The body had lain in a shallow grave, a mere ditch with a top layer of dirt and grass to cover the putrefying corpse. Perhaps the man had been murdered by bandits on the northern road, robbed of all his valuables and then deposed of with a few spadesfuls of earth to cover his body. Whoever his murderers might have been they would have been very surprised when the grave they had gone to the trouble of digging for him began to shake and quiver.
The corpse within brushed aside its meagre current of dirt and hungry worms, lurching up into a sitting position. The maggots and crawlers living inside its flesh dropped free from the body, seeking sustenance and sanctuary elsewhere.
With a lurching step the dead body climbed up out of the earth and as it did so, it changed. Its rotten skin began to reform and change colour from a putrefied brown to royal blue. Fingers dropped away, replaced by talons that grew out of the bone. Two great flaps of blue membranous skin flowed out from the shoulder blades and finally, completing the transformation, came wrappings around the arms and a woven drape covering the shoulders and over the face to the nose.
Raziel shook his body free of mud and stood up properly, looking around with quick darting motions. The moon was high in the sky, full and bright casting long dark shadows over the ground and between the trees. To the south he could just see in the distance the twinkling fire lights that marked the outskirts of the city of Willendorf. He was glad to see the back of it now, the tales of his glory were simply that; tales delegated to the category of historical fiction. He wondered if it had ever been as grand as the legends and folklore said, or if that too was a self serving rewriting of their history.
But he had other concerns how because them. He had to move quickly now. He had only managed to catch a brief glimpse of the scouts map before events had become too quick for further study and if he knew eastern Nosgoth's general geography right, the lake of lost souls lay some way to the north west. It was an isolated region, devoid of any civilisation apart from a few scattered settlements. In Nosgoth's corrupted future, the region had been a salt flat full of peat bogs and stagnant lakes of sulphurous water. Raziel was not anxious to see what it would be like in this era.
The blue wraith headed north as fast as he could go, darting through the tall pine trees and shrubs. The ground was still ankle deep in snow and squelched with moisture with each step. In places the ground was so sodden that Raziel found it quicker to leap from the tops of jutting rocks to others to avoid them.
It began to snow again, lightly this time, when he came across the trail. It was little more than a hunter's track, not a proper road at all but still it had the imprints from many horses hooves and the tracks were freshly turned, not twenty minutes old as they had not yet been covered by snow. The hoof prints were also quite deep, meaning the horses carried heavy armoured men that weighed them down.
Raziel only needed a cursory glance to know he had stumbled across the trail they had left in their haste to escape him or to get to the dollmaker in time to lick his boots. The space between prints seemed to suggest they were travelling at a gallop, dangerous in the forest.
.
"The dollmaker's sycophantic king had wasted no time in taking his own daughter to be sacrificed to appease his master. The tracks lead far off towards the north as a furious pace. What dark fears of retribution were running through his mind if he was prepared to hand over his own offspring? "
.
Raziel wondered if perhaps, if the dollmakers tithing of royal princess' had been going on for as long as Alicia had claimed, the king had merely fathered a daughter simply to fulfil his quota when the time came.
.
"Perhaps my path was reckless, but recovering the sword was of paramount importance."
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The track led on further down into the forest, into a deep ravine that led directly northwest. The trees were very thick in there and the shadows were almost pitch black, especially with the snow in contrast around them. Raziel frowned with a supercilious expression, amused at the chase.
.
"...and the princess if possible."
.
She had done nothing in his mind to deserve being saved, having been as concerned with preserving her own skin as much as the rest of her family, but still saving her might upset and off balance this dollmaker long enough for him to reclaim the Soul Reaver from his undeserving grasp.
Quickly the blue wraith took off into the trees, keeping to the shadows as much possible at the pace he set. Once or twice a startled deer pranced out of his way or a black bird took off from a nearby tree but the further north he went, the less animal life he sensed around him. He felt as if he were stepping into one other place, like Nosgoth and yet not at the same time, a caricature of the world or a parody. It was a difficult sensation and a hard one for him to understand.
