It was dark in the shrine; as dark as it had been the previous night, when he had been here with Zosha; when he had performed his first act of healing on a living being–
(Had it really been only the previous night? Yes, he confirmed, slightly surprised, it had–)
And so, just like the previous night, a conjured light hovered in the air as he examined closely the walls of the shrine, searching for – he did not know for what. A hidden panel. A secret switch. A lock of some kind, perhaps. Anything.
When he had heard from Perun that by the ‘ruins of oblivion’ Janos had mentioned he might have meant Lanthanesthai – Malek’s Bastion – this place had immediately come to Kain’s mind. True, the shrine was not directly under the Bastion – quite far from it, in fact: to the northwest of Coorhagen, or, at present, of Coorhagen’s ruins – but one reached it by entering a Warp Gate under the old Citadel.
The shrine must have been initially constructed expressly as a place for the vampires to commune with their God. All such places Kain had seen – as, in fact, all places where he had seen the fraudster himself – had access to water; and it clearly had been impossible to achieve this on the high plateau of Lethe. Hence, he had not been that much off the mark when he had replied to Zosha’s question about what this place had been, even if he had not yet known the full history–
The question now was if it was also something else.
Many things in Nosgoth were. The Pillars: an impressive monument, a true work of art – yet, at the same time, a powerful weapon which by itself had determined the outcome of a war which, if Eirene were to be believed, had gone on practically since the dawn of time. The Reaver: first forged specifically to kill Kain (he had no proof of that; but the circumstantial evidence was rather compelling), but now converted into his own weapon which he was to use for – for something, anyway, according to the nameless creator of the murals in the Spirit Forge; and what he intended to use it for was perhaps something else still–
In any case, this place was important enough that the previous night, demons had been sent to protect it against him. He still remembered his shock when he had to face the group of them after he had spent near all his powers on the demons that had been here before, those which had killed off the Hylden troops–
Of course, he mused as he carefully inspected one mural after another, the Elder One – or, for that matter, Janos – could have also sent the demons to kill Zosha and prevent the alliance between him and the human Citadel; the beasts certainly had seemed to go straight for the human then. Or, as, at that time, Zosha had been possessed by Eirene, they could have arrived to prevent the alliance between him and the Hylden–
The possibilities were, if not endless, many; and the true course of the events would probably never be discovered. Not that it mattered, for the most part.
(At this point, he spent a few seconds deliberating if he should perhaps check on Zosha’s and Eirene’s progress. In the end, he decided against it. They were his lieutenants. He had entrusted them with important tasks. True, they were rather complicated tasks, but if the human and the Hylden possessed some elementary competence, they should manage to fulfil them without his supervision. In any case, it were better that he should learn now that he must search for new lieutenants than that he learn this at some critical moment in the future.
And of course, it might be better to discover this now, before he grew much accustomed to the women; although, somewhat to his dismay, they already seemed to be growing on him – he would probably regret having to kill either of them; or, worse, both–
Thinking of the two he had left in the Citadel made him think, in turn, of Perun. He shot a look at the Hylden: Perun was standing in the middle of the chamber, clearly perplexed about what was happening.
Why had he decided to take the Hylden with him? It had been such an odd impulse.)
Nothing.
No hidden panels, no secret switches, no enigmatic locks. He was searching in entirely the wrong spot; evidently, this could not be the place Janos had meant.
Unless–
He looked at the circular pond in the middle of the shrine; at the low stone wall which surrounded it. There were – scratches on it; scratches which, at first, he had even failed to even notice; and then, had failed to recognise for what they were–
Now, he realised what it was he was looking at.
Runes.

