Kain held the stone before him, gazing deep into the polished gemstone at the artefacts centre. As he had learned, magic was negated in Fanum-Divus but did that apply to enchanted artefacts? There was no way of knowing for sure until he tried and at this point there was nothing else to do.
But why did it have to be this artefact, the artefact that had been the cause of so much guilt in his life? He had hoped never to see this stone again but fate had once again conspired to hurt him.
With great distain he lifted the stone up above his head and called on the energy contained therein.
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“The power of the stone ebbed and flowed in my hands, a living thing with a heart beat of its own. I merely had to dip into its power to rip the fabric of reality to open a doorway to provide us with salvation.”
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The power inside the stone was incredible to feel. It was as if contained within this artefact was a swirling vortex of energy that appeared to go on forever. Kain stood there for a moment, transfixed by what he was sensing inside. The power was carefully hidden so that only a skilled mage might be able to feel its presence but once sensed this well of force seemed capable of overwhelming the user at the slightest misuse.
And Raziel had carried this stone without sensing what lay within? Had even the Sarafan Lord perceived the true nature of his thing?
The air before Kain rippled as if it were the surface of a pound broken by a thrown rock, shockwaves spreading out from a widening central point. Small flecks of light manifested randomly around them like fireflies, slowly but with gathering speed being drawn down into that centre and gathering together into a disc of light. The disc grew larger and larger until it expanded quickly with a low grinding moan.
The porthole was a two dimensional flat disc, identical on both sides and sparking with rapid bolts of red lightning that ran across its edge.
The stone in Kain’s hands glowed the same scarlet in response, trembling as if the power it contained was only just being held in check by its physical form.
“Incredible…” Ewoden breathed, staring with wide eyes at the oval rip in space before them. Slowly the emissary reached out for the doorway with trembling hand, perhaps not fully believing that for the first time in centuries he was seeing a way to leave Fanum-Divus.
“They have found us!” Raziel said sharply, turning about sharply and glancing up at the doorways leading of from the chambers highest tire. There were definite sounds of movement coming from beyond, many running footsteps, undoubtedly an army of homunculi. Their time was up.
“You two go first!” Kain barked at them, gesturing with his head towards the gateway. “I do not know if it will stay open once I take the stone within!”
Ewoden did not need any further prompting. With one cursory dismissive and contemptuous glance back at Fanum-Divus, his prison for years, he hurled himself into the open porthole. Instantly he vanished into the light, disappearing with a loud groan from the gate as it accepted him.
Raziel kept his eyes on the tier above for few moments longer before he turned, the ruined membrane of his wings flapping.
 “If I am rent asunder to remain dispersed through the ether, I am going to be very upset with you, Kain!” He declared and followed Ewoden through, leaping into it rather like a dive.
Just as he vanished, Kain turned his head to watch several homunculi came out onto the balcony behind them. They were followed by more, and those in turn were followed by even more. The full garrison of Fanum-Divus was pouring into the Ark to come after them.
With the Nexus Stone tight in his grasp the vampire ran at the porthole and charged straight into it, leaving the impossible city behind.
The void beyond was chaos, a twisting tunnel of twirling light that seemed to go on forever in a drop of endless miles. Kain barely had time to perceive it before some invisible wind picked up like a discard sheet of parchment and carried him off. He struggled, desperately holding onto the still glowing Nexus Stone but he was as powerless as a ragdoll before the vortex.
As he tumbled end of end he opened one eye, watching the whirling of red and white lights around them. These lights were everywhere, all spinning around a central point around him as he fell.
At times he seemed to catch sight of Raziel falling nearby or Ewoden at others but sightings of them were as fleeting as anything else and all he could do was endure the fall.
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“The vortex groaned like a living animal in pain, twisting and turning as if alive. Suddenly I realised what was wrong.”
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Surly this could not be normal for the stone’s usage? If this was indeed the common means of transport through its use the Sarafan Lord would have found it unusable in his operation of the ancient device beneath Meridian. Clearly something was wrong here.
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“Having opened a porthole from an impossible location, the space between nothing and everything, the passageway was dangerous unstable. The merest outside stimulus might send us plummeting into oblivion.”
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Kain had to have faith that the stone he still held would guide them through to the destination he had chosen, the Pillars of Nosgoth, the only location he could think of at short notice.
Suddenly there was a loud groaning sound followed by a tearing, the kind of sound made when a large rock ripped itself in half. The entire vortex seemed to quiver as if struck and a high pitched wail echoed out from the swirling lights.
Kain glanced back the way they had come, seeing with disbelieving eyes a pair of hands plunge in through the side of the vortex wall. The cloven hands griped the edge of the tear it was making and began to force it open wider. The vortex around them screeched in protest, quivering and rippling faster and faster.
