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Jan 6, 2019

Chapter Four: Raziel is Chosen

Raziel awoke in agony, blood and bile sour on his tongue and caked on his lips. His shoulders ached, dislocated from being dragged along his knees as dead weight. When he looked over his shoulder he retched, afflicted by the sight of his boneless, bloody wings shuffling across the ground. Weakly, he twisted his gaze toward his captors.

On his right he saw his younger brother, Turel, Kain’s second born. His other brother, Dumah, pulled him by his left, eyes forward. Melchiah, Zephon, and Rahab marched behind them, silent. Kain led the grim procession. Raziel recognized the well worn path decorated with flags. They were taking him to die.

He tried to pull himself up. His body was in such pain, more than Kain had ever prepared him for, yet he knew worse would come. He could not die like this. "Turel, Dumah... please, help me stand..."

His brothers ignored him. Desperate, he looked to Kain, his creator and father. He could not see his face. The black, empty eyes of the Soul Reaver mocked all his hopes.

"Why are you doing this? What have I done? Kain? Kain!? Please, stop this! Sire, look at me! Look at me you fucking bast-!" He wheezed, cut off by Turel’s swift kick.

Recovering himself, Raziel glared at Turel, but his rage died when he noticed the figure walking before his brother. The wraith looked just as he had in Vorador's manor; a dessicated facsimile of Raziel's former self, deprived of nearly all his trappings and even more abhorrent. Behind him, the corrupted Pillars of Nosgoth rose over the mountains and falls, black as if scorched by fire, and the wind carried a distant wailing. Raziel’s stomach entered his throat. Was he dreaming again?

The wraith looked down at Raziel with his pinprick eyes. He tapped his skull with one claw and pointed. It’s all in your mind.

At that moment the waters of the Abyss hissed and exploded into fire. Raziel yelped. The air singed his throat with molten steel. Black smoke burst from the pit of the falls and churned above the lake like volcanic ash. Roaring, roiling flames leapt from rivers of magma, belching hot, dry embers into the sky. He tried to dig his claws into the earth, but the stone platform had turned to smooth metal without purchase. His brothers twisted his arms as he thrashed, ignoring his screams, until he complied. Kain stepped aside to allow them to pass. He never looked at Raziel. Not a glance.

They reached the edge of the platform. His brothers stopped, allowing him a moment to gaze into his future grave. The bottom of the Lake of the Dead had become a gigantic forge. He squinted, eyes burned by the intensity of the flames.

Visible only to Raziel, the wraith stood in front of his brothers on the precipice, hands at his sides, stringy wings floating in the hot updraft. The wraith turned to him. He held up his fist with thumb pointed out to the side, as if to give a command to the victor of a coliseum match. He pointed his thumb down. Raziel trembled.

Behind them, out of sight, Kain said, "Cast them in."

And then Raziel was falling.

Tendrils of hot air lashed across his face and broken wings. He threw up his arms to protect himself as he burst through the first wave of ash.

Wailing voices joined him in the inferno. Had Kain cast his brothers into the pit, too? No, these screams were too shrill, too pitiful to belong to his proud brothers.

In his home Raziel employed an army of semi-feral cats to cull the rodent population and prevent plague among the slaves. He happily allowed the tamer ones to lounge about his palace. One night he heard a shrill cry coming from a storage closet and rushed in to find two palace slaves holding one of his cats by the tail and beating it viciously. These screams sounded like that. He forced himself to look.

Seven shadowy figures plummeted through the fire. They looked so far away. No, not far away, they were only much smaller than him. He tried to reach out to the nearest - a young girl - but his arm burst into flame. He screamed, tumbling head over feet. The flames gnashed their white hot teeth, tearing flesh from bone in impossible agony, and devoured them alive.

Raziel jolted awake. The touch of Kain’s sheets touch felt icy and unreal, tainted by ash. Clutching at his head, he curled into a ball, face pressed between knees, shaking all over and breathing in hard, shallow gasps.

Even as a young vampire he rarely had nightmares. Since coming back from the dead he had been having vivid dreams whenever he closed his eyes to sleep, always leaving him with a disturbing sense of dread. The Sanctuary must have addled his mind. Perhaps he should avoid sleep for a while now that he felt stronger.

Gradually, the sickness subsided. He unfolded himself, catching his breath. "Dear god…”

As he said this he became aware of a conversation taking place outside. He went to investigate.

Two Turelim stood in the hall, Nogah and another. Their conversation abruptly ended as he poked his head through the door. The stranger turned to him, fangs awkwardly sticking from his mouth, sniffed and let out a wet snort. That seemed churlish. Nogah glanced his way, ears down. “Kain is here.”

