The Remembered Gods
Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain belongs to Edios and
Crystal Dynamics not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic, it is written
purely because I have a burning need to create. Although I would like to own
Vorador . . . then he’d be mine.
Warning: this fic contains YAOI (GuyXGuy) and a lemon,
if this offends or upsets you do not read this, it’s that simple.
Also note this
fic discusses and contains hints of Rape
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Janos/Vorador
Authoress note: Please note this whole fic is in Janos’
point of view.
I am judging
Janos was in the device for six hundred years, this was worked out from the
timeline but my mathematic skills really do suck so if it is wrong I
apologize.
EXPRESS WARNING:
Dedications: This fic was inspired by a review given
to ‘Forgotten Gods’ and so in turn this sequel
is dedicated to Jade.
Also Schuldig Schwarz
whose amazingly flattering reviews have been so very sweet and inspiring. Also
because she’s a legacy of Kain fanatic just as much as me.
And As always this is also dedicated to my beta reader ‘odeena skywalker’ aka ‘Anne Shard’ because without whom this
would most likely be practically unreadable for many.
Italics mean either flashbacks or thoughts
* \/ * /\ * \/ * /\ *
Chapter One
{Janos Audron}
Memories, that’s was all he had now.
He knew he would never leave this place, that
this was his fate, his punishment. Being banished from the wheel alone had not
been severe enough. If banishment from the wheel was his punishment for his
immortality, this must have been his punishment for forcing immortality on
others.
It was his fault
It had been him who had found a way to keep humans’ souls locked in their
bodies, with no hope of liberation from flesh. Not only had he betrayed his god
by leaving the wheel. He had injured his god by keeping others from it.
This was what he deserved.
He deserved all of this, the insults, the beatings,
the rape, the weakness in his body and finally the hideous devolution, which
kept all creatures away from him.
Yet he couldn’t help but wish otherwise. He
sighed to himself suddenly. He would endure a punishment, but he wished it was
someone other than the Hylden who would administer it. The irony of this
punishment was too bitter for his taste.
He tensed and stretched the muscles in his
legs, trying to work out the stiffness and cramp. His cage was too small for
him to move about freely since his devolution and thus he suffered in the form
of cramp.
When he had first come here it had not take
long for him to give up the fight. He had fought fiercely the first time they
struck him, fought less so the next time and by the time the Hylden leader came
and put his hands on him in the most ghastly way, nearly all the fight had bled
out of him. He had simply accepted it with the passiveness his race now seemed
famous for. But over the years, the centuries of insults, rape, pain and
humiliation, he had come to despise it utterly. He knew he didn’t deserve his
freedom, but he couldn’t help but long for it nonetheless.
But he would not fight for it.
His soul was torn in two; one half was aching
for freedom and willing to fight for it, but the other half was aching for
forgiveness and hoping to attain it by enduring punishment. So he remained and
lived in his memories.
Every time one of them had come to him he had
just been still, hiding in his memories, not feeling the strikes to his flesh
or the harsh invasion of his body.
He remembered his younger days, when he flew
with many of his kind; they would chase each other through the skies, playing a
never ending game, one he had always loved. He remembered his mother, a tall
thin creature who more resembled a bird than a woman. It had been from her that
he had obtained many of his looks and mannerisms.
He sighed, opening his eyes, and made another
attempt to flex what muscles he could in the cramped cage before slipping back into
his memories again. He remembered the war, watching as his kind slaughtered the
Hylden, who had no afterlife, watching as the Hylden freed the souls of his
friends to the wheel and he was happy.
Then he remembered the curse, watching as his
loved ones tried desperately to rejoin the wheel but could now only enter
purgatory. The short time it took for his race to slowly begin to fade to
purgatory. Then finally he remembered his child.
Vorador
He wondered for a moment whether or not
Vorador was still alive. He remembered words spoken to him by his child long
ago and doubted the fledgling would still exist.
“Many of
our race are dying at the moment.” Janos nodded, sorry
his fledgling had to find out this way. “The separation from God is too much
for them.”
Vorador let out a gasping
sob. His sire really was going to leave him.
“Please don’t go, please don’t leave me here alone,” he begged.
Vorador would not have lasted on his own, even
in the mansion surrounded by his brides he would not have lasted. Vorador had
confessed a long time ago that even when surrounded by others he would feel
alone if Janos wasn’t there and it killed him slowly a little more each night.
He shook himself. Of course, Vorador was dead;
Raziel had proclaimed it when he had awakened the ancient in Vorador’s crypt.
He shuddered. Vorador, unable to live alone, had kept his sire close even in
death. Yet the fledgling had known that somewhere his heart had been still beating
and had hoped to resurrect him himself.
He had spent many evenings now dreaming of
returning to the surface as his old self and finding his child alive and the
two of them being together once again, yet every time he had those dreams he
would wake and see himself as he was now, devolved and grotesque. And his child
was dead.
His devolution had cost him a very high price;
he had lost his wings, the one thing he would have sacrificed almost anything
to keep. Before he met Vorador he would have sacrificed anything to keep his
wings. After meeting Vorador he would have sacrificed anything but Vorador for
that. The fact he had lost them because of his own weakness stung terribly. He
took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm himself.
