Kain absorbed her words, his face creased into a deep frown. He had always wondered himself what force kept him alive once Raziel had ripped the Heart of Darkness out of his chest. By all logic he should have perished there and then and yet he still lived.
There had been sufficient distractions between then and now so that the mystery had become a secondary concern and he had not thought about it too extensively. What was more was that the dull aching pain and weariness that had settled upon him seemed to be coming from the vacant hole left by his chest. The absence of a heart had not bothered him before so why did his body miss it now?
“It seems I am in need of assistance more then a duel.” He was forced to admit, turning his head to look at Ophiel. She met his gaze blandly and as emotionlessly as before.
“You retrieved my broken body, even though your king and your god put me there in the first place.” He began intently turning to face her completely. They stood within arms reach of each other but the tension had gone from both of them and the golden haired humans in audience to their conversation relaxed somewhat.
“Why?” Kain asked.
Ophiel shrugged.
“For the one thing that truly occupies those here in the city of Fanum Divus.” She replied. She reached into her cloak and produced a small broach about the size of her palm. Engraved upon it was a polished icon of an open eye, directly in the centre of which were the pupil should be was the twisted Moebius ring. 
“Politics.” Ophiel added and Kain understood instantly that the emblem was the symbol of a faction.
Different factions existing, even permitted here? It seemed ludicrous.
“You would risk the wrath of God for politics?” He asked her, arching an eyebrow in a quizzical expression.
Ophiel stared at him silently for a long moment and then rolled her eyes as if in resignation.
“Those in the mortal coil can be god-fearing as is proper to their station.” She said with a gesturing nod towards the golden haired slaves that stood all around them. A few of them hung their heads and did not look at her for that remark.
“But those ascended to affix the grand title of ‘Divus’ to their name are beyond that.” The hint of pride in her voice was unmistakable and Kain scowled for it. “We stand at the right hand side of our Lord and God and we may interfere with events in the corporal world as we see fit.”
For a moment Kain processed what she had just said, the information filtering through everything he knew about the nature of the False God.
The laugh began as a low chuckle deep in his throat but then expanded, bubbling up out of him and growing louder.
The slaves around stared at him with wide eyes and stunned, confused expressions on their faces. Clearly his laughing was the last thing they expected.
Even Ophiel looked a little taken aback, her calm emotionless demeanour ruffled. She frowned, the action seeming to resettle her.
“And what may I ask, is so amusing?” She demanded. Kain ran a hand across his face, gritting his teeth to force himself to stop laughing.
“City of the holy angels… heaven itself… governed by such naïve fools!” He said, his chest still heaving with the effort. “The cosmic joke is almost too much to bear!”
Ophiel sharply turned away from him, sliding her faction pendant back inside her cloak with finality. Her long black hair covered most of her face hiding her eyes.
“Laugh all you wish, vampire.” She said a tad bitterly. “You do not know what it is like here.”
She made as if to walk away from him but stopped after several paces, spinning about and gesturing wide to the city all around them.
 “Fanum Divus is a city of infinite delight for the ascended.” She explained.  “We enjoy power, immortality, eternal dominion over the bodies and minds of the faithful.”
Now her emotionless state suddenly made sense to Kain and the laughter stifled in him and he regarded her afresh with this insight.
“And yet you are discontented.” He guessed. Ophiel made no attempt to deny it and in some measure seemed pleasured with his perception.
“There is one enemy that not even the sweet diversions of heaven can drive away.” She replied and now there was actual fear in her voice. “Boredom.”
When Kain’s inquiring look did not change she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, unwisely exposing her throat to him but Kain chose not to take chance of the opportunity.
“Eternal existence strains on us like an unbearable weight, a constant sour. We find distraction from that irritation in politics against each other, the more dangerous and controversial the better.”
She raised her hands to her face and ran them down past her neck.
“It is that or we risk going mad!” She added and the Golden slave race shifted back uneasily, if they were listening to something they knew could get them into trouble.
.
.
“Again the cosmic punch line was in fine form, for the city of the angels – the dominion of heaven, was suffering from the same affliction that brought low my own empire. With nothing left to strive for the immortals were growing decedent and stagnate in their minds and souls, precisely as the vampires who ruled with me had.”
.
.
Angels and demons had the same problems and could not, would not, unite to serve their common interest.
.
.
“I repressed an urge to laugh again only with some difficulty.”
.
.
Instead Kain cleared his throat to get her attention.
“You did not truly answer my first question.” He stated. Ophiel slowly lowered her head, her eyes coming down to meet his. Her emotionless mask was back again, a façade design to protect a mind that was only human, from her hopeless state.
“No I did not.” She admitted flatly. “It is not my place to discuss such things with you.”
Her tone was subtly different from her stat before and it seemed harsher, more critising. Kain felt himself stiffening with resentment. “My task here is merely to ensure you have recovered and that you remain here with the slave race who can sustain you, until you can be put to use.”
Kain set his lips, realizing that they were finally at the inevitable confrontation of desires between them.
“Lord Asmoedus will speak with you when he pleases on these matters.” Ophiel added and seemed to want to add more but he cut her off.
“Then clearly we have come to an impasse.” He put in sharply “I have no intention of remaining here at the sufferance of whatever scheme a faction of blasé Angels has hatched.”
Ophiel straightened her back and the tension was right back in the air again. The humans reacted to it, remaining where they were but straining, clearly wishing not to be here. It was only whatever hold Ophiel had over them culturally that held them in place.
“You have little choice.” She replied. “I will not permit you to leave.”
Kain snorted and turned to look at one of the humans blocking an exit. The man could be torn through to pass if necessary and clearly the human knew it, his face turning pale but he held his ground.
“Your permitting is not necessary.” He said, overly loud in order to pass his words more to her subordinates then Ophiel. “Your choice is either to stand in my way or step aside. Which will it be?”
The human’s eyes darted from his Divus to the vampire and back again.
“Do not do this Kain.” She said from behind him. “You need only wait…” He cut her off with a gesture of one hand.
“We are done talking, Ophiel.” He said with finality and then looked the man blocking his way full the face. “What is your choice?”
The man was frozen solid, his eyes staring past Kain pleadingly to Ophiel. Clearly the decision whether he lived or died rested entirely with her.
Ophiel tilted her head to one side, shaking it slowly.
“Your barbaric ignorance shows, vampire.” She said coldly. “I need not stand in your way to impede your progress.”
She made a gesture with a hand and the human salves backed off, their faces filled with an intense relief at being allowed to get of harms way. They backed off down the corridors and once they were a safe distance they began to run, the sound of their footsteps fading off.
Now it was just the two of them.
“I will find my way out.” Kain said without turning around. Ophiel turned her back as well.
 “If that is the way we have to play this then so be it.” She took ahold of her cloak and pulled it tighter around her body, stepping forward. As she did so her body was surrounded by a pale luminescence and she disappeared into the midst of a translocation.
If she could teleport inside Fanum-Divus then clearly it was not magic but some other form of power. That left Kain at a great disadvantage here, if his enemies could use it and he could not.
.
.
“I didn’t know what machinations worked in the upper echelons this of strange society that governed this impossible city but I would not leave myself at their mercy. I would find return to Nosgoth no matter how much Ophiel tried to circumvent me.”
.
.
If Fanum-Divus followed logical hierarchy then the chambers and levels of the slave masters would be above. How much further above was still in question.
.
.
“If Raziel-Divus had a means to travel between here and Nosgoth, as I strongly suspected from his confronting me in the Chronoplast, then I would make use of it But first, I needed to find a way out of the slave’s level to ascend.”