The Hylden who had come to this city to salvage what technology and resources they good for the benefit of the house of knowledge had been forced to take shelter in the ruined city because of the storm. They had been quite content to stay there until the weather permitted them to begin their work.
Scouts had reported a few humans about but it wasn’t until they located the castle on the bluff that Marduk became interested. As such he had had one of the humans captured and interrogated. Under questioning the native human told him that the castle was the home of vampires that had been exiled here during the prime of the now crumbled Vampire Empire.
Standing law in the Hylden dominion was that any vampire domain was to be destroyed upon discovery. Bound by the law, Marduk led his scholars and bodyguards to investigate.
He had flown on ahead of them to scout the fortress himself, unwilling to sending those under his care into danger without seeing it first hand.
As he soured over the battlements of the castle, something leapt out at him from a crouched position behind a gargoyle. It grappled his back, tearing with claws at his wing membrane.
Instinctively he dove, barrel rolling in mid air and shaking the attacker off. It leapt free hand handed on the edge of the parapet
“You? Here?!” Marduk demanded as the blue wraith turned back to face him with glowing white eyes. The flying Hylden flapped his wings to flow himself and then dropped down onto of the tiled roof of a tower well out of reach. “I left you behind in the middle of the ocean!”
Raziel turned to spread his arms out wide, his ruined wings flapping out behind him in the wind churned up by the storm that still tore around them.
“It was a long swim.” He said, beginning to move forward. Marduk glared down at hi, annoyance in his eyes.
“I would have thought those animals that pass for vampires would have finished you off.” He remarked coldly, flapping his wings and casting droplets of water off of them.
Raziel began circling him, always keeping the Hylden to his left.
“Quite an amazing adaptation, really.” Marduk continued, shuffling around to keep Raziel in his line of sight.  “I would never have imagined that evolution could overcome the limitations I gave the species within the curse.”
Raziel narrowed his eyes, continuing to slowly circle his enemy.
“Shamash said he gave the vampires the bloodlust.” He recalled, remembering the prideful boasting of the Leader of the House of War.  Marduk nodded once.
“That he did.” He replied offhandedly, as if it did not matter to him in the slightest. Raziel knew now that it was the three leaders of the houses who had combined their efforts to curse the vampires. They were the origin of the dark gift itself.
“What did you give them?” The blue wraith asked.
A slow ironic smile past over Marduk’s lips and his wings curved in on himself, resting on his shoulders like a cape. He spread his arms wide, embracing the water that fell upon him.
“Vulnerability to both light and water, so that the winged ones might forever be grounded.” He proclaimed loudly to be heard over the boom of thunder. “Both elements that bring nourishment to all other forms of life would bring nothing but death to them.”
He said it not in a boastful fashion like Shamash had but in the way of a scientist recanting a past achievement.
“I’m amazed that the evolving forms of the vampires over their lifetime were able to overcome both. Given enough time vampires might outstrip the curse completely.” The Hylden paused and then shrugged. “I doubt it but who knows?”
Raziel stopped pacing and remained still, deceptively at ease but ready to pounce.
“Yet you still hold rancour of them?” He asked but Marduk shook his head.
“Hatred is counter productive.” The leader of the house of knowledge stated. “All I have for the vampires are an intellectual curiosity at this point.”
He looked down at the blue wraith before him and tilted his head to one side, as if considering something before he grinned so wide his mouth was almost spread from ear to ear.
“Why don’t I tell you a little secret?” He asked and his voice was mischievous and full of mirth. “A truth that no one wants to admit to, neither Ishtar nor Janos Audron?”
Raziel remained still.
“And what is that?”
Marduk laughed and his wings spread out again, flapping excitedly.
“Humans, Hylden, Vampires… we all came from one place. We’re the same, all of us.”
The blue wraith tensed at the world, feeling an ominous chill settle through him and he stared up at his enemy, eyes widening.
“What are you saying?”
