It was not a translocation spell. That Kain could tell for certain. It did not feel the same at all. It was a sort of shift and the physical sensation was very different. It felt as if the world had moved to accommodate them rather then their own bodies crossing the distance.
Then they were at their destination, a large chamber perfectly round like a dome with 6 doors leading of from it evenly spaced around the outside.
There were homunculi all around them, dozens of them all armed with swords; a small army. Together the dolls turned to regard the intruders, drawing with blades with a uniform hiss.
Asmoedous raised his left hand and then swung it sharply down.
“Sleep!” He commanded. The homunculi swayed as if they were wheat caught in a breeze and then stiffened.
As one the puppets turned and walked away, marching until they came to the chamber’s outside wall. There they stood, immobile and waiting. They were as silent and still as statues.
“Much better.” Asmoedous said with satisfaction, dusting off his hands and starting forward.
Kain stared off after the terracotta puppets, wondering absently if a verbal command from anyone to ‘sleep’ would have the same effect.
The chamber was different from the rest of Fanum-Divus. While the city had been mostly built from a red to gold stone, this chamber was covered in shiny, almost metallic tiles.
They spread out in spiral from the floor, the middle in the very centre of the room. When they reached the outside they continued up the wall and formed another spiral on the domed ceiling; going in the opposite direction.
Across the tiles on the walls were drawings, a series of dark rune like markings. Kain did not recognise the language if it was one and couldn’t understand what they meant. Intermixed with the runes were pictograms. The images were crisp and stood out perfectly with no sign of fading.
One picture showed an icon of a sun in the centre of which was a wide staring eye.  Encircling the sun itself was a thick ring of dozens of demonic looking skulls with their mouths agape.
Another image showed a man, or a man like being, standing in the centre of another ring of those same evil looking skulls with his arms and legs outstretched.
“What is this place?” Kain asked, turning to look at Asmoedous, who at that moment was walking in a slow circuit around the room looking down at the floor.
“You stand in the very centre of Fanum-Divus.” He said without looking up at him, gaze still locked on the floor. “All of it, the entire city is build out and around from this point.”
Kain narrowed his eyes and looked around afresh. What was so special abut this room that it had to be the centre of the city? It was completely empty. Did the ruling elite, class or whatever was the top council here use this as a meeting room? Seeing his confusion Asmoedous chuckled and gestured for Kain to step back away from the centre of the chamber.
Kain’s frown deepened but he did as instructed, backing off towards the edge of the room; very conscious of the silent staring homunculi lining the walls.
Asmoedous faced the centre of the chamber and raised both hands high.
“Behold.” He said and then spread his hands apart.
There was a loud shunting sound from below, following by three ‘clunks’ in succession. Then, slowly at first, the tiles that formed the spiral on the floor began to peel back. They slide up and over each other, folding back along the spiral and opening up.
Kain watched with widening eyes as the floor slid away; moving aside with a cacophony of metallic clatters. About half the floor had folded away by the time it stopped, the tiles reconfiguring themselves to form a ring and revealing what had lain concealed underneath.
It was the singular most beautiful piece of work Kain had ever seen. A ring of metal, painstakingly engraved and constructed out of thousands of small parts each one no bigger then his thumb. It hovered there, attached to the sides of the hole by arms made with the same style of jigsaw like pieces all fitted together.
In the centre, framed by the metal, was a lens that shone like the brightest mother of pearl from any oyster. It shone bright even in the dim light of the chamber, its surface giving a concave appearance to the reflection of everything around it.
Slowly the entire lens rose up out of the floor and hovered there, the arms holding it up.
Kain stared at it, hardly even noticing Asmoedous walk up beside him. Staring into the lens Kain felt that somehow, his very essence was being stretched and compressed; not over any distance but between past and future. As if part of him were being pulled forward in time and another pulled back.
“This is the Tempus Crux, the lens through which time can be bent.” The Divus said, following his gaze up to it with a pleasant smile. “Its existence here, poised between the two absolutes of everything and nothing, is what makes time travel possible.”
Had he said anything else Kain probably would have ignored him. But those words were enough for the vampire to pull his attention away, turning his head slowly to look at Asmoedous in stunned amazement.