His mind was awash with the mystery of it all. Some element of time travel had to be involved in order for the Soul Reaver to be both in the hands of the Sarafan lord and in the Dollmaker but not an instance of it he knew of. Perhaps it was yet to come?
Raziel ran through his memories of Kain's stories quickly, trying to find reference. Where had Kain said he had first discovered the Soul Reaver? That had been one of his favourite stories to boast on. It had been inside Avernus cathedral, placed in a secret room.
That made Raziel slow his pace a little, frowning in thought. Simply placed there for Kain to find, the Reaver? The blade Kain had been destined to wield as the Scion of Balance? Just left there? Discarded like a common household tool?
Given what he knew of its history, its importance and the factions interested in turning it to their advantage... Raziel knew that for Kain to just stumble across it was an absurdity.
That only made recovering the Reaver from Elzeivr all the more urgent.
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"The name kept ringing inside my head, a distraction that might prove fatal if I let it continue. 'Elzevir.' If only I could remember from whence I had heard that name before."
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It had to be an obscure thing for him to overlook it no matter how hard he tried to place it within his own mind. If he could only remember then it might give him some foreknowledge of what to expect, arm him with a means of predicting the dollmaker's powers and means of self defence.
The tracks led on, deeper into the ravine and occasionally Raziel lost track of them amidst the undergrowth. The track was made of game and the hunters that trailed them so it meandered back and forth across ridge a goodly way.
At one point Raziel came across a ridge with a drop down to collection of rocks far below. Sprawled upon those rocks were the limp and prone bodies of a horse and rider. The man wore the white armour of the Willendorf militia and the horse was draped with banners displaying the lion crest. Crows and other carrion birds had already begun their feast, nudging each other out of the way of the best bits with a good deal of flapping.
They must have misplaced their feet on the ledge and fallen to their deaths and their king had been too busy attempting to get where he was going to bother with retrieving the corpses.
He ought to have taken the time, Raziel thought. Now he had firm proof that he was on the right trail.
In the event he did not have the go very much further. At the bottom of the ravine, directly in the centre, was a large clearing. Raziel could see it from a distance through the trees.
He slowed his approach and slide into the darkness of the bushes, coming to a stop and observing. The space seemed devoid of any plant life at all, no shrubs or grasses. The ground appeared diseased, a sick sooty black with an inert feel to it. The clearing was perhaps about thirty feet in diameter and perfectly round, a circle with trees not encroaching beyond that invisible border.
What really gave Raziel a start were the dolls. He almost walked right into one of them before he saw it and took a startled step backwards, his vision panning out to take in the sight.
There were perhaps dozens of them, mannequins and toys of nearly every size and shape. Some looked new with fancy petticoats and others looked as if they had been crudely put together with bits of soiled clothe. A few had faces made of porcelain with glass eyes but most were simple stitched together and stuffed with wool.
Each one was nailed to the trees surrounding the clearing, arms spread as if crucified and all turned in to look towards the centre.
They were only toys but the sense of despair and pain in their vacant stares as so palpable Raziel would almost have believed they were alive.
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"The clearing was ominous enough without the symbols of an occult presence. I had to be wary."
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Directly in the centre of the clearing was his prey, the horsemen from Willendorf, the moonlight gleaming off their armour. They sat astride their mounts in a semi circle and the king was at their head. He was off his horse, holding its reins in one hand. With the other he held his daughter, forcing her down onto her knees in the dirt.
Alicia had been stripped of all but the barest of clothing and even from this distance Raziel could see the large purpling bruise developing across the left hand side of her face. Despite her state she was struggling to get up but her father held her by her hair, keeping her down.
"Stay on your knees woman." He told her in a flat voice. Raziel began to creep around the edge of the clearing amidst the trees, going slow as to not make the slightest amount of noise. If he could position himself just right he could launch himself from the shadows and not give them time to react.