“The heretical truth, my messiah!” Marduk continued, still chuckling to himself. “All three species evolved from a common ancestor. We are cousin’s races, daughters of the same mother. Then we all went our separate ways, forgetting that were all of one blood.”
Raziel stared in a growing mix of wonder and terror. If what he said was right then it changed almost everything. All he thought he understood about the ancient conflict that gave rise to the pillar, about who was right and wrong in this struggle, would be completely shattered.
If Marduk was correct, no one was right and no one was wrong. The Hylden and the vampires were not two races but sibling species and that the difference between them was merely biological variations.
“The house of Faith would rather die than admit their kinship with the vampires.” Marduk said. “But those of the house of Knowledge, scientists, alchemists, free thinkers all… we know the truth and it sets us free.”
His wings flapped out quickly and his muscles tensed. Raziel recognised it as the prelude to an attack and crouched instinctively, talons at the ready.
“After all, if we ARE related to the vampires… what was to stop us evolving our own wings?”
Marduk leapt into the air, flying up high before he dived. Raziel however was ready for him and was not going to let the fight be drawn into the air again. He dived to the side, spinning as he went so that he managed to kick the flying Hylden directly in the stomach. Marduk recoiled in mid air, flapping to gain from distance.
Raziel leapt for him trying to use the opportunity to strike a fatal blow. Marduk recovered more quickly however and swung out of the way.
Retaliating the flying Hylden dived at him with tremendous speed but Raziel had positioned himself behind a set of stone parapets. As Marduk came down at him he misjudged the amount of space he had and collided with the stone with a bone shattering crack.
Raziel leapt forward, grabbing Marduk by the shoulders and sank his talons as deep as he could into the flesh.
Marduk screamed in pain and back winged away, pulling Raziel along with him. The wraith clawed him as much as possible and dropped away, not willing to be lifted aloft.
But Marduk caught him with his flexible feet, a grip just as strong as those with his hands. Raziel struggled to break free but Marduk held on.
“This time I’ll drop you into the sea from a lot higher up!” The flying Hylden said, growling in pain from his injured and he began to ascend.
Higher and higher they ascended, moving up through the stormy sky as bolts of lightning flew all around them.
Sudden only bolt of lightning crackled dangerously close and Marduk, in alarm, flew backwards to avoid it.
.
“Vorador came, the last person I expected to intervene. He materialised as if from nowhere, sword in hand and ready to fight.”
.
The ancient vampire moved with such speed and ferocity that his sword was cutting through flesh and bone before Raziel knew what was happening.
Marduk screamed in pain, contorting back and forth and the blue wraith felt himself released. It was only when the severed limb fell past him that he realised that Vorador had sliced through the flying Hylden’s leg. Freed from the grip, Raziel feel a couple of feet before he glided to safe landing on the roof of the castle.
Turning he watched as Vorador grappled with Marduk in mid air. Marduk now had a missing foot with his left leg ending in a blood stump. They wrestled with a sword between them, edging closer and closer to Marduk’s throat.
Vorador was by far the more physically stronger of the two and desperate to break free the Hylden kicked him with his good leg in the stomach.
Vorador was thrown back where he collided with a thwack against the stonework of a tower. The impact fractured the stone, the cracks running all the way up to a gargoyle like decoration above that tipped forward about an inch.
Raziel had an idea now.
Quickly he ran forward and gestured to get Vorador’s attention, pointing with a talon up to the tower above him.
Vorador glanced up and seeing the cracks and looming stone ready to, took his meaning. He nodded at Raziel and with his sword grasped firmly in one hand he moved to get Marduk’s attention.
By now the flying Hylden was thoroughly enraged and dived at him, streaming fresh blood from his stump. In the meantime Raziel climbed on top of a set of battlements. Setting his stance he began to gather telekinetic force between his cupped hands.
Vorador and Marduk grappled for a moment and then spinning about, Vorador swung the Hylden against the wall.
