Raziel’s brothers stared from him, to each other, then to their master. Zephon, Kain’s second youngest, looked dumb struck and gleeful at the same time. Like a child who had just received the one thing he had always wanted. Turel, the brother closest in age to Raziel, looked horrified. “Dumah, Turel. Pick him up.” They didn’t move. Their faces showed a mixture of confusion and fear. Kain turned to look at them, all his hatred showing in his yellow eyes. “NOW!” Turel and Dumah hurried to either side of their fallen brother. They lifted him by his arms and looked at Kain, unsure of what he would do next. Kain retrieved the Soul Reaver from his throne. This sword had taken countless lives, and his would be no different. The master turned to face his lieutenant turned traitor, and raised the sword to strike down his most powerful servant. 

Raziel, still weak from the pain, looked up, and with all the strength he could muster, muttered weakly “Father, please…” Kain was taken aback. Never, in the millennium that they had served him, had any of his children called him father. 

Then his mind recalled a day 300 years before, when he had unearthed the Chronoplast chamber. He had seen this very day, and he knew what he must do. He lowered the Soul Reaver, walked to the door, and retrieved a spear. The look of relief that had spread over most of the clan leaders’ faces suddenly disappeared. An evil smirk climbed Zephon’s cheeks. In one movement, Kain raised the spear and drove it into Raziel’s heart. He walked toward the door again and ordered his lieutenants to fallow. 

He led them out of the Sanctuary of the Clans and toward the Lake of the Dead. As they reached the mouth of the cave that led to the Abyss, Kain halted them. “Zephon, remove the spear from his chest.” Zephon, with a sadistic glint in his eye, placed his foot upon his older brother’s face, gripped the spear, and pulled. As it came free and the wound closed, Kain could almost see Raziel’s soul returning to his body. Then he turned and walked across the bridge toward the endlessly swirling vortex of the Abyss. Turel and Dumah, still griping their brother, followed. As they reached the edge, they heard their master’s voice over the hundreds of waterfalls that surrounded them, “Cast him in.” He said simply. Raziel struggled weakly, and then he was hurled into the air. They heard him scream until he hit the water. 

Turel could ignore his conscience no longer. He turned and, with all his courage, spoke against his master. “What was the point of this? Raziel would have served you no matter what form he took. You herd him. He called you father!” The anger in his own voice astounded even him. 

Kain had stopped while Turel had still been shouting. The Chronoplast chamber had not shown him this. How he handled this had been left entirely up to him. Kain turned to face him. He walked slowly until they were almost nose-to-nose and Turel could feel Kain’s breath on his face. Turel’s fear showed clearly on his face. Kain griped him by the throat and raised him off of the ground and held him directly over the Lake of the Dead. “If you EVER question my judgment again, you will join him!”

Kain threw his second born back to the ground. “Does anyone else have a problem?” No one dared move. Kain began walking back across the bridge. That action caused a divide between the clans and Kain. From that moment on, Turel never again spoke to his creator. Within a few years, he had moved his clan far beyond the frozen waist lands to the north of the Abyss. The clans hardly associated with each other, and the other clan leaders only spoke to Kain if he sought them out, never the other way around.

Kain pondered this fact as he stared at the Soul Reaver. His children feared him. Feared that Kain might do to them what he did to Raziel if they showed him their new gifts. He wished he could talk and laugh with his children as he did many centuries ago. But, fate had another role in store for him. He was to play the tyrant, the mad ruler gone insane with jealousy. He detested the role, but he had no choice. He proved himself the tyrant with the mad fit that reduced his first born to a pitiful heap on the ground. He hated what he had become. The old saying ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ appeared to have been true for him. 

He looked above his head. The dark clouds of smoke covering the sun only allowed a few rays of light through. The Pillar of Balance, over which his throne had been constructed, stood as a monument of his absolute corruption.  It’s dark exterior seemingly mocking his supposed dominance over a damned world. It was because he refused to martyr himself that the Pillar stood poisoned to its very core. 

He was the Pillar’s guardian, and he had the chance to be the world’s salvation by killing himself and ending the corruption of the Pillars. Instead, he chose to rule Nosgoth in its damnation. Almost immediately, the decay had begun. Only the humans seemed unaffected. This, Kain believed, was the Pillars’ private joke. They, in return for Kain’s blasphemous desecration of the Serifan tombs, had spared the humans the devolution that the vampires had endured.