Raziel narrowed his eyes. History taught him to be wary of unusual coincidences, especially where they related to Kain.

“Are you all right?” she asked as she escorted him down the hall. Kain was waiting for him in the throne room, at the Pillars.

“Just nerves.”

“I heard you crying in your sleep.”

“It was nothing, just a bad dream,” he said tersely.

Nogah stopped outside the large double-doors. She knew he intended to leave soon, whether or not he convinced Kain to allow it. “I’ll be waiting here. Good luck, Raziel.”

Every night since his awakening Raziel had practiced flight for hours. When his chest muscles burned for peace and his wings lost all ability to lift Nogah happily kept him company on the ground. She became the only thread connecting him to the Sanctuary. Now he did not know what to say to her. All his words felt too great or too little. He inhaled slowly and deeply.

As he pushed apart the heavy doors his shoulders pinched and his wings curled into his back. Just deja vu, he told himself. He stepped onto the Pillars’ foundation, a stone platform engraved with golden runes written across concentric circles, and approached Kain. This will be the end of it.

Kain waited for him beside the Pillar of Balance, the hilt of the Soul Reaver visible over his shoulder. He knew Kain did not intend to use the sword against him again yet seeing it on his person still made him uneasy, as if he and the sword had unfinished business. Kain ran his claws across the polished white stone in a gesture Raziel found almost perverse. He turned and smiled. “Welcome, Raziel! You have no idea how pleased I am to see you again.”

“That’s a first.”

Kain chuckled, “Don’t be disingenuous. Without you none of this would be possible. I confess, in spite of all my machinations, I doubted we would ever see the Pillars restored in our time. Nosgoth is indebted to you.”

Maybe he should be happy. He would like to feel something apart from exhaustion. “So… it really is over.”

“The hard part is. With their purification I can now sense the other members of the Circle. We must collect them before they learn to fear us. Until such time as these new guardians can be turned Nosgoth is still vulnerable.”

“What makes you think I want any part in this?”

“You have as much stake in Nosgoth’s future as I.”

“My part in prophecy is finished. Now that I have fulfilled my obligation to Nosgoth, I will be going my own way.”

Kain started to frown. “You are my right hand.”

The memory burned like acid. “I was dying, Kain. It was different. I wanted to settle accounts before I died but now I am suffocating under the weight of your sins. Please, if my sacrifice means anything to you, grant my request. I do not think freedom is too much to ask.”

Kain walked toward him. Raziel tensed, half-expecting a fight. To his surprise Kain seemed almost sympathetic. “You must know it’s not that simple. The Pillars brought you back for a purpose.”

Of course, Raziel did consider that possibility. It was not something he enjoyed thinking about. Fate destroyed him, obliterated everyone and everything he held dear, necessitated giving up his very soul, and still demanded more? Raziel looked away. He never admitted defeat before. It tasted like bile.

“You’re exhausting me.”

“That is irrelevant. You are too important to be risking your life as a vagrant of the wastes. Or have you not realized? The Pillars chose you the way they chose me.”

Raziel looked at him with gritting disgust. “Am I a joke to you?”

“I’m not laughing. I saw the truth of it the moment I found you lying in this chamber - you are a Pillar guardian, the Pillars remade you as such.”

In all his centuries he never knew Kain to lie. He omitted truths or kept silent. Besides, if that was a lie it was a terribly poor one.

No, it could not be true.

“How then? You would not need to curse human guardians if the Pillars could summon vampires out of thin air!”

“Your soul was the catalyst for this,” Kain said, gesturing at the Pillars jutting above the shattered throne room. “Using that I created you from nothing more than bones and dust. Why should the Pillars have any difficulty? I may not be omniscient, Raziel, but I will not deny the truth as it stands before me. You disappoint me. I actually thought the Pillars chose well making you Time Streamer.”

Kain’s words stuck him like a blow to the chest. His entire being shuddered in rejection of Moebius’ former title. Seeing the conviction in Kain’s eyes, could he still call him a liar?

It made sense. The Pillars required vampire guardians to maintain the delicate Binding protecting Nosgoth from the corrupting influence of the other realms. His soul, disembodied yet tantalizingly infused with vampiric essence, happened to appear in the one place and time they could conceivably make use of it. When he thought of it that way Kain's conclusion became inevitable.

Did his dreams have something to do with this?

He staggered backward, stumbling over his own feet. His body insisted that he needed air. When he tried to breathe his chest seemed to turn to stone. Still it insisted - breathe, you need air!

“Compose yourself, Raziel!”

Just as he thought he would collapse Kain’s command snapped him back to reality. As he struggled to collect himself the weight of Kain’s eyes felt like the only real thing in the room. Kain watched over him thoughtfully. “Come with me. There is something I need to show you.”

