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“Standing before the gates of heaven, I am bared from entry.
I am fallen, undesirable.
They would see me and all who stand before them wither and be no more.
Let them sit upon their ivory pedestal and cast their damnation at me.
They can do no more to me that has already been done.
I am the blade, and the blade is me.
I am Raziel- the Soul Reaver.”
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The were no words capable of describing the tumbling journey, the twisting and constricting sensations and the assault on the mind as it tried desperately to cope with being in the past, present and future seemingly all at once.
This was existence in neither the spectral nor material realms and perhaps as close to omnipotence was any ephemeral being was likely to come. There was no time nor down, no front and no back; there was simply the oneness of time beyond time and place beyond place.
There was no sound in this realm, nor feeling, nor sight or any other physical sensation. It was a sensory depredation that plunged Raziel not into utter darkness but a void of nothing but white.
Unable to control his body, the blue wraith tumbled end over end; tossed on ethereal winds he could neither feel nor see.
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“The ether was almost more then I could bear, it’s numbing miasma blinding me to anything that might lay around me. Grimly I pressed on, delving deeper and deeper into the void.”
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The further he travelled into this place of utter nothingness, the more he could feel it slowly seeping into his very being. It was as if he were being assimilated into the void, his being undoing itself to become one with it. He fought against it, gathering his essence back to himself. It felt like raking sand back together only to have the tide come and wash it away again.
“Raziel!”
With a start he turned his senses inward, noticing the plight of the travelling companion that he had almost forgotten. Bounded to him by the forging of the Reaver in the Vampire Citadel; Ariel’s spirit was joined to his own. Existing in a mere state of energy as a spirit she was far more at the mercy of the void’s devouring affects then he was. He at least had something physical to cling to.
Even now he could feel the bound between them beginning to slip. Quickly he reached out with his mind, locking onto hers fiercely to anchor her in place. She clutched back with her own essence; desperation clear in the gesture. Ariel had been in such abject misery for so long that now she had found some purpose to her existence she was loathed to give it up.
“Stay with me, Ariel!”  Raziel told her, turning all of his attention now to keeping her latched to him and as a consequence parts of his own self began to spin off into the void. It was a burning decent but very different from the fall through the Abyss for the lack of physical pain. This eroding of self was for abstract and in some ways worse.
But Raziel endured. He had fallen through a torment once before and he could do so again.
Falling and spinning, he and Ariel clung to each other like frightened children; torn where the void buffeted them.
And then, as if bursting forth from the surface of a deep pool, Raziel found himself flung out into stable space. All in one sudden rush he could feel himself; all sensation flooding back in a flash that left him hovering there in mid air gasping and shuddering.
He was falling, so he had direction and instinctively he grasped as his wings. Catching them they seemed to catch air; so there was air here, and he began to glide.
He hung there, kept aloft by the augmented gliding ability that he had taken from the Hylden Marduk, gathering his wits.
Kain had been half dead when Divus had cast him into that and Raziel had barely endured it, even knowing in part what to expect. Perhaps Kain’s persistence stubbornness might see him through it but it would have taken all he could muster.
Slowly the blue wraith opened his eyes.
At first he did not understand what he was seeing. His vision was blurred after the fall through the ether and he blinked several times to clear it. It did not help but seemed to make the impossible thing before him all the more real.
Slowly Raziel’s eyes widened as he saw before him a city so cast that it defied imagination.
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“As impossible as I knew it to be I found myself approaching the incredulous sight. Before my minds eye swam all the visions and imagery I had ever seen depicting the divine place, the heaven to which all priests from time immemorial have prayed. Before me was that place.”
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The city was like a pillar, formed of countless buildings all working in harmony up towards a pure white void above and seeming to disappear into it high above. Below the city descended, tapering off an unimaginable distance towards a similar void below; pure jet black. The structure lanced between the black and the white voids, joining them like a bridge.
At the middle point between the two abysses; the city fanned out, expanding to a wide disc with many structures jutting out reminiscent of jetties on a pier. Looming above them was a construction formed of several dozen buildings, forming the image of a winged Ancient; kneeling down with wings spread wide. The massive likeness held its arms up and clasped in its hands was a stone disc that had to be at least a mile across. Engraved onto that disc was the ‘Moebius’ ring; the symbol for infinity.
Seeing what he saw through his eyes, Ariel stared at the spectacle with him.
“A city beyond time and space.” She said in awe, her essence still tightly holding his. She seemed in no hurry to loosen her grip. “The city of the Angels.”
Heaven.
This is heaven?
The question ran through Raziel’s mind over and over, forcing him to contemplate an idea he had discarded eons ago. The idea spouted by human priests, of a divine place of reward for the faithful, had been something that long lived worldly vampires had dismissed as little more then desperate superstition conquered by a species with a horribly short lifespan.
