They teleported, all five of them, in unison to the Pillars; and Kain noticed, with some slight dose of amusement infused with a rather large dose of pride, that each of his four lieutenants seemed to have instinctively chosen the proper spot where he or she should appear. It was as if, in a way, the Pillars called to them as well, to their individual powers and abilities; although this was, obviously, an utterly absurd idea.
And so, as he was standing under the Pillar of Balance, in the place where his throne had once been, he had to his immediate right Shiva, the former Guardian of Conflict, standing between the Pillar he had once protected, and the Pillar of Nature. Further to the right, between the Pillars of Dimension and Mind, stood Zosha, the last descendant of the long line of the witch Priestesses of the Citadel. All of them had been strong in Mind magic; she was the first to master Dimension as well.
To his left, in front of the Pillars of Time and Energy, stood Eirene, the Seer and daughter to the greatest Seer of them all; or, perhaps, in point of fact, she was just as great as her mother had once been; she had known well enough to exchange the certainty of prophesising in a world devoid of free will for the uneasy task of doing so in an ever-changing time-stream.
Finally, far to the left, was Eirene’s half-brother Perun; like her, the offspring of his old enemy; now, like her, converted to Kain’s side. He was standing between States and Death, watching the Scion of Balance carefully.
All accepted mostly for lack of better options – faute de mieux, as Shiva would probably say, they have all proven themselves in the battle over the Abyss, if not even before. They were now, save him, the four most powerful beings in Nosgoth.
And Nosgoth would need them, when he was gone.

He pulled out the Soul Reaver. The Reaver–

He had perhaps first understood what, in the end, would be demanded of him, when he had heard from Shiva and Perun that the Binding had never been completed in the first place; that this had been the reason why it had failed, why the Hylden had escaped; and that he was the one supposed to complete it.
It had been then that he had first understood that it would not be enough to banish the Elder One to Avici; that, like the Hylden, banished, the demon, the fraud, the parasite, would be able to return even from that place if the Binding were not completed.
And there was only one way to complete it, was there not? There was a reason why the Reaver was required. Only one reason why the – he laughed at the metaphor – the key to the lock of the Pillars – had the shape and the form of a sword.
So, the vampires had created the blade, with the small help of Vorador, who had forged it, and Maat, who had cast the soul-binding spell. They had believed, because they had been told so by their Oracle, that they were creating a weapon for their hero, who was to defeat the Hylden champion. Maat, of course, believed that the heroes were reversed. (He wondered for a moment if her visions had been true or if she had simply succumbed to untruths sent to her by the Elder One in a moment of weakness.)
Then, the Pillars had been raised; and then, the vampires had discovered that they could not complete the Binding. Why?
Because of the Death Pillar, the instinct’s inner voice told him. The Death Pillar must have been created to prevent precisely the type of manipulations which the Hylden had used to create the curse which they had cast on the vampires: the search for immortality. Its work would ensure that all of Nosgoth would be subject to the Wheel.
But in the precious period between the Pillars had been raised and had finished weaving their spell, the Hylden curse had wormed its way into the hearts and bodies of their creators and masters; and their Guardians. And so, the vampires’ very immortality had interfered with the Death Pillar’s function; had introduced an imbalance, the first of many to come, between the Nine.
It must have been that imbalance that the first Guardian of Balance had felt, and ordered that the Binding not be finished; or possibly, he or she had felt it because it had not been possible to conclude it. And so, he (or, again, she) had decided on a radical solution: to put all of Nosgoth’s powers, all of the Pillars’ powers into the hands of one creature. The Scion of Balance.
Kain felt a sudden twinge of sympathy for that anonymous Guardian who, upon searching the time stream for a solution of the conundrum, had discovered that the things that had been considered prophetic revelations had been little else but lies; that there had been another reading of the prophecies. And that the Reaver had been created, in the first place, to destroy the Scion; because the Scion had been the only one whom the Elder One had ever feared.
The Guardian’s plan had been desperate, indeed: after all, its success depended entirely on that singular chance, the chance that was no greater than that of a coin’s falling on its edge: the chance that Raziel would refuse to kill Kain in the tomb of William the Just–
Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem... How had Eirene put it–? In despair lies the one hope of the damned–? The Guardian had been desperate, and had embarked on a desperate plan. He or she had still managed to create the warnings in the Spirit Forge, but, in the end, Balance had been the first Guardian to perish.

And now, now that the Guardian’s plan had born fruit, and all nine Pillars were, perhaps for the very first time in history – not even for the first time since the Sarafan had put Janos into coma: for the first time in history – functioning properly, it was the time to complete the Binding. And to do that, he would need to release the powers the Pillars were continuously transferring into him, the powers with which they sustained his, Kain’s, existence. The powers which had never been given and taken; only lent and borrowed; and now, it was the time for them to be returned.
Even when rebelling against the Elder One, the Guardian had apparently still thought like a vampire, like his faithful worshipper: because, in return for a job well performed, Kain’s reward was to be death.
(What a typically vampiric suicidal idealism.)