Alicia turned her head to glare up at her father, her face contorted into an angry snarl and eyes filled with angry hatred.
The king returned her gaze with no emotion.
"This is for all of Willendorf." He said as if in reply, his voice that same deadpan.
"For all of Willendorf..." A high pitched nasal voice repeated, seemingly out of the air itself. Raziel froze and crouched low instinctively. The king's face turned ashen and he looked around, fear clear in his eyes. All his men on their horses shifted backwards, hands going to the hilts of the swords at their sides.
Raziel was the first to spot it, drifting up across the tops of the trees on the far side of the clearing. Even from a distance he could tell what it was, silhouetted against the moon. Another piper, almost identical to the others he had seen only with, once again, a different arrangement of spikes jutting out from the top of its skull.
It danced across the forest tree tops, its song echoing on the cold night air hauntingly. The tune it played on its bone pipe was a mocking melody, a subtle insult as if the notes themselves were laughing at all those assembled here.
It leapt from the top of the trees, a huge impossible jump, and landed without even the sound of a footstep directly in front of the king no more than four feet away.
The king took a frightened step backwards and his armour began to clatter loudly as he trembled. The piper did not advance on him or the bound princess but rather spread both arms out wide as far as they would go. As it did so, a second form appeared before it; fading softly into being.
Raziel blinked at the sight. It was a short, stubby man with pallid white skin that seemed its natural colour. His hair was sparse on top but also long, tied back into three ponytails. Its style and its colour, a bright ridiculous orange, gave the man the appearance of a gothic clown.
His clothing did little to distract from the comparison. His shirt and cloak were green, the cloak a far darker shade and his pants were a dark violet. The shoes on his feet seemed too big for his feet.
His face though was anything but clownish. He had beady black eyes and a bent hawkish nose. It made his features almost skull like.
"I've heard that speech so many times now." The man said, that same nasal voice coming from his lips. The king stared at him in wide eyes horror. "It's getting boring."
So this was Elzevir was it, Raziel wondered. The dollmaker who reduced Willendorf to a mockery of its former self? The king's terrified expression supposed it could be no one else.
At that moment the little man turned to look over the rest of the Willendorf guard and Raziel saw that he was carrying something in his left hand.
A sword; a two handed claymore that was far too big for him to wield effectively. One sight of the serpentine blade however was enough.
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"He had the sword, unmistakable and instantly recognisable for the Soul Reaver; not just for its visage but for the powerful sense of vertigo that seemed to bend the very air around me at its sight. Seeing it, I suddenly had a moment of clarity. This sword, the blade in the little man's hand, was the blade that I had helped re-forge after it had been broken in the battle between a fledgling Kain and William the Just."
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The world around Raziel seemed to flutter slightly, that same distortion caused by the paradox of his being in two places at the same time. Nobody else seemed to notice it. Raziel crouched there low, his mind racing to obvious conclusions.
The Reaver had first been in the keeping of Janos Audron, before being stolen by the Sarafan. During the confrontation at the stronghold Kain had claimed it and used it until it had drawn in the wraith's soul in the Citadel.
After that Kain had lost the blade to Raziel-Divus, who delivered it to Moebius who in turn gave it to William the Just. Armed with the Reaver blade the human king had faced Kain and been struck down and the Reaver broken in half, altering history.
The shattered pieces of the sword had been placed in his mausoleum where Raziel had found him and inadvertently repaired the sword.
After that the sword had laid there on the sarcophagus until after the fall of the Pillars, after which it must had been claimed by the dollmaker who had come like raider to plunder the broken tomb.
And that, Raziel realised, meant that at some point the blade he saw would be placed in Avernus Cathedral for the younger Kain to find. Trying to follow the back and forth trail the sword had lead made his head spin.
"Dollmaker, you have brought you the princess as we agreed."The king said after a moment of terrified silence. Elzevir looked down at Alicia who stared up at him with sudden genuine terror.
