“For a moment, just for a moment, I entertained the thought that it was merely a colossal coincidence. That these two apparently unrelated figures and persons had the same name only by sheer chance. And then I remembered I didn’t believe in coincidence.”
-
-
For one of the rare times in his life, Kain was at a loss for words. He stood there staring as the grandmaster of the Serioli order with a confused and stunned expression on his face. She looked back at him questioningly, unsure of what vexed him so.
-
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“But this concept I could not readily absorb. How was it possible that Raziel had been a prophet for the False God, untold eons before even his human birth? True enough I had seen his visage in the Citadel, but it had left me no clues as to how this was even remotely feasible.”
-
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He shook his head, recalling himself to the present.
“So Raziel was the prophet of the Wheel?” He asked, putting the question out of his mind and into the open. Ajatar tilted her head with a snort.
“Essentially. He showed them how to speak with this god… the ‘Oracle’ as it called itself.” She looked down at the Hylden symbol for the wheel of fate on the cave painting. “Between the two of them, Raziel and this voice from the deep turned our people away from the old believes to the newer faith.”
Her expression turned sour. “The zeal it inspired in even the humblest of soldiers is terrifying to behold.”
Another vampire with Ba’al’s point of view on the Wheel of Fate? Obviously it was no coincidence that she was his most trusted ally then.
“And the war?” Kain asked.
She hesitated then, brushing a few strands of her black hair out of her eyes.
“Fables and early documents say our world was fading, slowly dying at one time.” She began eventually, after a long contemplation on where to begin. “The land produced fewer crops with each coming season and no reason could be found for the darkening. When Raziel arrived to preach the Wheel to the people, he claimed it was the doing of the Unspoken; that their opening of the fiery realm that sustained them was corrupting the land. For this he shall always be remembered as ‘Raziel-Divus’.”
Kain looked at her expression, recognising hopeless disgust.
“Do you believe him?” He asked slowly.  Ajatar swung her arms wide in a shrug.
“It was centuries before I was born so how could I know for sure?” She asked. “The land recovered when the Pillars were raised and the Unspoken banished to be sure… but if you ask me what I suspect then I would say that he amended their reputation to be the scapegoats he needed.”
-
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“Such information left me more confused than enlightened and quite a bit disheartened. As I had suspected already there had been no one reason for the war with the Hylden. It was had been a complex issue, a mix of religious intolerance, xenophobia and misdirected fear. The parallels drawn to the later crusades of humanity against my kind were undeniable.”
-
-
He was silent for quite some time as he pondered this, thinking the unpleasant thoughts over until he could logical sort out their implications. Slowly a picture of the reality of the ancient world was forming in his mind. He did not have all the pieces yet but the picture had a disturbing quality to it already nonetheless.
“These …old ways you speak of. Do explain.” The vampire asked, breaking that silence. The woman brightened as this was clearly a subject close to her heart.
“The preservation of the old beliefs is a central part of the Seriloi Order, the study and mastery of the elements.” Ajatar stated proudly,
Kain glanced back to the warriors who were pretended, poorly, that they were not eavesdropping just around the corner. Realised they were discovered, they retreated back a ways with a few guilty coughs.
“The elements are the source of all power, even the aspects and principles of the Pillars themselves.”
He stepped back a pace, holding up both hands palm up. In one hand there was a flash and between her talons blazed a spark of magical flame illuminated the cave.
“Nature and Conflict - Fire.”
In the other hand, the moisture in the air was drawn out and condensed into a floating orb of liquid.
“States and Death - Water.”
She widened her palms and beside the spark of flames, the air itself swirled and became visible.
“Mind and Dimension - Air.”
Beside the orb of water, fragments from the ground joined together into a gently twisting mass of dirt.
“Energy and Time - Earth.”
Then she gently closed her hands, closing her talons around the powers she held. Fire and Air were fused together, becoming a bright orb of light in her left hand. In her right, Water and Earth merged and grew dim, flowing darkness in her grip.
“Together form Light and Darkness.” She said.
Kain watched in fascination, as did the Serioli warriors from a short distance away. Slowly Ajatar raised her arms, the two opposite forces pulsing in her hands. Then she took both Light and Dark, and pressed them together into one.
The merging was something that resonated through Kain’s very being as he stood this close.
“And when combined again, the paramount element... Balance, the Spirit.”
The flash of pure spirit was very brief but it was enough to stir the Reaver into muttering in a half daze and left Kain a bit disoriented.
“The Purifying element and the principle of the great forge in the Citadel of Tears.” Ajatar explained, letting her arms drop in exhausted relief as the combined force dissipated. Summoning purifying energy was no small feat and even she had only been able to do it for a very short period of time.
“I had hoped the prophecy would return our people to the Old ways… but I gleamed no such inviting prospects from the tablets.”
Still dazed it took Kain a few seconds longer to process this than usual. He blinked and looked right at her.
“Then you have them? The tablets of Dark Fable, the prophecy written by Ba’al and the Seer?” He asked her eagerly, anticipation building.
She sighed then and rolled her eyes.
“For all the good it does me.” The female vampire admitted. “I could not understand a word of their gibberish so I came here to try work out the Seer machinations, to find some clues to help me translate but so far to no avail.”  