Raziel blinked. “What now? Another layer of hell?”

Kain raised an eyebrow. “I assume you would like to see one of the fruits of your labor. I have the Nature Guardian.”

…

They arrived in one of the guest rooms in the clans’ wing of the Sanctuary. Raziel recognized the woman as Sweetblood, the slave from the bath; a questionable choice for the Nature Guardian’s wet nurse. At Kain’s request, she lifted a bundle out of an open drawer and handed it to him. Rarely did Kain handle an object with such care. Nestled within the furs Raziel saw a tiny human face, sleeping peacefully. Nogah leaned over Raziel’s shoulder, sniffing and listening to the child’s soft breathing with intrigue.

Raziel was not sure what he expected. Kain’s tales described Bane the Druid as a mountain of a man, savagely dressed in hide and bone, with the power to bend earth and beasts to his will. This child was hardly bigger than a kitten.

As lord of his clan, Raziel took no interest in humans until they reached an age where they could work in his palace, fight in the coliseum, or showed potential for the dark gift. In fact, he had killed children as young as this during the war without a second thought, under Kain’s orders no less. When he thought of how Janos would react at the sight of this child, and what he would say had he known the horrible actions of Raziel’s past, he felt guilty.

If only Janos could see her. When the Sarafan flaunted their kills a mere stone’s throw from his window, Janos had been forgiving, seeing ignorance where all others saw only malice. He had given Raziel unwavering faith no matter how many times he failed him. His patience and compassion made him a far better candidate to guide the new guardians. It should have been him standing here. He deserved it more.

Kain made a warm introduction. “Callisto, the first Nature Guardian in nearly two millennia. Hold out your arms, Raziel.”

“Kain, no -”

Kain passed the infant into his protesting arms regardless. He froze in terror as Kain manipulated his arms until he was holding her according to his terms. If left to his own devices he would have tried to hold her like a cat, his only frame of reference. Satisfied, Kain backed away, leaving him adrift with Callisto. It was like holding a damned bomb.

The child wriggled weakly in his arms with a mewing sound. Thankfully, she did not stir more than that. She felt unusually warm, more so than an adult human, and her swaddling smelled of Nosgoth’s dry wastes. Callisto had a peculiar scent of her own. She smelled startlingly sweet.

“Recall how you felt when you beheld Nosgoth’s natural splendor for the first time. Callisto is the seed of that forgotten world. With her the empire shall be reborn into a golden era of vitality, perhaps even greater than what came before. This is what your sacrifice was for. It is our legacy.”

Kain had a brilliant way with words. It was one of the reasons Raziel remained so fervently loyal to him, up until the end.

This poor child had no concept of the trials ahead. In some ways he valued the upbringing Kain gave him as a vampire, yet for all the strength and courage Kain instilled into his soul, he also filled his life with brutality, distrust and ultimately, agony. Kain built him up with one hand and tore him down with the other in a relentless cycle. He would do the same to her.

Janos would want him to stay. Recalling how Janos buried countless centuries of misery and loneliness to guard the Reaver for him, ultimately giving up his life to protect him, how could he rightfully refuse? Yet surely Janos would also agree he deserved a period of respite.

Kain smiled, quietly pleased. “Now you understand. I knew Callisto would show you the way.”

Raziel’s head throbbed. He was about to say something when Callisto hiccuped and started to cry, which abruptly grew to a piercing wail. A flame sparked at the forefront of Raziel’s mind. It was that horrible cat scream.

Sweetblood carried Callisto away, trying to calm her, meanwhile Raziel experienced a break in reality. The floor fell out from under him and the flames of the Abyss lashed at his feet. He saw Kain coming toward him, that terrible look in his eyes, reaching out to rip the bones from his wings and leapt back blindly, striking his elbow against the door and tripping over Nogah as he staggered into the hall. Kain’s talons caught his shoulder like hooks.

Everything went red. For a moment after the haze cleared he saw Kain standing less than a meter away, hand clutched to one side of his face, a thick red line dripping over the bridge of his nose. The injury was negligible. The rage in Kain’s eye was not.

Raziel crashed through an adjacent door. The force of the throw bounced him off the stone floor. He rolled a few feet, the suddenness and violence of the attack too great to recover from.

Just as he had gathered his bearings his ribs exploded in pain. Kain was upon him, kicking him viciously. Raziel curled into a ball, limbs tight against his body, wings tightest of all. Knowing only submission would satisfy, he surrendered to the thrashing until the blows subsided. Kain wrenched him up by his elbow and shoved him, stumbling into the center of the room.