“KAIN!”
Holding the rip in the side of the vortex open was Raziel-Divus, black hair streaming back from his face and eyes ablaze with anger. With bared fangs he kept forcing the tear he had made wider and wider, his wings coming through to buttress the hole above.
Kain stared back at him in stunned amazement. How could this even be possible? What kind of awesome power allowed him to carve open the vortex to pursue them even here?
“You will not escape me, not this time!” The King of Fanum-Divus snarled. The whirling lights of the vortex shook in response, spinning around faster and faster until they blurred into a uniform light.
Roaring in rage Raziel-Divus reached out with his right hand attempting to grab Kain and draw him back, to take him back to Fanum-Divus and to be at his mercy.
“I can not permit this.” Another voice echoed up from deep within the whirlwind of light, a strange alien voice and in response to it the lights that formed this place suddenly stopped spinning. The Nexus stone in Kain’s grip trembled almost jumping out of his hands.
“Be gone!” The lights hung there stationary for a single instant before as one they turned and flew towards Raziel-Divus and the rip he was making. In that single instant Kain saw that each and ever orb had a face.
“What is this?!” The king of Fanum-Divus demanded in stunned incredulity as the lights few at him. In a surge they rushed him and Kain felt once more that same unending power he had sensed in the stone before.
There was a flare of light so bright Kain had to look away, shielding his eyes with his arms. He heard a crash of some kind and immediate a shockwave past through his body, a ripple that seemed to distort his flesh as it went and then put it back together the way it had found it.
Then another one struck him, far stronger in impact then the first and sent him hurtling away from the rip in the tunnel that Divus had made.
“NO!” He heard his enemy cry in dismay but it trailed off quickly with the distance the vampire travelled swiftly away.
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“I was thrown from Raziel and his companion, tumbling down through a swirling vortex of alien souls; delivered by the tides of chaos to the shore of reality.”
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Unable to do anything else, Kain clung to the stone, believing in some superstitious way that the only reason he hadn’t been killed so far as the fact that he had it. The artefact trembled violently in his grasp seemingly to want to burst out from his hands and fly away.
He curved in on himself, clutching his knees in a foetal position, becoming a streamlined ball that travelled faster and faster. There seemed to be no end to his journey, carried swiftly on with nothing to slow him down.
“Kain.” It was another voice, speaking to him out of the chaos, It was a familiar voice, a voice that had burned itself into his subconscious eons ago. His eyes snapped open wide and he beheld that travelling with him, matching his speed was a faint orb of blue light. It was almost directly in front of his face and its presence was the same as the voice; familiar to the point where it hurt.
He could not say how but he knew it was her; the one person for whom he might have been selfishly tempted to alter the time stream to allow her to become his Empresses.
“Follow me, Kain.” Her essence, her soul, told him and to his surprise Kain found that he could follow her.
The blue sphere drifted away from him and he followed in its wake, drifting through the storm of colour.
The spheres all around him began to wail, a despairing sound of thousands upon thousands of voices all joined together in a song of despair.
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 “The guiding light led my back, back to the world I knew; a blessed lighthouse guiding me to safety.”
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There was a way out, a light at the end of the tunnel. The blue sphere increased the speed of her voyage towards it. Kain followed, the sight of that whiet light filling him with hope of escape.
The wail all around him increased in volume, reaching up to a mighty deafening crescendo. The vampire’s ears felt like they were going to burst for it was so loud, his head throbbing like a pulsating heart.
There was a condensing sensation, as if his entire being were being squeezed through a very small opening and then…
Cold.
He could feel the cold all around him, falling on him building up around him. He drew in the air, it was like ice.
Kain pushed his eyes open and found himself looking down across a hillside, covered in thick snow.
Thick flakes were falling all around him, obscuring the horizon and anything else outside of a few meters. As he sat up, he had to shrug about two inches of snow off his back. Clearly he had been lying there for some time even though it had seemed like only an instant.
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“I had no way of knowing where I was, or when I was.”
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He coughed and turned to lie on his back, letting his body recover some strength. Gazing up at the sky he could see a pale dim glowing orb high up, concealed by an overcast bank of clouds. Ironically, for a vampire, the sun was a welcome sight.
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“But the sky was there, the ground was there and everything else I would expect to see.”
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He didn’t know what had happened to Raziel and Ewoden. He couldn’t sense them nearby or within the range of his mind sense. He had to assume, and hope, that if he had managed to make it so had they.
The vampire felt weak, badly in need of blood to replenish his energies but nevertheless he was very much alive and out of the grip of his enemies.
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“Regardless of my specific destination I had returned to Nosgoth.”