With a loud ringing clank, a slender metallic figure dropped down out of the gap in the chamber’s ceiling and landed between Kain and the advanced horde of possessed armour. It was another of their king and as it straightened up Kain recognised it instantly as Ashar. Moving fast the Hylden king turned and snatched the Nexus Stone out of the vampires hands. He lifted it high in one gauntlet and turned to face his fellows.
The horde stumbled back as one, the foremost scrambling desperately over their fellows to get away from the artefact. Their fiery reserve and madness had been broken at the sight of the Stone in Ashar’s hands.
“No, anything but that!” The one who had been, until a few moments ago, threatening Kain with a deformed broadsword said.  There was no face by which to gauge reactions but the armour was trembling in fear.  “Not the spire of madness again!” Ashar grimly stepped forward, the stone out before him.
“I am truly sorry...” He said as the artefact he had created began to respond to his will. Its centre piece emitted an ethereal green illumination. As its construction, Kain supposed, he could do more with the stone in his possession. “I do this not out of spite, but out of necessity.”
The Nexus Stone’s glow changed from a dull throb into a blaring glare of intense light, filling the entire chamber to a brightness so intense Kain had to cover his eyes. Watching over the tops of his talons he saw the light seemingly tugging at the souls within the armoured bodies before it. All of the possessed armours had stopped frozen to the spot like a statue of ice, their glowing insides merging with the light all around them like water joining with more of itself. There were agonised screams from somewhere, the vampire could tell where but those faded into a uniform noise that absorbed all others and rattled his bones. The light and the sound became so intense that Kain tried desperately to blot of his senses for their assaults his brain like fire.
Then abruptly it was over. The light and roaring noise disappeared and everything was plunged back once more into darkness. Kain blinked and lowered his talons away from his face and looked out at what had happened. The armoured bodies of the horde were still standing but the interior illumination was gone and they were just empty shells. Then one by one the armours fell over, toppling backwards or forward with loud clatters to the ground. The domino effect had them falling in a continual crash until the last of them had fallen outside the chamber. The echoes of their fall resounded in the tunnels and there was silently for a long moment afterwards.
The only remaining armour still standing was Ashar himself. His interior light had not faded and he appeared unaffected by what he had just stone. With his armour rattling against itself he straightened and lowered his hand with a regret filled sigh.
“It is done...” He said heavily. “All but two of the souls have been returned to the stone.” Kain looked towards him sharply.
“Two?” He repeated with a heavy frown.
“Myself and another...” Ashar admitted candidly but turned to face him.  The helmet was incapable of showing expressions but Kain got the impression from the Hylden king that he was distracted by intense inner guilt. “But we will get to that later.”
Panting with his tongue lulling out, Ewoden stumbled into the chamber through the cluttered mess of warped armour. He was bleeding from dozens of cuts across his body and one arm was hanging limply to one side, his usually bushy tail dragging on the ground. With grunts of pain his flesh receded down as he morphed into human form, the injuries remaining.
Naked, dirty and blood smeared he slumped against the side of a wall.
“I won’t be doing that for you again.” He told Kain with a glare towards the vampire, lips pulled down with his pain. “So don’t bother asking.”
“Duly noted.” Kain replied as flatly and turned away, having reassured himself the emissary’s wounds were not fatal. The animosity that had grown between them would continue but for now Ewoden seemed too tired to advance it.
Ashar was looking into the stone in his hand. With another sigh he turned and handed the artefact back to Kain. The vampire looked at it and then gingerly picked the thing up, quickly attaching it back to his wrist. It slid back into place on his gauntlet with ease, connecting with clicks. The thought of so much power strapped to him were more than a little disconcerting.
“Now, as we agreed...” The Hylden king asked with a quizzical note to the end of his voice, expectant and entreating. Kain grunted in annoyance, drew in his breath and then sighed. He had been forced to agree to this in order to be shown the alternate entry to the forge chamber.
