Hello everybody and thanks for the reviews. I didn't expect to get such a quick response, but hey, if you'll read it then I'll definitely write it!
This time around I will switch from Raziel's POV to a present-tense third person format. This is my favorite way of writing – especially action sequences.
For reference, this scene involves Raziel's return to the Sanctuary of the Clans just after his defeat of Melchiah. Also, the conversations will not be word for word with the game, just so you know…
Pure black, looking clear
My work is done soon here
Try giving back to me
Give back which used to be
Drink up, shoot in
Let the beatings begin
Distributor of Pain
Your loss becomes my gain
Anger, misery
You will suffer unto me…
(Harvester of Sorrow Metallica)
The Sanctuary of the Clans leans against the mountains like a broken and battered corpse, a mere shadow of its once proud visage. It is the seat of Kain's great empire and the birthplace of the damnation of Nosgoth, for it is here that the ruins of the Pillars stand like the tombstones of a millennia of fallen heroes. Past the crumbling walls and broken terraces of the palace and inside the great chamber sits Kain's throne at the foot of the Pillar of Balance. Empty and desolate, inhabited only by the maggots and ghosts borne of physical and spiritual decay, the cold stone of the throne sits as empty as the vision of its creator.
If Raziel could spit, he would.
Entering the chamber and approaching the dais of the Pillars he gazes upon the barren throne in disgust. Once, Raziel had been proud to kneel before that seat as if praying to an altar. Kain was a God to him, and his former master knew it well. Raziel now realizes that all along he had mistaken the smug look from the eyes of his Lord to be some twisted form of love. After all, Kain is his sire. Or at least, he was until Kain destroyed him and Raziel was brought back from the brink of oblivion by a giant squid.
Rage makes whatever blood left in Raziel's body boil. The memory of the pain of the Abyss and the hypocrisy that caused his demise turns his vision red with maniacal fury. It is this emotion that suddenly calls to Raziel's attention that he is not alone.
"Well, well," a very familiar voice calls out from Raziel's left, several meters away. "It appears that the Abyss did not destroy you after all. However, I must say that you are very much the worse for wear…"
"Kain!" Raziel snarls, turning. "So, you decided not to abandon this world after all? From the state of things, I assumed you threw your kingdom aside as you did me!"
Kain steps forward from behind the Pillar of Conflict and toward Raziel. Bearing the dreaded Soul Reaver in his right hand and a look of amusement upon his gnarled face, the ancient vampire emanates a very real sense of power.
"I see that you have slain my child Melchiah," Kain observes as he walks around him at a distance, as if evaluating Raziel's current state. "Did you find it difficult? That is, to kill one whom you once trusted?"
"No more difficult than you found it to let him become twisted and deformed down in that dungeon, I imagine!" Raziel fumes at him. "Do you know what it was like? Do you have any comprehension of the hell you sentenced him to? Or of what you did to me?"
Kain stops walking and stands to face Raziel.
"What do you know of hell?" Kain points the tip of the Soul Reaver at Raziel. "When it was I who was forced into a situation beyond my control? Played like a pawn, hurtled toward a decision with two consequences which were both beyond my fledgling comprehension? I have made my choices Raziel, just as you have made yours."
"I once chose to serve you, Kain. Now you see where that got me," Raziel says, gesturing with his hands toward his broken form. Then he cocks his head to one side with a sneer. "So, perhaps I shall choose another option… shall we say, revenge?"
Reckless beyond all belief, Raziel hurtles himself straight at Kain. Heedless of the Soul Reaver clutched in his former Lord's grip, Raziel reaches out with his claws to rip out Kain's throat.
In a flash, Kain is gone. Raziel lands and then immediately looks all around the chamber to find any sign of his quarry. Within seconds he sees Kain emerge from out of nowhere to the base of the Pillar of Death. Raziel quickly rushes at Kain.
Kain sees Raziel coming and hurtles a bolt of magical energy at him. The strike hits Raziel squarely on the chest and stops him in his tracks, bringing him to the ground. A soon as Raziel overcomes the temporary paralysis, he looks back up to find Kain laughing as he disappears once again.