"Yes yes and isn't she a lovely one?" The dollmaker asked, tilting forward to look at her as a man might admire something in a shop window. His oily smile was out of place on his skeletal face.
"She may even be the pride of my collection." He commented with some interested, looking her over. Alicia shrank away from him, eyes wide and her face white. She tried to run but the king held her steady and facing forward, unable to escape.
Elzevir tapped one finger to his chin and then shook his head.
"But..." He sighed. The king looked up in alarm.
"But!" He repeated. "But what?"
Elzevir rocked back on his heels and cocked his head to one side, an eye looking up towards the sky.
"By tradition, the appointed collection time has always been at precisely midnight has it not?" He asked. When the king did not immediately reply, the dollmaker turned to look at his accompanying Piper. "What time do you make it?" He asked the creature.
The piper looked at the moon in the sky, its skin peeling back even more from over its hideous mouth.
"Five minutes past, master." It replied in a raspy voice. Elzevir nodded as if he already knew.
"Oh dear..." The little man breathed, tapping the tips of his fingers along the Reaver's hilt in a jaunty tune.
"Five minutes!" The king burst out, his voice edging on hysterical. In that moment Raziel held as much contempt for the man as Alicia did. Did not the man see that the dollmaker had run out of need for him?
Elzevir smiled at him and the smile was one of vicious satisfaction.
"The Ottmar's have been good to me, supplying so many souls of so many maidens without so much as a raised a finger in protest." He paused to look annoyed. "With the obvious exception of that first one." Then he brushed off his momentary annoyance.
"But my collection has grown large enough, I think." Elzevir concluded, reaching out to pat Alicia on the top of the head. She flinched back from him with a whimper. "I may be avaricious but I have limits to my greed."
The Willendorf men backed their horses up and looked ready to abandon their king and bolt, quite a sensible impulse Raziel thought.
"What are you saying..?" The king asked his voice no more than a harsh whisper. Elzevir turned his back on the king and held up his free hand
"I simply have no more use for a defunct royal family past its prime." He said with finality and clicked his fingers. Instantly the Piper had its instrument to its lips and was playing a song before even Raziel could react.
The king let go of his daughter with a hoarse cry and stumbled backwards, trying to reach his horse. Even if he had it would have been too late. The man ought to have never come here in the first place. The ground beneath their feet boiled and writhed, breaking open wetly. Out of the cracks came bugs, hundreds of insects of all kings. There were worms and grubs, maggots and ants, spiders and centipedes. Entranced by the song of the piper the insects surged up over the men and their horses, slithering and crawling with a furious speed. The horses were dragged down instantly, toppling their doomed riders into the mass to be swallowed up.
The king stayed on his feet, for a moment, before the insects covered him. He tried to scream but the bugs simply poured down his mouth and he fell.
Elzevir watched the writhing bug covered shapes with a pleased smile over his shoulder. One by one the men and their horses both were pulled down, disappearing into the earth itself as if they were water absorbed after a rainfall.
Within the space of three minutes there wasn't a sign of them left at all. Alicia stared at the spot where her father had stood only a moment ago, inhumane terror lit large on her face. She snapped back to look at the dollmaker, who was approaching her.
She screamed in horror and tried to run, but Elzevir reached out and laid a hand upon her forehead.
"Scchhh, now child. It will all be over soon." He said and she stopped rigid, her body stiffening for a moment. Then she relaxed and her face became neutral and expressionless, her eyes unseeing. She just stood there like an inert statue.
By now, Raziel had seen enough and heard enough. He burst from cover, rearing an arm back and focusing his mind. Throwing his arm forward and sent a telekinetic bolt forward that hit the Piper in the face dead on and sent it staggering backwards, nearly losing its footing.
Elzevir turned, without apparent surprise, to regard the oncoming wraith.
"Ah so this must be the blue devil that caused so much distribution." He said and then frowned in disapproval. "My my, aren't you the ugly one?"