“Do you mean to say…” He began; his voice low and quiet. “…that without this lens none of the time streaming devices would work?”
Asmoedous nodded once.
“Precisely.” He confirmed with a tinge of pride. “Not even the Chronoplast itself.”
The revelation struck Kain dumb. He stood there, almost paralysed by this information.
Had Moebius known of this? Of course, he must have. As the Guardian of the Pillar of time, it would have been his business to know of the lens. Kain had always assumed it had merely been Moebius’ time magic or technology that made the journeys either back or forward in time possible.
No wonder Moebius had been so smug, right up until the end, if he had this knowledge secret.
Kain shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. The implications of all this left him staggered.
 “Then it was your kind that created the lens and made it possible.” He began, pondering his thoughts out load. Had they made the Chronoplast as well? The other time streaming devices? Had Moebius merely been using them with instruction from the Divus?
Asmoedous hooted and then laughed.
“While I’m sure I feel flattered for the whole of Fanum-Divus for your assumption, no we did not create it.” He said.
Kain looked at him sharply.
 “We built the city that expands around the Tempus Crux true enough, but the lens was here long before we came.”
Kain’s expression was incredulous.
“You mean it was just… floating here?” He asked. Asmoedous raised a hand and wobbled it up and down
“Mostly.” He said. “None of us know who made the lens. I’ve studied it for centuries myself trying to understand its mysteries.” He pointed with a talon towards the lens, indicating around it to its delicate looking metal frame. “All I can tell for sure that some elements of it seem to be of Hylden construction.”
The vampire gave the frame another look. He recognised Hylden architecture when he saw it but this was of a whole other level to what he expected from that race. Whomever had made this thing, no matter his race, he was a inspired genius the likes of which Nosgoth might never see before or since.
“I’ve questioned many but no Hylden I have ever spoken to can tell me more, not even Ambraxas-Divus.” Asmoedous said with a regretful sigh.
The initial shock and awe fading, Kain contemplated what he was being told and shown.
“Why are you showing me this?” He asked harshly. Asmoedous grinned at him.
“So you understand what’s being used against you.” He replied and approached the Crux, raising a hand as if to beckon to it. “Watch. Let me show you what can be done with this device.”
As he approached the lens began to glow, the illumination soft at first but growing steadily in intensity. It was a very subtle, soft light that cat absolutely no shadow.
The lens itself seemed somehow to vibrate without actually moving, an audible and low pitched hum resonating through the air.
With a series of clicks and whirs, the hundreds of small parts that made up the lens frame disconnected and rejoined formed patterns that vanished as soon as they came but holding the lens itself steady all the while.
.
“The lens responded to his command, acting very much like one of the vision chambers that ringed the Chronoplast that allowed for visions from other epochs.”
.
When it began, the image was not shown in the lens itself but projected. Some light Kain could not see shone through the lens and it manifested there before them an image. Kain recoiled slightly, alarmed by what he was seeing.
It was him, struggling for his life against the powers and skill of Raziel-Divus; the two of the locked in moral combat in the middle of the Chronoplast device.
“Raziel-Divus used this very lens to know where and when to strike at you.” Asmoedous explained, indicating the image that played out before them. It was like reliving that battle over again, only watching from the outside.
“He had had that ambush planned well in advance.”
Kain kept on watching the fight, his face creasing into an expression of outraged consternation when it came to the part when Divus bested him, stole the Reaver and cast him through the unstable porthole into the ether.
It had taken Kain a long time to learn how to control the visions that the Chronoplast showed him so that they revealed what he wanted them to rather then selecting random events in past or future. Even then it was an imprecise science as there were thousands of ways to interpret the visions.
This lens was far more accurate.
“It has its limitations as you have to know precisely ‘when’ you want to see and location is directed not by you but by the target you wish to survey, but it is most useful if used properly.” Asmoedous was explaining, inadvertently showing Kain that he had had the same sort of problem in this reading of the time stream.
The ancient paused then, regarding Kain and seeing that the vampires thoughts were clearly elsewhere. Then he grinned.