This room was also part of the clans’ wing. Unlike Callisto’s room, it was barren.

“Now,” Kain growled, gruffly composing himself, “you will tell me what happened.”

Hunched over, clutching his arm, Raziel seethed. “You - “

“I know! Tell me what you saw.”

He clenched his jaw and straightened. Kain was right, it was pointless to chastise him. Worse, it might earn him a second beating. “That girl is in peril. I think the other guardians may be as well.”

“What peril?”

The words crumpled on his tongue. He stepped back. “I… I don’t know. When she started to cry I suddenly realized I knew her. She came from a nightmare. There were others too, seven children wailing and plummeting into a lake of fire - and I among them. We all burned up in the flames. And the Pillars… my god, the Pillars…”

He trailed off. Kain’s umbrage died, simply died like an insect. The change in Kain’s demeanor frightened him more than his wrath ever could. A long silence settled between them.

“What are we to do?”

“I…” What should he say? That Kain cast his fellow guardians into the fire? Raziel pushed his claws through his hair, gripping his head. “Kain, I… I do not know how to interpret these visions. You unraveled the riddle of my fate before. How do I understand?”

“I saw only what Moebius allowed me to see. The rest I pieced together on my own through centuries of study into Nosgoth’s past. I never predicted the future,” Kain replied solemnly, eyes downcast. He looked at Raziel after a pause. “This is your Pillar. Think carefully. Do not rush.”

Raziel’s mind drew a blank. Each time he tried to analyze his dream his mind flashed back to the scene of his execution and dissolved his progress in a whirlpool of nausea. Only violence seemed certain, violence and betrayal and death. There had to be some way to make the picture clearer. If only he could escape this den of bitter memories.

An idea came to him. “I need to go to the Oracle’s Cave. If I am who you say I am then perhaps something there will elucidate my dream.”

Kain folded his arms pensively. His brow furrowed. “That may not be possible for some time. I have much to attend to and cannot spare any of my guards to accompany you. You’ll just have to find another way.”

As if protecting him was Kain’s first priority. “Very well, I’m perfectly capable of flying alone.”

“Denied. You’re too weak for such a long flight.”

“The winds are strong this time of year. If I start from a high place I can ride them all the way to the mountains with hardly any effort on my part.”

“And you shall find yourself stranded in a cold wasteland dry of blood with miles of Zillahim and Dumahim remnant between yourself and Sanctuary. The flight is arduous even in bat form, I know, I’ve done it dozens of times, you not once. You must stay here where it is safe.”

“Safe?” Raziel almost laughed. “You barely restrained from breaking my ribs. This place is prison.”

“If you were my prisoner, you would know it.”

“I suppose you’d lock me underground, perhaps slice off my wings for good measure. I’d leave Nosgoth to burn out of spite for you.”

Kain only scowled. Perhaps he regretted teaching Raziel to resist torture in preparation for Nosgoth’s conquest so many centuries ago. Emboldened, Raziel pressed, “How much time do you suppose we have? A few days, a month? These portents may come true within the hour for all anyone could say!”

There came no snappy reply this time. He looked like someone trying to swallow a small caltrop. When he did speak every word felt like a barricade against his rage. “You still have no idea how much Nosgoth has changed. These walls are all that protect us from the ten thousand bloodthirsty maws of this shattered empire yet our continued existence depends upon the Rahabim and Zephonim. My only bargaining chips for slaves and trade are the sharpness of my blade and the hope of the Pillar guardians. That includes you. If either of us makes a fatal error it all falls apart. The Circle will never form, Nosgoth will never heal, and it shall be as you saw.”

“I assure you this vision was not born from one of my mistakes, Kain.”

“This is no longer up for debate!”

“Because you would have to kill me to stop me.”

It was too late to take back his words. Kain advanced upon him, stopping just inches from his face. “Is that how you see it? After all I’ve done for you… Fine. Go. You have five days, starting now. If you have not returned by sundown on the fifth day I will find you and I will drag you back here bloody and broken. Pray you bring answers.”

Raziel held his tongue. He remained steadfast until Kain left the room. Now he wondered how he ever imagined they could part ways peacefully. Sadly, this caustic separation was only temporary. With the Nature Guardian already in Kain’s possession Raziel did not doubt his claim to sense the locations of the other Circle members.

He found Nogah standing alone in the hall, looking worn and defeated. His sire had taken out words on her, too. “Kain wishes me to escort you to the armory. You do not need to do this. If you give him time, he may cool down.”

“What’s done is done. I want to leave while he’s given me the chance.”

#time streamer #chapter 4 #legacy of kain #raziel #kain #soul reaver #blood omen #edited chapter

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