“Yes... very well.” He reluctantly said, facing the Hylden king full on. Ashar approached him, standing directly in front of the vampire. The armour laid its gauntlets on either side of his head upon his shoulders.  Kain stared into the armoured faceplate before him, his face fixed in a rigid tense expression.
Time seemed to drag on in silence as nothing happened and standing there, Kain began to wonder if Ashar was indeed acting on reliable information at all. Then he felt a sharp tug, deep inside him. He could feel it right where his heart ought to be, in the cavity left by the absence of the Heart of Darkness. It pulsed inside him as if it was pushing against the boundaries of its container within. Gasping in pain he brought a hand to his chest, heavy deeply trying to breath and not quite able to fill his lungs each time. He could feel whatever it was within him moving, sliding painfully through his flesh, moving up his chest and past his collar bone.
The vampires neck bulged as the thing inside him began to slide back up his throat. It blocked his windpipe and Kain clutched at his neck struggling for breath.
Then with a violently wrench, the thing erupted into his mouth and then out into the air, thousands of small dark obsidian rock fragments. Vomiting up the obstruction Kain gagged and staggered back, collapsing onto his backside gasping for air and coughing hoarsely. His throat felt like he had tied sword swallowing with the Soul Reaver.
.
“The pieces of the stones Ba’al had so cunningly allowed me to absorb were extracted and the Hylden king viewed the pieces as if reading a book, his attention enwrapped.”
.
Rubbing his throat Kain looked up to see Ashar standing out, hand outstretched. Over his upturned palm the fragments that had erupted from the vampire’s mouth were slowly spinning around an axis, each piece glowing slightly but still showing their black obsidian material. The Hylden king’s body language was rigid and alert, head tilted forward intently towards the spinning material that had once been the Tablets of Dark Fable. Kain wondered if it had been their presence inside his body that had caused his periodic attacks of numbing weakness.
Ashar ignored all else but the fragments whirling before him and Kain, despite his sore throat and irritation for that extraction, found himself waiting for him to respond.
“Oh!” Ashar started with apparent surprise, tilting his head back suddenly. Kain staggered back up to his feet and Ewoden looked up, confusion on his face.
“Ingenious!” The Hylden king declared with jubilation.  He clenched his fist and the fragments swirled even faster, spinning so fast they blurred. “My faith in Ba’al was not misplaced!” He volunteered no more than that, his attention enwrapped again. Kain waited for him to speak but the Hylden king was too busy absorbing whatever information had been left for him.
“My patience and time are wearing quite thin.” The vampire eventually said into the silence with some annoyance. After that painful extraction he wanted to know exactly what Ba’al had to say that would make it worth it.
Ashar turned the helmet of his armoured body to look at him.
“Yes... time...” He said a cryptically and then waggled a finger in the vampire’s direction. “Ah... yes, you are running out of time.”
Kain started in surprise as Ashar turned back to the fragments. He had not told the Hylden king about his need.
“Yes he explains it here.... yes... yes...” The armoured figure paused and then nodded in firm confirmation. “Ah I see. We will have to act quickly to remedy this.”
Kain stood there dumbfounded. He shook his head to clear himself, trying to absorb the implications but it left him feeling dizzy.
“What?” He asked instead in a state of growing shock, sounding a little stupid despite himself. Ashar gave him an amused sort of look, as much as his blank helmet allowed.
“According to the information left for me, you ought to now be suffering from a numbing weakness that if left unchecked threatens to destroy you.” Once more the vampire was struck dumb. He stared at the Hylden king with mounting incredulity.
“You mean to say Ba’al knew this would happen in advance?” He asked, his voice rising as he spoke and taking on a hard and angry edge. Ashar waved a hand to despise his accusation.
“Not in too great a detail but he made arrangements.” He claimed and before Kain could open his mouth to say anything else he asked something. “It says you were created using the heart of Janos Audron, the blood of the ancient vampire race correct?” Kain paused and the  nodded grimly.