At the same moment Raziel unleashed the bolt at the wall itself. The two impacts, hitting the weakened wall at the same time were enough and the gargoyle and half the tower roof came crashing down.
Vorador darted out of the way just in time as perhaps a ton of brick crumbled from the tower, collapsing onto Marduk and crushing his wings. Raziel could hear the bones shattering and skin tearing from there.
.
“Without his ability to fly, Marduk was all but powerless.”
.
He was also pinned, kept fast by the rubble.
Vorador raised his sword and took a step forward.
“No, let me.” Raziel told him and moved on past towards the defeated Hylden. Marduk struggled futilely; pale from pain and the amount of blood he had lost.
“Seems I have made the same mistake as Shamash and underestimated you.” He said with a voice pilled with pain.
“That you did.” Raziel replied
“You’re going to kill me aren’t you?”
“I am.”
Raziel came right up to him, staring down at him. Without his wings and strength in the air Marduk was weak and frail and the necessary act of killing him was made unpleasant by it
 “But before you die, answer my question.” The blue wraith asked, kneeling down to look him in the face. “Where is Janos Audron?”
Perhaps now the Hylden leader would divulge the information he wanted.
Marduk coughed up a bit of blood that splattered across his bare chest. He wiped it off on the back of his hand and then glanced down over the edge of the castle battlements where the other Hylden were gathered, perhaps waiting for him.
“If I tell you, will you let my students go?” He asked faintly. “I would not have them killed for something I have done.”
For the information he required, Raziel was quick to agree.
“You have my word.” It depended of course if they would accept this gracious offer once they knew that their leader was dead. Marduk must have realised this too for even beaten and in such pain he appeared grim.
“Under the circumstances then that must be enough.” He muttered, leaning back against the stone in resignation.
“Where is Janos Audron?” Raziel asked and Vorador came close, his face hinting that he wanted to know as well.
“Ishtar has him.” Marduk said, glancing from one face to the other and back again. “At the capital of the new Hylden nation… the rebuilt city of Avernus.”
Avernus… of course. Raziel suddenly felt very dense. Given the significance the Hylden had for the Cathedral had had once stood there, where else would they have him?
“There you will find Ishtar’s tower, the Ziggurat, where the once high and mighty tenth guardian is now reduced to a jester for the House of Faith’s upper echelon.” Marduk concluded and coughed some more.
.
“Finally! A straight answer and my destiny set before me. It would be a long journey to Avernus, on the other side of Nosgoth from here but the trip would be well worth it to see Janos delivered from captivity.”
.
“I thank you for your information.” Raziel told him. “And so long as they do not attack, your students will be left alone.”
Marduk grunted with a sharp nod.
“Our bargain is complete.” He spread his arms wide in submission and surrender. “By all means my soul... is yours. Do with it as you will.”
Raziel ended it quickly, driving his talons directly into Marduk’s chest and puncturing his heart.
The leader of the house of Knowledge shuddered forward once and then went limp; his eyes unseeing.
As his soul began to let go its moorings on the body, Raziel stood up and drew down his cowl. The soul wavered in midair for only a moment before it was drained down into the gaping maw.
.
“Infused with the soul of the evolved Hylden Marduk, I could feel something change within me. My physical form, using the energies absorbed, was changing. I looked back and watched in awe as my wings… changed.”
.
As Raziel collapsed to the ground, Vorador staggered away from him with a sharp oath. The influx of energy pulsed through him and Raziel had to fight his own body in order to assimilate it. As he did, he could feel parts of him changing.
His ruined wings flapped in mi air once and then began to regain definition; bones reforming with muscle along the outside edge.
They were not restored completely, only reinforced like the structure of a kite. 
.
“Flight was by no means restored to me, but the flaps of membrane were reinforced and strengthened. Now, I could glide on the air currents and let them carry me faster and further than ever before.”
.
He stood up, testing his new anatomy, seeing how it responded to his will.
.
“Perhaps in time, I might truly fly again… perhaps in time.”