With the main door to Ba’al’s chamber locked and sealed, Kain was left with no other option except to explore for some alternative means of entry. If his memory of the general lay out of the Citadel was correct then this chamber would be buried in rubble in the future, along with any passages leading within.
Exploring the outside corridors left him frustrated as no doors lead inside. It would seem the only way in was that main door; or at least that was what he almost accepted until he past a decayed mural.
The image on the wall was that of Ba’al himself standing erect and proud before the eight other members of the Circle of Nine. What made Kain stop to examine it was not the imagery however, but rather the sensation of moving air coming from cracks between the stonework. There was an open space behind the façade of a solid barrier.
One kick sent the thin covering into pieces, cascading into small fragments that tumbled down the revealed tunnel. The passageway was not very large, covered in thick spider webs and pitch black a few feet within.
With no other option Kain advanced inside, brushing the faint white veils out of his face with one arm.
The tunnel twisted and turned but his sense of direction told him that he was going in the right direction. All he needed was to get close enough to knock a hole in slimmer wall.
Suddenly however the tunnel opened up and then dropped down into a large chamber of some kind, too large for Kain to see if the tunnel carried on out of it or if this was a mere dead end.
Holding up one hand he called forth the useful magic light, casting a purple haze of illumination over the walls.
He frowned as he beheld a large vaulted room with its roof lose in an overhead sea of cobwebs, the spinners retreating into their lairs to escape the light. The room was almost perfectly square, with high walls that reached up a good twenty feet. The general layout of this chamber however tinted at some religious purpose, with a far alter set into a corner.
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“This place was clear intended for worship, but many year’s worth of dust on the floor and walls told me that it had not been used for quite some time. The architecture and style was quite different from the outside more recent temple devoted to the False God and his lackeys.”
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Intrigued, Kain cast his gaze over the room noting ever detail. It was then he noticed as he moved forward, his feet brushed the dust on the floor out of the way. Underneath was a pattern of some kind, engraved into the floor itself. Holding up one hand, Kain sent a miniature wave of telekinetic force across the surface and the dust was brushed out of the way, moving aside like a tidal wave to reveal the coloured patterns below.
He knelt and studied them more closely, running a talon across them to read their lay in the overall design.
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 “These symbols were familiar to me. The ancient icons for fire, water, air and earth lay in a rectangle on the floor at the four corners of a square. These symbols represented the elemental side of Ancient vampire culture and their belief in the ultimate subordination of all physical things to these governing forces.”
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He glanced up at the state of this sealed room, frowning in perplexity and disapproval. If this elemental belief was part of his ancestor’s culture then why had they shut this place away? Was the belief in these forces an older faith, before being forsaken for a relatively new newer religion inspired by the voice of the False God?
He stood up again and looked over the floor from a greater height and from there he noticed other symbols, smaller than those for the elements.
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 “Arranged between the elements were other symbols set in a prevalent sequence and these puzzled me for I recognised them from the base of the Pillar’s themselves.”
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Around the larger image for Fire were the joined icons of Nature and Conflict. In orbit around Water were the inscribed symbols for States and Death. The image of Earth was joined by the smaller representations of Time and Energy. Air, as he had expected, was joined by the last two; Mind and Dimension.
They were also set in a square, although askew from the first.
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 “T’would seem even the aspects of the Pillars were bound to the Elements.”
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Having learnt all that he could from this place Kain looked up and saw that the tunnel did indeed carry on past this chamber. With a final glance around he left, pushing his way once again into a mere impenetrable forest of cobwebs. At one time, a spider the size of his head screeched angrily for being disturbed and almost launched itself at him. Kain merely squashed it with one foot and carried on.
The tunnel twisted sharply to the right, curving until finally it came to an abrupt stop. Ahead, the passageway had collapsed. Rubble blocked his way forward, but that did not matter now. In the side wall, was metal grill and Kain realised that he was in a corridor intended for the ventilation of the central chamber.
Through the gaps in the grate he could see the room beyond and hear someone talking, although the voice echoed too much for him to make out the words.
Kain paused in concentration and his body promptly broke apart into mist, dissolving into white haze that flowed forward and passed the insubstantial barrier.
Ba’al’s private chamber was round with a low ceiling angled down towards the centre of the room. Doorways lead to other chambers where he undoubtedly slept and studied but in this central room were stone tables and chairs.
At the far end of the room, holding something to his breast was the First Balance Guardian himself.
Up close Ba’al was quite a tall vampire with tied back grey hair and short beard. Kain realized that with a great ideal of irony the fledgling Vorador he had just seen had been imitating Ba’al’s appearance.
The first guardian of the Pillar of Balance was deep in meditation, the Blood Reaver laid across his lap. His hands were held out either side and from his lips came a myriad of strange words and incantations. The sword before him moaned and quietly shrieked in response.
Kain watched him for a moment before stepping from the shadows directly.
