Kain stood facing the shrivelled old man with a grim expression. Around the both of them, Ashar was busy scratching a strange arcane circle into the ground. It was a complex encircling display with many rune like patterns and markings. From the style Kain could see it was a pattern not of Hylden make, but rather a design done in the artistic style of the ancient vampires. Possibly Ba’al had even past the knowledge of this magic onto the Hylden king through the fragments Kain had carried inside him the whole time.
The vampire knew of some magic, ancient and modern, but the nature of this circle eluded his reasoning. When he did not know how the mechanism that would change him so much worked it left him feeling very uneasy.
He was entrusting his life to a Hylden, perhaps not the possible sensible idea in the world. Still, with his body dangerously weakening and a promised remedy at hand, what choice did he have? He cast a sidelong look back over his shoulder at Umah, standing there off to one side. She had no eyes but he could tell she was watching him unblinkingly.
Their union was not what he imagined it might be, had he ever suspected even for a moment there was a way for her soul to evade the death of her body. It caused him no small amount of mixed emotions, the chief amongst them being a kind of jubilant confusion. That she did not bare him unequalled malice for the taking of her life was cause enough to be relieved. That she hinted as her desire to be with him, as an empresses, if need be was an event so cataclysmically wonderful that Kain almost felt as if he could break the back of the false god with his bare hands.
Briefly, the sceptical and argumentative side of him rang its alarm bell, warning him that it was altogether possible she was using his feelings of guilt to manipulate him. He smiled at that. Of course she was manipulating him, but not in the way his age old paranoia thought she would. Umah was perhaps the one person he could trust to be true to her motivations. Even Raziel did not have that single-mindedness.
All prior experience told him to abandon this idea was treat her as he treated any player in the game; with scepticism, scorn and the utmost watchfulness. His instincts however which he trusted more than his experience, was telling him something else; that this time, perhaps ONLY this time, he could let his defences drop.
Ashar finally finished his scratching and stood up to admire his work and check it for mistakes. The circle was very complex and interwove about itself like a braid in a woman’s hair. There were four larger symbols set like the four points of a compass.
Kain recognised two of them from his studies of ancient vampire culture. There was the symbol for joining to his left and directly across from it was another marking indicating unity. The other two, one at his feet and the other at Ezekiel’s he did do know.
“Once I begin the ritual I cannot stop.” Ashar told them both, standing just outside the outer edge of the design with his hands clasped together in front of him. His helmet turned to regard the old human levelly. “If you wish to preserve your life, human, now is the time.”
Ezekiel actually looked surprised by the reminder.
“Preserve my life?” He repeated with a raised eyebrow. “What for?” He looked at them each in turn and then gestured, somewhat theatrically, at his emaciated chest.
 “Look at me. I’m an old shrivelled wreck of a man.” He declared and there was a bitter self mockery in his tone. “Even if I did turn away all I’d have to look forward to is perhaps another year of life before I die in my sleep.”
That was perfectly true and the briefest glance at the old man was enough to confirm his words. Ezekiel was old by their standards, possibly ancient and he was approaching the end of a life filled with pain. The old human lowered his arms wearily then forces himself to stand as erect as possible, his back stiff, chin up and his eyes proud.
“Do it.” He told Ashar. “Let my ancestor’s line die with the dignity of my choice.”
Kain felt a surge of unbidden respect for the old man. Few humans he had ever met had displayed such courage, especially in their dotage.
Ashar began to raise his hands, spreading them wide over the edge of the design with his face lowered reverently to the floor. Kain knew the beginnings of an arcane rite when he saw one and quickly he held up a restraining talon, taking a step out of his intended place for the ritual.
“One moment.” He said, catching the Hylden kings attention. Ashar hesitated and the helmet he used for a head looked up quickly with the clink of metal on metal.
“Kain, time ‘is’ of the essence.” He said pointedly. The vampire fixed his gaze on the old man before him.
“This will not take long.” Kain assured him, crossing over to the perplexed looking human. Ashar lowered his hands back down with a resigned sort of grunt.
“Very well.” He acquiesced grudgingly. Kain strode across the carved platform on the floor until he was perhaps only a few inches away from the old man.
There was a long protracted moment of silence as the two of them stared at each other,
“Ezekiel, you claim to have knowledge of my sister.” Kain began in a deliberately neutral tone of voice.
Ezekiel shrugged with the creaking of old bones.
“Ester was my ancestor.” He said in an offhand sort of way. “It was she who charged her descendants to guard the mortal heart of her brother.”
“Why?”  Kain asked in as direct a voice as he could manage. Ezekiel smiled at the bluntness and managed to look amused.
“Is love for her brother so alien a concept for you?” He asked with an arched eyebrow, cracked lips apart in a grin Kain squinted at him with an incredulous expression.