The runes were of the Blood Script, and that was a good thing; but the text was written in one of the old dialects, one that had been in decline even before the time of the Sarafan; and so, Kain understood only single words of it:
“...bury...wait...goodwill...God...come...us...” he read out slowly, simultaneously translating, as he circled the pond. It was not much. It was, in fact, distressingly little. Perhaps it meant that he was in the correct place; perhaps not.
The surface of the pond was still frozen, but that was not much of a problem. He took the Reaver off his back, and, with a powerful thrust, jammed it into the surface of the ice. The ice cracked; and then, suddenly, it melted completely. (In the end, Kain was not even sure if it had been the elemental power of Fire or Water which had acted; but this was another of those things which simply did not matter.) He retrieved the Reaver–
Perun, who had approached the pond curiously when Kain had started reading out the text in the flickering light of the spell, now offered, “Should I go scouting ahead?”
At this, Kain started. “No,” he said, pulling his right hand out of the ice-cold water which, for a few moments, he had been aimlessly combing, “Follow me.”

They both plunged into the dark, winding tunnel; after a few failed tries, Kain discovered that swimming was not that much unlike flying; plain for one with at least basic control over one’s limbs.
On and on they swum through the passage cut in the rock; Kain constantly alert. But there were no monstrous eyes here, no tentacles; apparently, with the loss of his faithful here, the Elder One had moved to warmer climes.
At last, the passage winded upwards; some more swimming, a bit of telekinesis to break through another ice layer – and then, at last, they–

–surfaced, and Perun instantly felt how cold, how unbelievably cold it was here: for one who, like he, had spent all his life in the heat of Avici, in all probability fatally cold. There was no telling how much further he could proceed: his armour, metal scales on leather, gave him only the most basic of protections against chilly air. (Chilly water was a very much different matter, of course: the whole distance from the shrine he had spent in what he had come to think of as his other State, and so, the armour had not mattered at all.)
It was also dark here; and again, he cursed the eternal glow of Avici for the weakness of his eyes: he could not see a thing. But in this, at least, he was vindicated: apparently, he was not the only one who was virtually blind. The Scion released not one, but several enchanted lights into the air; and when a vampire could not see–
They were in another cave, much larger than the one from which they had come: even with the spelled lights, he still could not see its ceiling. There was a stony shore nearby, he suddenly noticed; the Scion was already swimming towards it, with calm, regular strokes. He followed.
The next thing he saw was a large pile of wood. For all it looked like, someone – someone very considerate – had taken a lot of trouble to put it up into the perfect ladder for a bonfire. The wood was very dry: it lit up from the first fire projectile the vampire cast at it. Perun felt instantly better.
The third thing he saw was the door.
It was just next to the pile of wood, set in the stone wall of the cavern, apparently closing off a part of it. It was, all in all, a rather ordinary door: made of cast iron, unadorned save for some fittings, two-leaved, unquestionably vampire in origin; sealed. The extraordinary part about it was the seal.
It was most definitely a seal rather than a lock: there was no keyhole, and no other visible means to unlock it. And it was in the shape of what he knew had once been one of the sigils of the Wheel of Fate. (It definitely helped his memory that he had seen one or two of them in the shrine they had just visited.) A Wheel with nine spokes, and an Eye in the middle–
The vampire – his lord, whom he owed allegiance, he corrected himself – studied it closely for a moment; then, he looked around the massive cave. For a moment, it seemed as if his face could not decide if it should show irritation or fatigue; in the end, it settled for an expression of resigned resolve.
“Wait for me here,” the vampire ordered, and disappeared in the darkness. Perun decided not to protest. There wasn’t anyone to protest to, anyway.

A moment later, as the fire thawed his frozen brain and he could think again, the Hylden started to piece together what had just happened.
Obviously, there was something behind this door which the vampires wanted to hide from the rest of Nosgoth; if the Scion’s odd words be true, these were – the vampires themselves? If so, it would be terribly odd if the way they had come here was the only one. As far as he remembered, vampires who had been resistant to water had been always very few–
Perhaps, he decided, the vampires had caved in the other entrance after coming here.
In any case, the vampires certainly hadn’t wanted this place to be found. And so, they would have wanted to make sure that, even if found, no one would manage to open the door. (An analogy with a certain door in the underbelly of Avici inevitably presented itself.) On the other hand, it was possible that in certain circumstances – let’s say, if a Scion of Balance happened to cross nearby – they might wish this door to be opened. Hence, of course, the need to design an appropriately complex lock.
So, the Scion was now off to solve some offensively large, complex puzzle which the vampires had invented to make sure that only the right person would cross the threshold of enlightenment – and, given that the curse had made them virtually immortal, they had a lot of time on their hands to amuse themselves this way – and he, Perun of the Hylden, had been left here for the meantime like some useless baggage. He did not mind. At least it was warm.