She actually laughed.
“To think the fate of our race hinges on their lunacy.” She said sadly in disgusted resignation. “But beggars can not be choosers when it comes to near extinct hope.”
“Then at last we come to the reason I sought you out.” Kain pressed. “I need to view the Tablets.”
She looked at him almost pityingly in response.
“Ba’al told me the safety of those tablets was of paramount concern.” Ajatar mused. “But since you carry his seal then I suppose it may be safe to allow you to view the tablet I have.”
Kain’s heart sank like a stone.
“Tablet?” He repeated the singular word. “As in only ‘one’ of them?”
She nodded, confirming his fears.
“I felt the best way to protect them was not to keep them all in one place.” The reply almost made Kain holler in frustration. “I kept one and sent the others away.”
-
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“The end of my quest had been just within my grasp only to be snatched away once again. As infuriated at this slap in the face from fate as I was, I calmed myself with the knowledge that one tablet was better than none at all.”
-
-
It was a start and certainly given a bit of time he would be able to discover the location of the other three.
“Very well then, strange one.” Ajatar Cadere said suddenly in affirmation. She gestured over towards her warriors, who understood and came closer. They had sheathed their weapons but kept Kain at arms distance. “We shall permit you to see the Tablet if it is the desire of the Lord on High that you do.” The grandmaster fixed him with a hard glare. “Do not betray his trust or ours.”
The female vampire spread her arms outside and all five of them were surrounded by a faint, blue luminous nimbus and in a moment of insight and given his recent lecture on the natural of the elements Kain realized that translocations spells, being aligned with the Pillar of Dimension were governed by the Element of Air.
-
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“The surrounding environment shifted and changed as collectively, we bypassed space and distance and translocated away. When the shifting ceased and reality solidified, I recognised the entrance to the Serioli stronghold as it loomed large above us.”
-
-
It took Kain a short while to correct his sense of time and distance to account for the many miles they had crossed in a single instant. His own skill with teleportation’s was quite limited but clearly his Ancestors had been a great deal more proficient with it.
The Serioli stronghold looked as impregnable as ever and the faint shimmer of the protective shield in front of the door remained.
“Apsu… if you please.” Ajatar said, looking back to the warrior with the axe. Apsu was taller than the others and his hair was also a lot shorter. His face was marred by a long and thin scar that ran across his nose from right to left.
He nodded in response to his leader and approached the door. He disconnected something that looked like a broach from the front of his armour and then held it out towards the door.
The broach was above the size of a fist, carved out of silver and had fitted so well into the winged vampire’s armour that Kain had mistaken it for being a part the overall design. 
The shield before him contracted in response, sparking briefly before its haze vanished and faded away.
There was a brief pause and then the door itself swung outwards with the low grinding sound of stone on stone.
Beyond was the long hallway interior of the Fortress. The floor was made of rough grey stone and the walls were carved from single blocks of rock, polished to a shine. Ajatar walked in first, quickly followed by her warrior escort.
Kain watched them go before he too crossed the threshold. Once he had passed beyond that point however, the stone door slid shut behind him. He turned and frowned at the sight of the energy barrier re-ignite.
When he eventually wanted to leave this place, he would have to find another route.
Following Ajatar, Kain was led through the fortress and he saw first hand how the Serioli lived. Their life style was so different to the mainstream Ancients that he was half convinced he was seeing a different nation entirely.
The primary concern for the Serioli was how elemental forces were utilized in the forging of weapons. Kain saw this displayed in nearly ever room and small forge they past by.
Earth magic used to hold the metals together. Fire Magic forged the weapons themselves. Water condensed and solidified them and Air was used to hone their weapons edges to the blade of a razor.
Banners hung from the walls to show what discipline was taught where, each one holding one of the ancient symbols of the elements. Here, Vampire fledglings and Humans stood side by side being taught the ancient art of elementary forging.  
Most satisfying to Kain was the fact that there was no sign of the Wheel of Fate’s insignia anywhere amongst them.
Kain felt his spirits lifted by the sight of a bastion of sanity in a world gripped by dementia.
Ajatar then led him up out of the lower teaching levels of their fort towards chambers reversed to the Serioli masters.
Many of the chambers were empty and Kain had already noticed that the fledgling vampires and humans outnumbered any Winged Ancients by ten to one. In fact, Kain had counted less than about three hundred winged figures in a fortress that was large enough to hold two thousand.
But those thoughts were erased from his mind when Ajatar laid her hand against the centre of one door and it slid open on command.
The room beyond had many windows surveying the surrounding countryside from a high vantage point. Two channels carried water down both sides of the chamber into crates at the bottom, forming a ring of water around a stone platform in the centre.
In the centre of this platform was a raised pedestal and atop this pedestal was one of the artefacts of Kain’s search.
It was about arms length, round and jet black, perhaps obsidian rock. Written vertically across its smooth surface was writing, strange runic script that Kain did not recognise at all. It was neither Ancient Vampire nor Hylden.
The way the grandmaster looked at it there could be no doubt.
This was the first of the Tablets of Dark Fable.