“Love?” He repeated with some heat. “She conspired to have me murdered.”
Ezekiel did not appear overly upset by Kain accusation and spread his arms in a mollifying sort of gesture.
“The necromancer convinced her that the end of your mortal life was inevitable and necessary, a pre-destined event.” He said. “But that she could help preserve your existence in your new state.” He looked the vampire directly in the eye. “I am the lifeline she made for you.”
There was no pride or arrogance in his voice. He said it was if he were stated cold hard fact and Kain saw that it was not the duty itself that he took pride in but rather in the action of carrying it out, the fulfilment of a trust given to him.
Ezekiel’s gaze did not waver from his for an instant.
“She did it all for you, the only one of her brothers she ever really loved.” Kain stood there motionless remembering that brief blip of time when he had been a human adolescent, growing up having to scheme against his elder brothers to remove them from the line of succession and protecting himself against the plots of his younger ones. Eventually he had won out over them all and had survived till manhood, all thanks to the protective hand and guidance of his sister.
There was an opportunity here, however slim, to speak with her essence through the old man. The vampire knew it was a silly sort of thing to entertain but he smiled at the old man.
“If, perchance, you meet her on the other side....” He began somewhat whimsically, his grin showing off his fangs.  “....tell her that she is forgiven.”
Ezekiel looked at him pointedly and then he too began to grin, lips parted in the shared mirth.
“I will do that.” He promised with equal whimsy. With a chuckle bubbling in his throat, Kain turned and proceeded back across the ritual marking to his designated position.
That had been the final thing to set straight in his mind, the last thread to cut with his past. The final cords were being cut that linked Kain the human, Kain the vampire and the Scion of Balance, so that he might finally take the role he wished to take, rather than being forced to slip back and forth between them.
“Now Ashar, you may proceed.” He said, gesturing for the Hylden king to resume where he had left off as he resumed his place and stance. Despite lacking a face, Ashar seemed to roll his eyes in exasperation. He fixed his metallic arms and held them up into position once more. His head hung again and slowly he let his fingers uncurl, palm down towards the circle.
Kain felt his body tense involuntarily and violently he forced it to relax. His anxious mind however stubbornly refused to unbend and remained as tightly wound as a spring.
Ashar began to mutter something under his breath, the word coming rapidly and so quiet that the vampire could not make them out. It was a rumbling blur of words in a language that was only faintly familiar and perhaps, if he listened careful enough, he could hear the recognisable words from the ancient vampire tongue.
As Ashar began his incantation the chamber began to visibly darken, shadow lengthening and growing more distinct. The temperate began to drop dramatically, the breath of those in the chamber with living bodies turning visible in white puffs of vapour.
Then from below came a light, pale and tenuous at first and then with growing strength. Turning to look down Kain saw that the design etched beneath his feet was emitting the glow, the lines outlined in a luminous pulsing aura.
That aura grew brighter and brighter until it stung the eyes to look at it. Flinching, Kain held his talons in front of his face and squinted hard.
Ashar’s mutters were growing louder and he slowly descended until he was on one kneel his hands held out over the carving. Then quite suddenly, he reached the crescendo of his incantation and his whisper turned into a vast shout on the last syllable. As the sound of his voice echoed through the chamber, he brought his hands down on the floor.
When they connected with the symbol etched before him, the light became a blinding suddenly flash.
Everyone around him seemed to vanish in that flash, devoured by the light. Kain yelled out and clasped his hands over his eyes trying to keep it from blinding him but the intensity of his burst through his talons.
Every one of his senses seemed to be assaulted all at once. He could feel the light searing his skin .He could hear only a vast roar in his ears. He could taste only a distasteful metallic tang on his tongue. His nostrils seemed to be invert and no scent carried to him. His eyes were an agony even when closed.
Then the light seemed to dim a little but maintain a painful presence. Kain risked opening an eye, peering out through the gaps in his talons.
Both he and Ezekiel were engulfed, surrounded and encapsulated by a sphere of light; a powerful nimbus that enclosed them so utterly it was impossible to see beyond it. The outer edge of the carving upon the floor was all the ground they were permitted to use while inside and it seemed as if the glowing sphere were being made and sustained by the markings themselves, the light feeding up into the surrounding sphere.
The ball of light swirled with many colours, reds and greens crossing with yellows and violets all mixing together and crisscrossing back and forth. As each pearl of colour flew in its orbit it was accompanied by a swelling whistling that seemed almost but no quite like human speech, the accent unmistakably Hylden. Where these the souls of the Nexus Stone which Ashar was using as necessary energy for the ritual to succeed?
Ezekiel stood there looking around at the encircling light with a reverent expression on his old wizened face, as if he beheld the face of god in his final hour.
Then the pain began.