Some time later – he did not even know how much later; time flowed weirdly in the darkness – he felt a surge of magic in the air. He looked at the door: one of the spokes of the Wheel was now shining with the symbol of Nature. Apparently, the Scion must have activated – or deactivated, depending on how one looked at it – one of the nine parts of the lock.
For a moment, Perun thought of his new liege lord. Kain had frankly surprised him at the Pillars: the ceremonies of homage, the Hylden knew, had been invented specifically for the purpose of providing a way of escape from the inevitable bloodshed: an honourable defeat. But it was strange to know that someone still remembered them – more, still found use for them – here, now, in this time and age–
It would be fascinating to see the half-sister’s face when he finally confronted her.
There was another surge of magic, and the rune of States lit up. Whatever mad labyrinth the vampires had created to test the mettle of their champion, the Scion was clearly making his way through it, in a rather good time.

The ninth symbol activated, and at the same moment, Kain appeared in front of the door. The Eye of the seal had disappeared; in its place, there was now a keyhole.
The vampire carefully inserted the Soul Reaver into the keyhole, turned it ninety degrees to the right, and pulled it out; and then, finally, the door opened.
The inside of the second part of the cavern was, oddly enough, not dark. As Perun crossed the threshold, he realised why: scattered all about the floor there were odd crystals which gave off dim, muted light – but still strong enough to see clearly the scene in front.
(For a moment, he wondered if the crystals had been shining all the time since the vampires had created this place, or if they had activated only when the door had opened. Probably the latter, he decided.)
The chamber was shaped like an amphitheatre, with low, wide tiers surrounding a circular space in the middle. Several set of steps joined all the tiers; they were now standing at the top of one of them.
Everywhere Perun looked, there were bodies.
Bodies: lying directly on the stone ground, packed one closely to the next, as closely as the massive black-feathered wings allowed. He approached one: it was a female, perfectly preserved – whether due to the cold air or the curse which had granted the vampires immortality, there was no telling.
The female was lying on her side, in the foetal position. Her eyes were open: an expression of blissful anticipation still reflected in them. There was a flask in her hand, and an odd purple pigment at her mouth; a pigment which, Perun supposed, might have once been purple froth.
He looked around: and now, that he knew what he was looking for, he found it everywhere: small flasks or cups, sometimes still held tightly in hands, sometimes lying next to them, released in the final spasm of death. The vampires must have shut themselves in here, and then taken poison in a vain attempt to escape the curse cast on them; unaware that even after death, they would remain chained to their bodies, and unable to leave this place–
And now, of course, the Scion would attempt to raise them and heal them. Perun wondered if the vampire was even aware of how complex the magic he so casually used was; or what levels of power it demanded. The vampires, he mused, must have delved deeply into the magic of Death after their forceful dissociation from the Wheel–
In any case: if Kain managed to raise the vampires, but not heal them, they were potentially both facing a thousand mad, bloodthirsty creatures. If he managed to raise and heal them, they would only face a thousand vampires.
Neither perspective was especially appealing to the Hylden.