If he still had hands, he would have attempted
to kill himself a hundred times over by now.
However his devolution had brought gifts as
well, ones he was glad for. At least now he didn’t need to spend his evening
cowering, waiting for that creature. He shivered,
remembering how each evening it had come and tried to ‘break’ his spirit a little
more. Each evening it had left him used and bleeding on the floor of his cage.
He shivered again more violently this time,
remembering the feel of that thing’s hands on him, touching him where only
those he cared for should have touched. It still made his skin crawl. His
stomach rolled and threatened to empty itself, despite not having anything in
it to empty. The words it had hissed at him, how worthless he was, how
disgusting he was to look at and touch; yet the creature had still touched him
anyway.
After hearing words like that for longer than
you care to remember you start to believe them.
Another gift he had gained in his devolution
that he appreciated was that he had lost the ability to cry. For surly
otherwise he would have drowned them all in tears by now.
“. . . has risen, Kain is alive again,” a
Hylden voice hissed into the chamber, full of accusation.
“They followed it into the canyons,” the
second Hylden spoke as the two walked past Janos, sneering.
“It really did all of this alone, are they
sure it is him?” the other asked as they disappeared into another corridor.
“Yes, which other of their cursed race could
come this far without death?” the second one snapped. The voices continued to
talk but got quieter with every footstep and were soon out of ear shot.
Janos yawned; it was not the first time one of
the vampires had made an impressive stand/ Yet, as
with all of the others, this one too would fall. He knew the Hylden Lord well
enough by now to know he was only playing with the rebels the same way he
played with his vampire guardians.
He had often listened to the Hylden workers
talk of the vampire resistance. Sometimes, on occasion, the Hylden Lord himself
had come down to brag at Janos about what he had done,
“Slaughtered many of them this night, and you
know I do it just for you, Janos, my precious whore.”
He hated it when that creature spoke to him,
and yet he could not hate it entirely, for the Hylden Lord was the only
creature in this world that used his name any more, and thus was the only
creature that recognised and acknowledged his existence.
Should he ever get free, he knew he would
attempt to kill the Hylden Lord for all he had done. But for now, he would
tolerate the creature just for the fact he used his name.
He jerked suddenly, something was coming.
He reached out with his mind, one power he had
allowed himself to keep and perhaps even develop a little in his prison. It
took him a moment, but he managed to locate the disturbance. He touched the
creature’s mind silently and jerked back instantly, whispering, “No it can’t be...”
Gently, he reached out again with his mind,
sensing the foreign creature as best he could. He slipped into its mind like
mist over water, silent and unnoticed; he gently brushed over memories and was
assaulted with images.
Blood
Fire
Death
Power
Rage
The pillars
Balance
The scion! This creature entering the device
was the scion! He felt his heart jump in his chest and winced, it hurt still.
His death scar was burning fiercely.
One of the saviours was here, here with him.
He looked at himself briefly and felt shame, he did not want to be seen like
this, yet obviously that choice had been taken away from him by fate.
“Stop it, Janos,” he suddenly chided himself.
“There is no Scion!”
There was no scion. It was all a lie, a sick
lie, a Hylden deception, a way for them to get themselves a foot hold back into
this world. Their saviour had been claimed by the Hylden and the scion
fabricated so that the ancients would not suspect when their saviour fell.
When the saviour fell.
Raziel.
He killed Raziel.
He still remembered what it felt like, the
anger he felt at his own helplessness as that Hylden scum used his form to
destroy his saviour. Yet another irony that the Hylden lord felt no guilt in
reminding him of again and again and again.
“Come now, Janos,” the creature hissed, running talons down the
ancient’s side and back, one coming dangerously close to the ancient’s entrance.
“I know what strength is in this disgusting collection of muscles you call a
body.” Janos hissed as the a single talon was trust
brutally inside him. “I felt it, used it to destroy that wretch you named
saviour, don’t you remember?”
Footsteps sounded in the walkway above him,
shaking him from his memories. The elevator switched on.
“Who disturbs me” he gasped out, his voice
rough and tired. “Not one of my captors... Kain!”
He almost gasped aloud, yet managed to stop
himself in time and thus avoided appearing foolish.
It was an exact replica of the images the
seers had drawn; the seers had not been seeing blind hope! It was really him!
Janos felt his throat close and gasped briefly for air while he tried to calm
himself.
“You know me, monster?” Kain took a step back,
fists clenched at his side. Janos regretted once more that the scion had to see
him this way. “My memory at present has its flaws, but I should certainly
remember one such as you.” Kain seemed to find his voice.
“We have not met.” Janos let his head dip, the
muscles in his neck finding it hard to hold the weight up. “I know of you of
course, that you can return from the dead gives hope to us all.” Janos tried to
keep his words simple, the creature in front of him was confused enough, it didn’t need him making it worse.
“I seek an ancient device of great power.”
Kain spoke louder now, directly. Janos nodded as best he could. “I am prepared
to kill any who stand in my way.”