It started as no more than a strange sort of pressure he could feel just beneath his collar bone, a rough spot nearly sensitive. Then that sensation grew, the pressure and feeling of ‘pushing out’ became stronger and stronger.
Kain caught his breath, clenching his teeth together with fangs backed as he felt his very chest began to pulse. He clutched at his chest with both hands as if trying to keep his insides from bursting out. It was an incredible agony that made his precious bouts of weakness and loss of strength seem meaningless by comparison.
Inside his own body, he could feel bits of his own flesh seem to rip and tear from the inside out, always pushing forward. It felt as if the bones of his very ribcage were party to this attempted desertion.
.
“I felt my body squirm and writhe. It felt as if the veins and arties riddling my body were alive and wriggling like a constricted snake. The dull ache in my chest threatened to grow, to envelop me and destroy me. Death waited patiently off to one side, watching my struggle for survival with unblinking eyes and infinite resolve.”
.
On the far side of the engraving, Ezekiel was gasping and writhing almost brought to his knees by what could only be the same sensation.
Then, there was blood. All Kain’s mind was able to register in that moment was the presence of a lot of blood. Then when his other senses intruded themselves on him and his mind started to take details, he slowly turned his head to look down at his own chest. His ribcage had spontaneously bent open, swung wide like a rusty gate. His inside organs were on horrible display, a deep black cavity between his heaving yellow lungs where a heart should be.
Blood splattered in thick steaming puddle before him, gore and wore dripping from his hideously large wound.
On the far side of the sphere of light away from him Ezekiel stood there, swaying from side to side. Kain looked up despite the agonising pain to see that the old human’s chest had burst open as well. He had the usual arrangement of internal organs, but with one exception. Underneath a heart that looked grey and tired, was a stronger larger one that beast with far more firmness and strength.
So there it was, his human heart, the heart Mortanious had removed from him the day he had become a vampire.
Suddenly, the thick blue veins encrusting that heart reared like a snake, detaching themselves from the old man’s flesh. With a sudden stabbing motion they seemed to lance impossible out, crossing the distance between them. With a crunch those veins bit deep into Kain’s own body and burrowed in. The pain was increased tenfold so sharply the vampire’s entire being swam on the verge of unconsciousness, slowly tipping over.
.
“Soon all thought was impossible and I surrendered to the oblivion of the pain.”
.
.
.
Outside the bubble of light, Ashar gave a grunt of collapsed down to both knees; although he kept his hands rigidly against the side of the sphere; keeping the ritual going. His metallic body trembled loudly, clattering against itself.
“Ashar!” Umah proclaimed, starting to come to his side.
“No!” He barked savagely at her, forcing the girl to come to a sudden stop. “Do not interrupt me!” Umah’s own armoured body halted in surprise at his vehemence.
“This is a complicated collection of forces I am attempting to control!” He told her, his voice strained and tired. “It is... taking... so...much effort!!”
Suddenly, there was a loud sullen boom from high above. It echoed down through the very rock above the ancient Hylden complex and shook the ground in a slight tremor that disturbed some dust into rising clouds.
“What was that?!” Umah asked shrilly and in great alarm. Ashar ignored the disturbance and kept his attention and mind fixed as much as he could on the sphere.
“I cannot be interrupted Umah!” He reminded her again.
There was another boom from above, and then another, and another; each succeeding one louder and more disturbing than its predecessor. The last one was so loud its echo caused some of the discarded pieces of Sarafan armour flying about the chamber to rattle.
From down the corridor leading to the forging chamber, a thick, muscular and furry shape came quickly bounding. It leapt into the chamber, even as it did so quickly reverting back to its human form; the man who ignored nakedness.
Ewoden, the Lycanthrope emissary, took only a minute to catch his breath before he began to splutter at them.
“Whatever you are doing, you had best hurry it up!” His face was pale and eyes wide, white with fear.
“I can’t!” Ashar hissed at him without turning around. “It’s taking all my strength to do this!”
Ewoden shook his head vehemently his demeanour and attitude like a frightened rabbit being hounded by foxes.
“You don’t have the time for this!” He said in a near panicked rush. “The castle up above us is under attack!”
At this Ashar did look back.
“What?!” He demanded, turning his head to look around sharply at him. He kept his hands firmly pressed to the side of the bubble of light.
“Who’s attacking?” Umah asked in alarm.
Ewoden looked amused, but also quite sick.
“Who else?” He asked almost weekly. “The Divus of course!”
There another loud boom from above and this time it as easy to recognise the origin of the sound and vibration, the impact of an intense projectile against solid stone.
“Homunculi are invading the mountaintop in the hundreds, all armed for battle.” Ewoden continued and he laughed, almost hysterically. “I have seen them, I know the home garrison of Fanum-Divus when I see it!”
He gestured directly up.
“Raziel-Divus himself has come to destroy us!”