He looked at his lieutenants. They seemed to be finally understanding what was about to happen; what he was about to do. The human, in some sudden bout of masochism, seemed to be on the brink of tears for the one who had mutilated her and killed her brother; who had repeatedly rejected her offer of alliance at a time when she had been the only one potentially sympathetic soul in Nosgoth; for the one who had saved her only when he had to prove to a newly acquired follower that he had not been an utterly worthless leader.
The simpleton of a vampire had left his sword, and was now holding the human, possibly to restrain her from doing something foolish; across the platform, Perun was eyeing Kain with complete and utter disbelief, and more than a little alarm–
Eirene’s reaction was perhaps the most expected: she was completely calm and in control of herself, elegant and inscrutable, as if she had already Seen and lived through this moment. And perhaps she had: after all, there had been Seers even before all the time streams had become one. She might already be planning how to use his death to ascend into power–
At that moment, she looked straight at him, inquisitively, as if she were attempting to Whisper something into his thoughts; but they were not in Avici, and she could not find him here if he did not wish it; and he did not.
Her expression changed into one of slight amusement, as though she finally understood something, some private joke; and then, she smiled widely; she looked absolutely beautiful.

The Pillar of Death was working. Save Kain himself, never again would there be an immortal in Nosgoth; not unless some future Guardian of Death decided to risk Balance again. (If, that is, there would be Guardians at all.)
And so, they would all die; all four of them; and their descendants, and the descendants of their descendants, and so on, ad infinitum. If he decided to stay, the longest time he could expect an acquaintance, any acquaintance, to last would be – several centuries, perhaps, if even that long. Once, perhaps, that would have sufficed him: a new set of faces every several centuries–
And so, he would last in his lonely vigil, until the inevitable happened, and the passage between realms opened again, and the Elder One returned from Avici; or – something which for some reason, seemed to him much more probable at this point – the power he carried within his body consumed him.
He could feel it even now; he had felt it even the very moment he had acquired the last of it: he could not contain the power; could not control it; one body simply could not contain the power of a whole realm for long. Even his body: he must be honest at least with himself in this regard, if with none other; hypocrisy had always been the one vice he had abhorred. (Perhaps, he smiled, the only vice.)
Every last of his enemies was dead; dead or – he looked at Perun – on his side. It would not take long before the power he contained would turn on his allies; and, then, at last, on himself. He would contain it, for a time, of course; but would he even be aware when he ceased to contain it?

He was angry, of course.
It angered him that the vampires’ ancient sins, their ancient gullibility and foolishness, were even now taking their toll; and that he, of all, was their victim.
It angered him that he would never witness what the restoration of the Pillar of Nature would do for Nosgoth’s completely destroyed environment. If, perhaps, the knowledge preserved in the human gardens, the vampire knowledge of Nature magic, and the Hylden technologies would manage to bring back predators to Nosgoth; so that the nights would again resound with their hunting calls, and the death cries of their prey.
It angered him that he was doing precisely the thing of which Janos had accused him: empowering the ignorant and the undeserving. Because they were undeserving, the peoples of Nosgoth: they had not deserved Raziel’s sacrifice, and they certainly did not deserve his.
It angered him that had never even heard of Raziel.
It angered him that Nosgoth would be saved, but not for him. Never for him.
It angered him that here, at the very end, he was still confronted with the same choice he had to make when he had been a fledgling.

What could he tell them at a time like this?

“Remember.”
Remember – the enemy against whom we had fought? (Yes. Everything must be known this time; no things must be declared unspoken.) That curious moment of camaraderie when we had all rested after the fight? (Yes. How much longer, he wondered, would the curious armistice survive without his supreme rule of all?) Raziel? (But they have never known of him; even they – a spike of wrath crossed his mind – had never known of him.)
Remember – me?
They had better.

There was a brief shriek as the Reaver took a soul.

From the outside, the display must have been impressive enough, he supposed from the look of pure awe on their faces. But from the inside–
From the inside–
From the inside, it felt as if he were swimming in the streams of time; as if he were again reliving that instant when he had pulled the Reaver from Raziel and thus changed history, back in the Sarafan Keep. Histories shuffled past at a breakneck speed; pieces of puzzle clicked into place as the Pillars set a barrier across space and time; a barrier between the Nosgoth that have been and the Nosgoth that would be–
And then, all grew still, all at once; and all that remained was a Reaver-shaped hole–
Suddenly, he found himself in a dim, torch-lit chamber. Before he had a chance to even wonder where he was, he saw two figures, two faces; and he instantly understood.
He laughed; he wondered if the last conscious sight of his existence would be that of Moebius’ surprised face, as the young boy-king William the Just took the Soul Reaver out of his unresisting hands–
It would not be the worst, he decided; and then–