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In his persuit to restore the benevolent Janos Audron to life, Raziel was coerced into depths of the Sarafan Stronghold by Moebius. Here, surrounded by his enemies, Raziel takes up the only weapon available to him, the ancient Reaver
 | Sarafan General after Sarafan General, Raziel thrusts and impales his way through those who will become, thousands of years into the future, his vampire brethren. Melchiah, Zephon, Rahab, Dumah, even the original Turel fall victim as Raziel and the Reaver play out their bloodthirsty rage.
At the heart of the stronghold, the uber-git himself, Sarafan Raziel shows no fear towards, unbeknownst to him, his own future self.
“So you’ve destroyed my brethren, and now you’ve come for me… You’ll find I’m not such easy prey!”
Raziel calms himself slightly, remembering the kind selflessness of his new mentor, Janos Audron. Janos wouldn’t kill unless it was absolutely necessary, would he?
“I don’t want to kill you.” Raziel lies. “But I will if I must. Return the heart to me and we can end this now!”
The Sarafan Inquisitor brushes off the demand with taunts of Janos’ suffering. Raziel, unable to contain himself further, leaps forward, to fight a duel he cannot possibly lose.
Slowly, slowly, Sarafan Raziel begins to lose his arrogance and confidence, coming to the realisation that is foe is faster, stronger and indestructible. Desperately trying to defend himself against the barrage or sharp blows coming faster and faster, the battle nears its end. |
With a final powerful thrust, Raziel impales his former self and, as the blood drains from his enemy’s face, makes a renunciation of all of his past existence.
“I, renounce you.”
The limp body of the Sarafan Inquisitor collapses to the floor, dead, and soon to be buried for thousands of years.
The wraith blade becomes aroused, and the pink-purple aura glows around Raziel’s right arm. The energy gently flickers up to the tip of the Reaver, and eventually seems to leave his arm completely.
The arm begins to sway, then shake, then convulse violently. The reaver swings up and down uncontrollably and malevolently, the possessive force within hungry for something.
 | Raziel can resist it no longer, and with a tearing pain beyond that which any material being could endure, the intertwined Reaver entities impale themselves through Raziel’s torso.
And I realised, finally, why I had sensed nothing when Janos offered me the blade. The reaver was never forged to be a soul-stealing weapon. The ravenous soul-devouring entity trapped within the blade, was, and always had been, me.
This was why the Reaver was destroyed when Kain tried to strike me down. The reaver could not devour its own soul.
So this was my terrible destiny, to play out this purgatorial cycle for all eternity.
I could not bear it. Despair overwhelmed me.
As his life force was draining from his body, a movement was caught in his blurring vision. A person, a tall figure… Kain!
Kain approached slowly, a face of horror, fascination and perhaps sadness. He looked into the glowing eye-sockets of his once-lieutenant, and whispered.
“Don’t fight it, Raziel. Give in to it.”
Raziel sense of betrayal and injustice burst through the agony and screamed back.
“Was this your destiny for me, all along!!”
“Trust.. Me.." |
I felt myself weakening, unable to hold on any longer. The Reaver was too strong, the compulsion to simply let go, to great. Then, a growing sense of vertigo and the familiar displacement, the paradoxical moment my twinned soul existed both outside and inside the Reaver blade. This was the instant, the glimmer of temporal distortion that Kain had been counting on all along. THIS was the EDGE of the COIN. The minute flicker of probability upon which Kain had gambled… Everything!
 | The world around him swayed back and forth as time became less solid, less real. As his thoughts drifted into the agony, as his psyche was starting to blur into pure sensations of entrapment and pain, as Raziel was becoming nothing more than an imprisoned tempered Soul Reaver, Kain leaped forward.
Grabbing the hilt of the Reaver in his claws, the vampire pulled with all his great strength. The Reaver resisted, it hadn’t finished yet, but Kain managed eventually to rip the blade out of Raziel.
Raziel collapsed, barely conscious, but free.
“Now you are free to reclaim your true destiny, Raziel!” Kain declared, smiling triumphantly.
The smile began to fade as around them the translucent ether of the time-stream groaned and strained, on the verge of total utter collapse. An upheaval of all of history and destiny was taking place, events in the future and the past were being rewritten.
In Kain’s eyes I could see new memories blooming and dying, as history laboured to reshuffle itself after this monumental obstruction. And by the dawning horror on his face, I wondered if perhaps we had pushed history too far this time. That by trying to alter my fate, we may have introduced, a fatal paradox.
The distortion twisting the world around them began to diminish, and faded altogether. The new time-stream was stable.
Kain’s expression was one of terror. Choking out the words, he exclaimed.
“My god… The HYLDEN! We walked… right into… their TRAP. Raziel,” he said, grabbing Raziel and speaking with a desperate urgency. “JANOS MUST STAY DEAD.” |
Raziel’s material form could take it no longer, and collapsed into dust. Kain faded, and the world shifted to a spectrum of blue and green shades.
But Kain’s words were lost on me as I shifted into the spirit realm, to weak to maintain my physical form. And their, waiting for me as always, was The Reaver, my own soul. Twinned and bound eternally to me. And I realised that I could never escape my terrible destiny, I had merely postponed it.
 | Staring at the accursed green reaver aura protruding from his arm, he realised that one thing was certain in Nosgoth.
History Abhors a Paradox. |
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