“Ba’al Zebur!” He declared. The winged Ancient started in alarm, his wings spreading instinctively and his eyes snapped open.
His face was deeply lined with the signs of age and as he swung about Kain could see that a good number of his feathers were grey instead of black. His whole demeanour that that of a man under the weight of a world of stress. Quickly he stood up and placed the Blood Reaver on top of a stone table in front of him.
“Who’s there?!” He demanded angrily turning around. “Who violates my own sanctuary?” Even as he finished speaking his eyes fell on Kain. The transformation of his face from furious resentment to stunned awe took place in a fraction of a moment and he stumbled back too stunned to remember even his own centre of balance.
For a long time he simply stared at Kain, his golden eyes wide with shock and his hands trembling beside him.
Kain imaged he looked somewhat strange to an Ancient of this time. He had the talons on hands and feet just like him but he had no wings and the evolution of the Dark Gift in him had left him with a far superior body with tinted skin and a ridge of horns upon his brow.
Slowly the First Balance Guardian remembered himself and managed to calm himself.
“Then… it is time…” He said almost to himself.
“You know me then?” Kain asked, approaching. Ba’al looked past him to the Reaver blade on his back and then turned to look in confusion at the sword he had lying on the stone table behind him. He glanced back and forth a few times before he swallowed hard.
“How could I NOT know you?” He asked, trying to steady himself. “I have seen your face with my waking eyes every night and yearning for your arrival with every fibre of my being.” He stood erect, drawing in his breath before bowing low in a gesture of deep respect.
“The Scion of Balance; hope of our race.”
Kain nodded briefly in acknowledgement of the gesture.
“And you do not seem overly surprised to see me.” He asked with a raised eyebrow. “I take then that you have had prior knowledge of my arrival here?”
“I had hoped you were coming.” Ba’al replied, letting his shoulders slump. “When she told me that you would, I did not know whether or not I could believe her.”
Kain narrowed his eyes sharply in a frown.
“Her?” He repeated. “Of whom do you speak?”  
The First Balance Guardian looked up at him, genuinely surprised.
“Then have you not yet realized?” He asked. When Kain did not speak he carried on. “It could only be she who sent you here, although I do not know how she compelled it, damned to imprisonment in the Eternal Prison by Janos Audron.” His expression then turned sad. “I tried to persuade him not to do that… but he and the others would not heed me. They could not tolerate her and so they locked her in that place with the enemy’s most notorious weapons Builder.”
Several tings clicked together in Kain’s mind as he groped towards an idea.
“But there can be no question of who directed you here.” Ba’al concluded and Kain’s frown deepened in his realization.
“The Seer…” He said slowly.
Ba’al nodded with a sly smile.
“The Hylden woman is indeed the wiliest person I have ever had the fortune to know.” He said and Kain looked sharply at him, for breaking his own edict that the Hylden were forever to be referred to as the ‘Unspoken’. “Her cunning and shrewd machinations are a match perhaps even for Moebius himself.”
“Enough of this.” Kain decided out load. “I am here for a purpose.
“Why else would you be here?” The Guardian asked. “I am to hazard a speculation then have come to know the truth, of your ultimate destiny and the nature of the role of the Scion in it.” He crossed his arms behind his back in a gesture that Vorador in his idolisation of Ba’al must have taken up. “Of the role of the Reaver blade and how and why it was intended for you.”
Kain nodded.
“You guess well on many points.” He said.
Ba’al looked at him sadly and then slowly shook his head, letting out a soft sigh of amused comprehension.
“And this I am afraid is where I must inform you have you have been the victim of the Seer’s Machiavellian ploys.”
The Scion of Balance stared at him.
“Explain!” He demanded. Ba’al’s expression turned to one of remote pity.
 “You come to me imagining that I am the writer of your tale, the one who set your destiny in stone.” He asked. Kain took an angry step forward, finally pushed past his limits of cordiality.
“You wrote the Tablets of Dark Fable did you not?” He demanded.
“That I did.” Ba’al confessed. “I was indeed the scribe… but I am not the author.” When Kain’s expression did not alter he carried on. “You see Scion; I was merely the instrument of destiny much like yourself. I simply do as instructed.” He rolled his eyes and smiled. “The Seer was given instructions as well and I helped her focus those instructions into linear thought.” He fixed Kain with a look. “It was the Seer herself who foresaw your coming.”
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 “So, not for the first time, I had been manipulated. Vorador’s ignorance on this matter I could forgive but the Seer had deliberately directed me here when the knowledge I needed had incipiently lain with her.”
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Kain scowled. He should have known… should have expected such treachery. But in his haste, a mistake he had long thought himself above making, he had not considered the true motives for those who had aided him along the way.
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 “She had sent me here to this distant time for some purpose of her own. When I found her again, as I knew eventually I would, she would explain her actions intimately… to the Reaver, if necessary.”
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He snarled and pushed the consideration out of his mind.
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 “However, what was done was done. I had no recourse now but to seek my destiny as she had laid out for me.”