Raziel turns and witnesses Kain's reemergence near the end of the dais. Knowing he can't run fast enough to reach him in time to stop the coming blast, Raziel instead jumps backward and kicks off from the Pillar of Death. He leaps through the air and comes down hard upon Kain. Kain is knocked backward a few steps yet remains on his feet.
"You're going to have to do better than that, Raziel," Kain taunts as he disappears once again.
Raziel turns, trying to see where Kain has teleported to next. However, despite his supernatural instincts he cannot sense exactly where Kain is at. He can still feel his presence, but where?
Another bolt of energy blasts Raziel forward and onto his knees. This blast was much stronger than the last – he had apparently rather upset Kain with that last blow. The electric pulse of the energy blast has terribly wracked his form. It takes him a few seconds to regain his senses. Shaking the feeling of weakening physical control over his body, Raziel looks up and tries to bring himself back to his feet.
Raziel stops in mid-motion. There are two things that Raziel realizes that he should have noticed. The first is the fact that Kain now stands directly before him, swinging down with all of his might the only weapon he has ever carried in all his years and the Lord of Nosgoth – the Soul Reaver.
The second thing he now notices is the bit of irony that this situation now entails. Not only does Raziel now kneel before his Lord as in the manner of times long gone, but he now does it as he is being killed by this same Lord… for a second time.
The serpentine blade of the ancient weapon strikes down upon Raziel's frame with all the might of a sadistically deranged demi-god. The force of this blow is so great in fact that not only does it destroy its intended victim but the blade itself as well.
Kain looks from Raziel to the hilt of his broken Soul Reaver.
In the fraction of a second that it takes Raziel to lose the cohesion of his physical body and be thrown back into the immortal Spirit Realm, he catches a glimmer of a most bizarre emotion in Kain's eyes. For it is truly odd that Kain should feel that feeling, especially in a time such as this. In fact, were it not for the understanding of his Lord's character drawn from thousands of years of service to him, Raziel would never believe that Kain should actually be happy.
However, all thoughts of Kain's mood are immediately stricken from Raziel's mind as he finds himself once again totally immersed in the Spirit Realm. He has gone where Kain can not find him to finish the job he started. Even if he could, Raziel doubts that his former Lord could do him harm in this place.
For here in this twisted reflection of Nosgoth that one may call Limbo, Raziel has found a new Master and a new form of Servitude.
Not that this situation was much to his liking, but, Raziel figures it is a better deal to live as a wraith and have his revenge against his assassins than to commit himself fully to his Master's Wheel of Fate. At least he has some choice over how he can "live."
What he has no choice over is the thing which now coils itself around his right arm. Glowing with a radiant blue light, as alive as flame on a lake of burning oil, it snakes its way around his limb and all the way to his shoulder before ceasing its advancement. Instead, it continues to twist and roll itself over in the form of some bizarre, ghostly blade which eerily extends to the point where in the Physical Realm Kain had last held the Soul Reaver.
"What is this?" Raziel shouts, trying to shake the coil of energy off his arm as if it were some fly.
Then, as if witnessing the whole act play out in silent observation, the now all-too familiar voice of the Elder God booms in Raziel's ears.
"Your battle with Kain has released a timeless energy from the bonds of the physical blade. All the power the weapon Kain once held has now attached itself to you – The Soul Reaver and the Reaver of Souls!"
Raziel swings his right arm from side to side. He finds that this is indeed some kind of wraith-blade. Yet he oddly feels no elation, for there appear to be no answers to his previous questions but only further riddles blocking the path to his truth.
If this truly is the Soul Reaver now in his possession, why would its "timeless energy" choose to attach itself to him? Why did the blade break at all, when he had personally seen so many others fall to it without leaving so much a scratch on the metal? Furthermore, why would the destruction of his prized weapon please Kain so much?
Indeed, why was Kain apparently not even surprised to see Raziel alive and in the state that he is in? Could Kain have possibly known that he would show up at the Pillars one day, centuries after being thrown into the Abyss?
Raziel has only questions and no answers. Perhaps, he reasons, he will indeed find his answers beyond the Pillars… for none have been found at them.