But this was not heaven, certainly not the rose tinted simplistic idea of it. From the memories he had gleamed from Kain, Raziel could indentify this place all too well.
This was Fanum-Divus, the city built by the ascended demigods loyal to the Wheel of Fate.
“If Kain is here, I pity his ill fortune.” He said and tilting his body forward, he began to glide towards the city that was the heart of the enemy.
The city, as it began to grow with his approach, was more otherworldly then heavenly. It fitted the description in visual appearance but the sense of it was brooding and dark; as if gathered here were century’s worth of suppressed frustration ready to pounce. It was almost like the feel of a wound up spring.
The size of Fanum-Divus gave Raziel some hope. Even if this place was where their enemies gathered, it was large enough for Kain to remain undetected for some time. It was a small hope but it was encouraging enough.
Absently Raziel glanced down at the front of his chest. Yes it was still there, un-comfortingly close to his skin. The Nexus Stone was held fast to his clan drape; the only item that could return both him and Kain to the real world.
At least it would if he chose to believe the Seer. How much he believed her was still an unanswered question, considering she had manipulated him into killing off her competition for control of the Hylden people.
Under the circumstances however he had little choice but to trust her sincerity at least in this matter.
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 “The city was so large that it defied my minds ability to conceive of it. How long has it stood here in the ether, or does time really have any meaning for this place at all?”
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Slowly he past in front of the massive stone representation of that kneeling angel and now that he was closer to it he recognised the face.
It was unmistakably the visage of his former self, the Divus. Raziel did not know how this first incarnation would be born again as a human, but as he glide past the mile length face he began to wonder how the egotism required to erect such an absurd thing could have been a part of his original personality.
He personally would never have even thought about creating something this foolish, never mind begun building it. Had the repeated cycle of death and rebirth washed it away? From Ancient to human to vampire to wraith to sword and back to wraith. Could the process have been not a degradation but an evolution, a growth away from an insecurity that required his face to be idolised so disgustingly?
“If I had been told before that I would come to heaven itself to rescue the man responsible for my purgatory at the Pillars, I would have thought the informer quite mad.” Ariel’s dry comment, echoing in the vaults of his mind brought him out of his thoughts.
He was passing over the lip of the thick rim of the ‘dock’ area he had observed from above.
“As would I.” He said, wondering afresh at the cosmic joke of his errand while he began his quick decent down to the buildings. Kain himself, if he indeed still lived, would have a good laugh on his account for this.
He landed, skidding a short distance before coming to a stop. The stone under his feet were like ice, cold and slick. As if the sensation were a reminder to his body he suddenly became aware of how cold it was. The air, if air existed here as it did in the real world, was bitingly cold.
Frost covered the stone walls of the buildings, giving the true stone of the city a marbled appearance. From a distance this might look like heaven, but close up its ugly flaws were revealed.
Cautiously Raziel began to move forward, his eyes slowly sweeping the buildings around him. They made what could be called streets but they were narrow and crooked, twisting around to no apparent purpose.  
What unsettled Raziel was the utter lack of activity. There was no one in sight, no sign of movement at all. He might well have expected at least some of Divus’ homunculi to be standing guard.
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“It would be foolish to assume that my arrival in this place would go unobserved.”
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Could most of the city be deserted? He dismissed that idea as soon as it occurred. He refused to believe he could be that lucky.
Suddenly there was a loud clinking noise, the sound of chains being pulled. Startled he spun about to se that a section of the floor behind him was sliding to one side; revealing a deep pit going down inside. Once the trapdoor had slide to onside, silence descended again.
After that moment of silence had past, Raziel began to very slowly approach the opening. It was utter darkness beyond, the light from the white abyss above penetrating only a few feet.
The instinct saved him. Arching backward an instant before the attack came, he watched as the dark savage figure flew out of the darkness at him and sailed overhead; the claws on its forelegs narrowly missing the tip of his nose.
Dozens more creatures followed the first, scrambling up a horde over the edge to confront him.
They were dog like creatures, hunched over with forelimbs longer then their back legs. Their front paws were more like hands, ending in long black claws. Their mouths dripped with thick saliva, running over their long jagged teeth.
They were covered in fur, sweeping back from a wolves face down over their muscular shoulders to a long bushy tail behind them.
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“These snarling dogs fulminated out at the call from their master, feral beings spawned by the creativity of only the most depraved minds.”
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Raziel backed off quickly but not quick enough. The werewolves, for he recognised their breed the moment he saw them, moved to almost instantly flank him.
His back against a wall, Raziel narrowed his eyes glaring around at the creatures that had him surrounded. He counted about ten but there could easily be far more waiting in reserve.
With a determined dance he flourished his right arm and the Reaver blade, a restored weapon by use of Ishtar’s soul, lanced out of his open palm and screamed; ready to devour the souls of those it strikes.