“In fact, why don’t I show you something a little more startling?” He asked. Kain looked at him but Asmoedous said nothing else. He raised his hands again and once more the lens responded; the configuration of its frame changing and the projected image with it.
.
 “The vision cleared and…”
.
“Impossible!” Kain blurted out, his voice echoing around the chamber. Asmoedous looked at the image before them with only a mediocre kind of surprise.
“Oh my my, he’s actually here!” He said, looking puzzled and a little worried. “That was unexpected indeed.”
.
“Raziel. MY Raziel, alive and well and here in this very city?! How could this be? I had watched him as his essence had finally been devoured by the Soul Reaver.”
.
The blue wraith, the Raziel he was more familiar with. The Raziel he preferred.  The image showed him talking with a human, the architecture around the two of them clearly matching Fanum-Divus. He was here? This made no sense at all.
“What manner of trickery is this?!” The vampire demanded, fangs bared as he turned to confront Asmoedous.
“No trickery, Kain I assure you.” Asmoedous replied but he was flustered, brows meeting in a front of consternation. Whatever this vision portended it did not sit well with him.
“King Raziel-Divus has been going slowly mad after he learned that freeing his future essence from inside you only allowed him to continue existing on as the wraith.”
Kain struggled with thoughts that swirled around inside his head, refusing to stay still long enough for him to process them.
.
“And then I remembered. Divus was reaching down, pulling out my soul. No… it wasn’t my soul he was pulling out. It was Raziel’s, entwined around my own. He had been inside me the whole time and having been freed he was now restored, a fresh chance to spite fate.”
.
Could he believe what was seeing here? He wanted to believe it, to have Raziel returned to him would be a boon like no other.
“Well this certainly calls for a change of plan.” Asmoedous said.
Indeed it did. If Raziel was free of the Reaver’s curse, the potential for gain against the False God was there once more.
He felt guilty at considering how best to use Raziel rather then simply being glad of his greatest ally’s revival, but Raziel would understand his sentiments he was sure.
But did he have the right to ask more of Raziel? His first born son had spent eons trapped inside the Reaver by now. Wasn’t that service enough? And who was he to ask more of him? The one who tore off his wings and cast him into the abyss, setting a prophecy into motion that he had never known of?
“Once Raziel-Divus learns his future self is here I can imagine all hell breaking loose.” Asmoedous muttered in an exasperated tone. “So be it then.”
He turned and pointed, seemingly in Kain’s direction but then the vampire heard a low groaning of stone from behind him. Turning, he saw that the door to the chamber directly behind him was opening.
“We will have to part ways here Kain.” Asmoedous said.  “I had hoped for more time so we might have a little chat and come to an arrangement.”
With his other hand he gestured down and behind him the lens of the Tempus Crux began to descend back into the floor. It’s gleaming brilliance died away and the projected image of the wraith with it.
“As it is, I will have to divert our king’s attention long enough for you and your blue friend to make your escape.”
“Escape?” Kain repeated incredulously and with profound disbelief. “Why are you doing this? How does aiding us benefit you?”
“Oh I think you’ll figure it out in time, old boy.” Asmoedous stated with a confidence Kain did not feel. “Time that right this moment you don’t have.” He cast a glance at the Tempus Crux as it disappeared into the hole in the floor and the tiles began to fold back over it in their spiral pattern.
“By the look of him just now, I would say your ghoulish friend is about to venture onto the Ark. If I were you I would get to him before he goes much further. It’s been a pleasure meeting you Kain. We really must make time for a decent chat one of these days.”
He grinned warmly.
“Ta-Ta.” With that he vanished, one moment there and the next he was gone.
.
“This I could believe the vision this lens had shown me was true, then it was the greatest of news and the most welcome. My son, my ally, restored to me.”
.
Kain looked from the open door to the tiles still folding back to cover the Tempus Crux.
.
“I disliked leaving this lens here, in the heart of my enemy’s power. But Asmoedous was right. I have to get to Raziel before the city was roused against us.”
.
He bolted for the door.
.
“But as soon as we escaped this place, I resolved to be cautious. Asmoedous had designs for me that I doubted would be to my liking once they came to fruition.”