried. “At least tell me the Hylden are contained? The Pillars are intact…”

“The Pillar of Dimension has the capacity to hold them at bay for a little while longer.” Kain made a show of inspecting the edge of the Soul Reaver for signs of damage. It seemed to silently laugh with him, sharing his sudden joy at being alive, despite the ordeals to come. “But in the end I think at least one more war will be required to put an end to things, one way or another. Either they will come to accept their banishment and stop pressing the issue, or we will reduce their numbers to the point where banishment will be irrelevant. I am not overly concerned. After the Saraphan armies these mad creatures ought to be tedious but simple to deal with.”

“So tell me, Kain.” Vorador drawled. “What exactly have you managed to accomplish? For a our so-called savior, you seem so far to have done a somewhat half-assed job.”

Kain looked askance at the surly vampire. “We’re still here, aren’t we?” He smirked at Vorador’s long face. “As for the rest, just wait and see. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

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End of Book 1 of Once and Future King