“That is right...” The vampire replied and laid a hand on his chest. “But the heart was wrenched from me.” Ashar appeared quit surprised by this intelligence and glanced back and forth between Kain and the fragments he was so enwrapped in.
“And yet you live, without a heart?” He asked incredulously and shaking his head. “That is quite impossible.” Kain did not know what magic’s allowed him to survive and really didn’t care so long as they worked and so dismissed it.
“I have no other heart.” He said but was surprised when Ashar raised a finger in contradiction, wagging it back and forth.
“Oh but you do!” He said with a bit of a chuckle. “Your original heart.” He laid a finger directly over the left hand side of Kain’s chest. “Your human heart.” Kain batted the gauntlet away irritably.
“No doubt that organ was discarded by Mortanious when he raised me from the dead as a vampire.” He said.
“According to this it was not.” The Hylden king cut in. Again Kain was stunned and his eyes widened at the full implications of what Ashar seemed to be saying began to fully dawn on him.
“What are you saying?” He asked in a low tone. Ashar tuned his head to look towards the entrance to the chamber and where Ewoden was sitting up, looking at them with a puzzled expression.
“Is there an old man with you?” The Hylden king asked expectedly. Kain blinked and slowly turned and, as he had half subconsciously expected, Ezekiel was hobbling his way into the chamber clutching his arm to his side.
“I presume you are talking to me?” The old man asked, coming towards them with his voice strangely reverent and full of emotion. Kain just stared at him as he came right up to him.  Ashar regarded the old human with a puzzled slant to his head, seemingly as if judging the worthiness of the human before him.
“You are the scion of the mortal line?” The Hylden king asked a little sceptically.
“I am.” Ezekiel replied with a wide smile. He gestured with his chin down towards his chest. “And I carry the heart with me as it was entrusted.” Kain glanced back and forth between them with growing irritation, frustration and annoyance causing him to growl.
“I don’t understand, what is this?!” He demanded, his patience finally expired. Ezekiel blinked and looked at him, surprised at being addressed. Then he smiled ruefully and looked apologetic.
“You were quite right vampire.” He said “I was not forthright with you.” As Kain rankled the old man gestured around at the chamber and by extension the tunnels and the Bastion above. “I came here to this castle, expecting you.”
Then he faced Kain and he straightened his back, standing with some strength and pride he had not seen the old man display before.
“I am off your bloodline.” He announced in a challenging tone. “Your human bloodline.” Kain stared at him with wide eyes and the old man carried on dropping the final mental blow.  “I am the decedent of your sister, Ester. Her ultimate grandson.”
.
“The implications of all of this were surging together, connecting and coalescing into a picture of cooperation between two parties I thought never knew one another.”
.
Before his eyes he remembered his beloved eldest sister giving him the last of her tasks for him, sending him south to the city of Freeport and telling him to break his journey at the uneventful town of Ziegsturhl. In fact, she had been insistent that he stop here, saying that she did not want him on the road all night.
“It was Ester who sent me south...”The vampire breathed in growing comprehension. Ezekiel nodded.
“Where you were murdered by Brigands, yes.” The old man finished his thought for him. The anger that exploded from within was like an intense inferno, erasing all his thoughts and feelings and leaving him only with an incredibly powerful fury.
“She knew!?” He bellowed, his yell echoing through the chamber and the passageways outside. Ezekiel stood right before him and took that shout at point blank range without flinching.
“Yes, she knew.” He confirmed in a flat tone. “Mortanious the necromancer persuaded her to assist him in his efforts to purify the circle of nine.”
.
“The sense of betrayal was a living thing throughout my entire being, every hair, every cell of my body was boiling with barely suppressed rage.”
.
“The heart of Darkness was used to create you... but Mortanious feared your body might reject the organ.” Ezekiel was explaining but Kain only barely heard him through his mounting rage. “So he placed your human heart aside for safe keeping, so that it might beat for you if your life was threatened.” The old man slipped his a cowl back over his head and began to unfasten his dark black cloak, loosening it from around his shoulders. “And this is the means by which you survive without a heart. You still have one but it is not inside you.”