The Scion was already at the bottom of the chamber, inspecting the solitary figure which lay there. Perun cursed himself silently for letting himself be detained, and hurried to take a look as well.
Oddly enough, for all it appeared, the body belonged to a human.
The young man had human hands and feet – it was easy to see this, as, just like the vampires, he was barefoot. He had no wings, and his skin was white, not blue; a halo of shoulder-long, black hair enveloped his head, nearly indistinguishable from the dark rock on which he was lying and the black leather of the armour he was wearing. There was a sword by his side – a sword, but no scabbard: and Perun could see that, though not much adorned, the sword looked extremely sharp. It might even be a Serioli creation, he mused, remembering the name of the ancient weapon smiths passed on to him in tales–
The face of the human appealed to him somehow: it had that hidden charm which transcends even the barriers of species and forces one to call itself beauty. Slightly slanted eyes; high cheeks; a strong chin; sensuous lips, even if, at present, pale and bloodless – and, of course, the face’s perfect symmetry–
There was a certain predatory expression on the young man’s dead face: an expression which, until this point, Perun had never seen in the faces of the humans he had met in this land; not even in the faces of warriors. He touched tentatively the man’s lips; a pair of elongated canines presented themselves. Ah. So, after all, this was a vampire’s body. A human-born vampire’s, but still a vampire’s.
The Scion was standing over the body with a rather curious look on his face.
“Wake up,” he said, in a strong, even voice; and Perun felt the tingle of the powerful magic of Change pass through his body on its way to its destination; so powerful, it hurt; hurt so much–
“Wake up,” Kain demanded harshly of the room in general. “Wake up,” he repeated for a second time, quietly, almost pleadingly–
And then, Perun could not help but watch in awe as the body of the vampire under his hands Changed.

Blue specks appeared on the vampire’s white skin; blue specks which soon became the germs of Change as they quickly grew and connected with one another. The fingers and the toes fused into sharp talons: three on either hand, two on either foot. The leather of the armour snapped with a loud crack as two massive wing bones pierced it, soon to grow out feathers–
Finally, the yellow eyes opened. For a moment, they looked at Perun disbelievingly–
Then, the vampire attacked, quick as only a vampire could be; the sharp sword stopped only a finger’s-breath from the Hylden’s neck, held, as it were, by the blade of the Soul Reaver.
“He is with me, vampire,” Kain said calmly.
Only now did the vampire on the ground appear to take notice of him at all. “With you?” he said slowly, with a hint of an accent which reminded Kain slightly of Janos’. Turning his head to look at Kain, he asked, “And who are you?”
At this, Kain felt a sudden urge to laugh.
To laugh: at the confusion and complete ignorance of the other vampire; at the utter absurdity of the situation; but, above all, to laugh, laugh like a madman, because he suddenly realised that the words which described him best at this point, the ones that best replied to the human-born vampire’s question, were the ones with which Raziel had taunted him in Avernus: The mighty Kain. The Scion of Balance. The would-be saviour of Nosgoth.
Yes, he was mighty. Yes, he was the Scion of Balance. And yes, he would be the saviour of Nosgoth; whether Nosgoth wished it or not. (And, for all it looked, Nosgoth did not. Ever since he had returned to this era and discovered that even the Pillars had turned against him, he had to constantly fight, every step of the way, to beat the land into something at least barely resembling submission.)
And, then, all of a sudden, he knew the answer to the question which had been bothering him earlier: why he had taken Perun with him on this trip–
(In the corner of his eye, he saw that, availing himself of the vampire’s momentary distraction, Perun had moved away from the crossed blades and was now standing up–)
It was to show these – these suicidal cowards, he thought with sudden distaste; for the moment, he had no more tender feeling for the vampires than he had for, for instance, humans – that things would henceforth change in Nosgoth.
After all, he mused, he intended to destroy their God. And he was beginning to think he might know how to achieve this.
Of course, the human-born vampire probably wanted a somewhat simpler answer.