Many times, he had been on the verge of using the Chronoplast chamber to tell himself to make the sacrifice. But he would not turn Nosgoth over to the humans. The humans had all but destroyed his race. When Ariel asked him to make the sacrifice, he had been the only vampire left. He saw his friend and mentor, Vorador, beheaded before a crowd of cheering, cowardly humans. No, the humans didn’t deserve Nosgoth. But then he wondered, and not for the first time, did he deserve Nosgoth?

His thoughts were suddenly snatched back to the present. He looked around for a moment, wondering what had disturbed him. Then he realized he had felt something. Raziel was back. Kain could feel the soft murmur of his mind, as he was no doubt discovering the decay that had laid waist to the land. Soon, he would see the Sanctuary of the Clans. Kain would have loved to see the look on his face when he saw it collapsing into dust and rubble. But, he had business elsewhere.

He stood. He raised his sword over his shoulder and strapped it to his back. He needed to speak to Melchiah. Kain’s youngest would not be happy to see him. He wondered, for a moment, if he should express his true feelings to his baby boy. He laughed softly at this. He hadn’t called Melchiah his baby boy since Raziel died. He had never called him that out loud, but that was always how he felt. He needed to see him, tell him what was about to happen. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer standing at the base of the Pillars of Nosgoth. He looked around to survey the throne room of his youngest son. A large circular cage sat in the middle and directly in front of him stood Melchiah’s ‘throne’. It was nothing more than a ramp leading up to a room with controls for the gate and the grinding wheel for the sacrifices he held for himself every year. This place had not changed in 300 years. He could see a dark shape near the controls. The top of the shape steadily, rhythmically rose and fell. He was sleeping. Kain walked slowly so as not to disturb his sleeping child. 

Melchiah was repulsive. Because of the weakness of his spirit, his body still decomposed. This forced him to constantly skin his victims and wear their hides as his own. The ability to move through solid matter had only developed because, with his gigantic size and lack of legs, it was the only way he could move about freely. But as Kain stared at his massive hulk, he thought that his … baby boy … looked peaceful. 

He raised a hand to touch one of the spikes on Melchah’s back, but then thought better of it. He had to take care of business, no matter how much it might pain him. This was to be the last time he saw his child outside of the Wheel of Fate, and he could not break character to say goodbye. He felt a burning on his face and reached up to touch it. He realized that, for the first time in many thousands of years, he had shed a tear.

He wiped his face. Though he had not cried since before he died, and was not even aware he could cry, he still had a job to do. He stepped back a few steps, put his arms stiffly to his sides, and spoke. “Melchiah”, Melchiah stirred. His large, red eyes opened as he lifted his massive shape and turned to face his creator. 

As Kain had predicted, his youngest was not happy to see him. “Have you come to taunt me for my pitiful ‘gifts’ as well?” 

“I shall do no such thing. I have come to issue a warning. Raziel is coming to destroy you. You will not survive this encounter.”  Melchiah’s face showed no surprise. He must have heard Raziel’s mind as he emerged from the underworld as well. 

“Is that a prediction or a command?” he asked. 

“Neither, it is a fact.” Melchiah laughed scornfully at this. “You are many things, Kain. But, despite what the humans and lesser vampires might think, you are no god. You cannot know such things.”

Kain’s eyes narrowed, “I may not be a god, but I do know this: Raziel will destroy you.” Melchiah looked unsure. Melchiah found it hard to believe that Kain saw into the future, but the confidence in his voice made it hard to believe otherwise. Maybe this was some new gift. Maybe Kain had steered his evolutionary track toward mental powers. But that was impossible. The closest any of them had come to developing talents of the mind was the minute amount of telekinetic power that Dumah had shown before his defeat at the hands of the vampire hunters.

Melchiah considered for a moment. Though Kain knew Raziel would kill Melchiah, he did not know Melchiah’s thoughts as he considered this. Finally, Melchiah spoke. “If I am to die, then leave me. I wish to die in peace.” As Melchiah spoke these last words to Kain, they herd the hum of Melchiah’s elevator to the ground floor starting up for the first time in over 100 years, signaling Raziel’s arrival. 

“This is where I say farewell to you, Melchiah.” And as he disappeared, he thought: ‘I will miss you, my baby boy.’