He discarded the cloak completely and stood there naked to the waist. Across his withered, pale and nearly emaciated chest was a massive anger looking scar that ran the entire width of his torso. “I have your heart... it lies inside me.” He said, laying a hand on his left breast where the scar was jagged.
“It has been passed down from generation to generation in my line and I am the last.” Ezekiel said with tired reverence. “I have lived just long enough to deliver it back to you.”
Silence endured then and all those around him were looking at the vampire expectedly, waiting for his reaction. Kain gave the only reaction that came naturally at that moment in time. Snarling with fangs bared he swept his arm down in a dismissive gesture.
“No... no I will not endure this a moment longer!” All his resentment for those who would use them for their own ends, sending him to suffer and die for their agendas came boiling out of him reaching the surface from their repressed bottled up state. Moebius, Ashar, Mortanious, Ariel, Ba’al and even Ester were all the same!
“Manipulation, coercion and misdirection! I will have none of it!” This time he was not going to entertain fates cruel jokes. He would walk away and let things be as they would. “I cannot trust even my own birth kin, long since dead!”
Ashar looked unmoved by the outburst.
“I had suspected you might feel that way.” He admitted with a shrug. Kain spat at his feet and turned to leave.
“I will have nothing more to do with any of you!” The vampire said making towards the exit. Ashar stared after him.
“Perhaps, perhaps not.” The Hylden argue said in an amused tone not sounding particularly surprised at all. “But I know someone you might want to want to have something to do with.” Kain froze in mid step as Ashar softly called out past him to the corridor outside. “My dear, it is time.”
Something out there was moving. He could hear it, the echoing click of metal on stone drawing closer and closer. A shape seemed to form out of the darkness, coming towards the light inside the chamber. The figure was slender and tall but not quite as tall as himself. Almost immediately he saw that it was another of the possessed armours Malek had foolishly laid out only different from the others he had seen.
Whereas those armours with a Hylden soul inside them had extruded a sickly yellow glow, this one had a pale violet light coming from within the gaps of the armour. The armoured figure strode with swaying hips betraying a feminine disposition and as she entered the light Kain could make out more details. The Sarafan armour had been warped by the possession but not in the same way the others had been. Her armour was sleek across the thighs and breastplate; engraved runes disappeared to become unblemished chrome. The helmet was made of a visor and a month guard, now delicately morphed to the proportions of a slender feminine face, engraved with arched markings across the chin and cheeks. Atop the helmet was a plume of jet black hair hair, tied back high and swinging to waist level down the back.
It did not take Kain longer then a moment to recognise who was coming towards him. It was not the unique marks on what passed for a face nor even the more then familiar body language that informed him, but rather the sense of presence; the firm and solid feeling of recognition that hit him.
Kain froze rigid, head tilting back and eyes widening.
 “....no...” He breathed slowly shaking his head.
The figure came right up to him, looking directly at him. She had no eyes to make eye contact but he could feel her gaze on him nonetheless, an intense penetrating gaze and in that gaze Kain felt the whole crushing weight of judgement.
“Death in Nosgoth it seems is not a barrier impenetrable.” Her voice echoed the last confirmation of her identity. Kain’s very brain seemed to recoil in upon itself, grief, guilt, self loathing all released from the dam he had built within his mind to hold it back.
“You can’t be here...” He began his words his last flimsy attempt at a defence. She cocked her head at him.
“Can I not?” She asked and then reached over to tap the Nexus Stone on his arm. “Do you forget Kain, that the Nexus Stone’s power is so great that the soul of anyone who died close to it is draw inside?” The vampire went rigid in the presence of the armour that held the soul of she who could have been his queen placed her hand upon his chin and forced him to regard her.
“We meet again, Kain.” Umah said.