Janos winced. This poor creature had obviously
endured much to be so quick to threaten. Briefly, Janos ghosted over his mind.
Fear
“You thought yourself a king when in fact you were a pawn”
Hatred
“I have waited two hundred years for the pleasure of
killing you with my own hands”
Betrayal
“It was you who arranged the ambush”
Yes, he had good reason to be so defensive; he
would need this trait later in his life as well, no doubt. But still it pained
the ancient that a fledgling so young had already lost his faith in his
fellows.
“Have no fear of
Never before had he felt so ashamed.
“Then perhaps we have an interest in common.”
Kain’s voice had softened now, he seemed almost piteous
“I am here to destroy the device.”
Once those words left the fledgling’s lips
Janos’ heart started pumping hard. It couldn’t be true, surely after so long
his mind must be playing tricks on him. His poor mind must have become
diseased, he surely had fabricated this whole conversation, there
was no scion, not any more.
It was all a Hylden plot.
Kain stepped forwards and put a clawed, but
still human hand up to the barrier. The look on his face was one of confusion,
laced with pity.
It couldn’t be a plot . . . could it? Janos’
mind raced, trying hard to figure out if this was real or not. It had to be real,
the seers had not seen blind hope, the scion was real and he was here.
“But why here? Why me? What’s so important about me?” Janos’ mind
screamed at him.
“We are the last,” it answered itself, “he is
here because there is no one else to save but us”.
If that was indeed the case then, this was his
chance, his chance at freedom, his chance to get revenge on his captors, his
chance to live once again.
“Yes,” he snapped suddenly, “yes, I can help
you then.” He would have smiled had he been able to. “That which you seek is too
great for you to destroy alone. It descends far underground. It rivals a city
in its size.”
“Or so he told me,” Janos’ mind hissed
venomously, remembering that particular conversation when the Hylden Lord told
him of his new lodgings. How he had been put here at the entrance so all who
entered would see how the mighty vampires had fallen.
“To destroy the device you must seek out the
being that built it,” he summarised.
“The Sarafan Lord,” Kain snapped back eager
now.
But no, the young fledgling
scion was mistaken; it was not the Sarafan Lord who had built this great evil
machine, it was much, much older, older even than Janos himself.
“No, no, it is older, far older,”
he paused, thinking of the best way to put this. “Those who dwelt in Nosgoth in
eons past left some structures in their passing, the device is one.” He had to
stop, his throat was raw with so many words, it had
been so long since he had spoken to another. “The Sarafan lord discovered how
to use it but only the builder can make it stop.”
“You mean the being still
lives, impossible,” Kain snapped, clearly believing Janos to be mad.
“He lives, listen to me,” he
stopped gasping again, he felt blood slip down from
his jaws, as his own blood weakness ate at him. “There is a place in Nosgoth,
far to the north, where time means nothing; hours and years are frozen for
eternity the eternal prison.”
Yes, the first time guarding
had constructed it as a precaution for any Hylden who could ever make it back
into this world; they would be imprisoned outside of time. But now it held
those who had been put there by a Hylden. Janos shook his head. The Hylden were
too fond of irony.
“The wretches imprisoned there,
are paying for their crimes for eternity. The Builder is there!” His back legs
gave out under the strain of his weight.
“The Eternal Prison?” Kain mused; he tilted his head
to the side a little and took a few steps, causing the air around him to move.
It was then that Janos noticed it
Vorador!
He could smell his child on the
scion.
The whole room span sickeningly
and he was thankful his back legs had given out earlier so he would not have to
fall now. He touched the scions mind once again this time he knew what to look
for.
YES! It was there, images of
his child, words spoken between the two; they were allied together and had been
for sometime, although at times the alliance was thin. He wished he could have
smiled, for he would have grinned now. He half wished he had the strength left
to run and leap. He missed his wings with a new fury now, he wanted nothing
more than to lift into the air and yell his giddiness to the world.
His child was alive.
He suddenly realised Kain had
been speaking to him
“. . . Do I reach it?”
“There is a tunnel leading out of
the city through this room, it will take you to the prison.”
The Hylden Lord had kept his
only form of annihilation quite close and had yet never made a move to
exterminate it. Strange, Janos thought.
“And if this Builder refuses my
help?” Kain asked. That plus the sheer giddiness he had started to feel at the
thought of freedom and his child made Janos chuckle.
“Tell him you wish to destroy
the Device. Believe me, he will aid you.”
“I hope, for your sake, that
what you have told me is true,” Kain muttered, Janos winced. The young one
really was far too nervous of being betrayed again. But even that couldn’t
bring him down, he continued to laugh.
“You may believe me. Destroying the Device will free me, at last.”
He paused “I will be in your debt, Kain.”
Kain left, taking the scent of
Vorador with him, but Janos didn’t need it. For once, he was able to sleep
without fear of nightmares. He was full of that now foreign emotion.
Hope.
End Chapter one.
Authoress note: wow long chapter for me.
Forgive me for nothing major happened in this chapter but I needed
to set the scene. Do not worry stuff does happen in the fic.