“Someone who has much better rights to ask the same question of you,” he replied carefully at last, sheathing calmly the Soul Reaver. For all it looked, he noticed, irritated, the vampire wasn’t listening to him: instead, his eyes, wide with recognition, followed the blade–
Only when the Reaver vanished on Kain’s back did the vampire actually begin to take stock of the rest of the situation in which he now found himself: he finally noticed, with a low cry of surprise, the talons on his hands and feet, and the bits of blue skin between where the leather of the armour ended and the powerful claws began. Then, when he started to pick himself up from the ground, he immediately encountered the hurdle of the giant wings which so completely upset the centre of balance of the body; he managed to recover equilibrium at almost the last moment. That he managed to do this at all was, in itself, no mean feat, and spoke of many a year of a warrior’s training–
As the vampire stood up, Kain noticed that he was still clutching the hilt of his sword firmly – as firmly as possible, that is: the sword had obviously been forged for a human hand – though he lowered its tip purposefully, in a belated effort not to appear too aggressive–
“Tiens,” he said at last, looking to Perun, and then, back to Kain, “Je m’appelle–”
Then, he blinked, and suddenly switched idioms. “I am called,” he said slowly, unsurely, “Shiva. I am– I was–” he corrected himself; and then, perhaps understandably under the circumstances, he lapsed back into his native tongue – “j'étais Gardien de Conflit. Le remplaçant,” he added at last.
Then this was the replacement, human-born, Guardian of Conflict, one of Malek’s predecessors–
Perun’s head crests rose in astonishment. “Qu'est-ce qui est arrivé ici? Comment êtes-vous–” he began to ask.
At this, it was Kain’s turn to be surprised. His own knowledge of the old dialects had been perfunctory, at best; he had simply never found much use for them. To discover, all of a sudden, that they might have some use–
And that both the vampire – Shiva, he forced himself to remember – and Perun spoke the same tongue; one he barely knew–
To say that it was unsettling was to understate the matter inordinately. But it was, in a way, already too late: Perun had already spoken out. Shiva’s eyes lit up when he heard the familiar words; he launched into a rather lengthy speech, one of which Kain understood next to nothing. He thought he heard– But it could not be–
“Perun,” he said in the direction of the Hylden, trying to appear au fait, as always; though he felt his control of the state of affairs slip more and more each subsequent moment. “If you understand what he is saying–”
“Yes,” the Hylden replied, again in that strange tone he had used at the Pillars, when he had told Kain of Lanthanesthai. Suddenly, Kain felt even worse about the whole matter: it was as if the Hylden had been choosing to aid him, doing the things he did out of his own volition; for the second time, at that–
“He was the second replacement Guardian,” Perun started to interpret, “after Balance. The third replacement was,” he hesitated for a moment, “Mortanius–”
At this, Kain started out of his thoughts. So, the first three vampire Guardians to fall had been–
But he already knew this, did he not? That mural in the Citadel of Tears–
“This Mortanius and–”the Hylden faltered again in search of a name.
“Moebius,” Kain growled: even the memory of that bastard smarted, “They refused to share the curse, and staged a rebellion. What of it?”
“The rest of the Guardians decided to remain in the Citadel; but Shiva was chosen to take the majority of what remained of the vampires here, so that they would die of their own hand and join their God, and not be killed and resurrected as Mortanius’ toys.” The Hylden shot an understanding look in the vampire’s direction: he could certainly sympathise with the sentiment.
“Still, they left an escape route,” Kain commented.
“Yes. Apparently, for you, Scion.”
At this, Shiva suddenly animated, “Vous êtes– You are the Scion of Balance?”
There was some disbelief in his voice, but Kain could see that it was quickly fading: the human-born vampire was now looking at him slightly differently; with much more respect. Good, he thought. Apparently, Shiva was not a fool; and a pretty face and quick reflexes was not all he could boast of. Now, Kain must find out if he was not too intelligent; as Perun at times appeared to be.
The vampire shot another question, this time in Perun’s direction; the Hylden’s head crests rose again. “Oui,” he answered, to which Shiva replied with a much longer question, with frequent, furtive, looks at Kain, who stood at the side, mildly amused by the evidently heated exchange. His initial fears of a possible future conspiracy and a mutiny in his ranks had, for the moment, subsided. In fact, he thought, it had been a very good thing that he had decided to bring Perun along; otherwise, communication would have been much more difficult. He wondered for the moment: if he Whispered to Shiva–
“He asked at first,” Perun started to translate after a moment’s deliberation, “if I was ‘the Unspoken’. I assumed that he meant by this the Hylden–” he hesitated.
“You were correct,” Kain affirmed. The foolishness of the Guardians in this matter–
“And then, he asked what happened to the Pillars and the Binding if I am here; if you decided not to complete it?”
“Complete it?”
“Apparently,” the whole of Perun’s body indicated that the Hylden knew no more than Kain of the whole matter, “it was never completed, for some reason. Actually,” he mused, “this makes sense. If some spell which should have been concluded to seal off Avici from Nosgoth never was–”
“This would explain how the Hylden managed to escape in the first place, after Janos suffered,” Kain finished, more to himself than to Perun. He wondered how much there was still in Nosgoth which he did not yet know. It seemed that at every step, there was something new for him to learn and take into his calculations–
Yes, things in Nosgoth rarely were what they seemed to be at first glance; and rarely were they only one thing at a time.
Shiva was clearly still waiting for Kain’s answer; the vampire deliberated for a moment what it would be, trying to find the correct words. He was tired, he discovered unexpectedly. When he had gone with Raziel into the past – and later, when he returned to this era – he had not quite known just on what mad chase he had embarked. Raziel had been in his mind the one destined to do – whatever. Save Nosgoth. He had only, perhaps for the only time in his existence, wanted a supporting role, a second chance at being a proper Guardian of Balance–
And now, here he was, at the end of all time, and still learning; learning about all those things he needed to know so that he would save the land–
“Tell him,” he told Perun at last, “that the Pillars are standing, but that I have not yet completed the Binding. Tell him also,” he added, “that things are very different now than they used to be in Nosgoth; and that there is much change yet to come.”
They would oppose the change, he knew. They; and the humans; and the Hylden. They would oppose it as much as they could.
Fortunately, he did not need their consent.

Perun was translating Kain’s speech for the benefit of the former Guardian of Conflict, when Kain abruptly became aware of the multitude of shadows all around them. The large auditorium was full – not of bodies, but of living, breathing creatures, all listening in silence to the exchange that took place on the amphitheatre’s scene.
Oh. The vampires. He had raised and healed them all, after all.
He looked at the sea of faces. Some of them must have been worthy people, he surmised: intelligent, or beautiful, or even, perhaps, just and good, if these words still held any meaning in Nosgoth. But, for the moment, he could not find in himself a single emotion towards them; he simply did not care for them. They might be his people, in theory; but in fact, they were complete strangers.
Perhaps Janos had been right; and he was a vampire no more than the human he had once been or the Hylden whom, according to Eirene, he might be if only he wished.

It turned out that there was no second entrance to the cave; the vampires had, indeed, collapsed it after themselves. That was not much trouble; a new opening was soon created in the ceiling of the outer cave.
The vampires filed out through the exit, taking wing, one after another. They would all – all save Shiva – go to the ruins of Lanthanesthai, where, it was agreed, they would establish a temporary camp.
Shiva had been human-born; trained, not born, into the worship of the Elder One; he would be easier to convince and reason with. He had once been a Guardian of Conflict; and though this had been a long time ago, and he had surrendered the scabbard which had been his binding token when he had parted with the rest of the Guardians, he still had quick reflexes and considerable fighting skills.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time the three of them finally left the cave, flying out only after all the others had left. Kain watched how a perplexed expression on Shiva’s face turned suddenly into happiness; the vampire raised his hands and turned his head up, drinking in the rain’s water, like something he had missed – missed for a long, long time; centuries, perhaps.
Apparently, Kain mused, in the healing process, he had imparted his own immunity to water onto the vampires; and, for one, at least, that sufficed for happiness.
Simple minds, simple pleasures: ça va sans dire.

The Pillar of States was working as it should; when they arrived at the Abyss, the sky was clear. One could even call it a rosy-fingered dawn, if one insisted.