The thick miles long body of the entity coiled around the very mountain itself, rising and falling like a serpent through the sea of clouds the falling snow doing nothing to obscure its enormity from view. Raziel remembered this entity quite well, having run across it hiding on the ocean floor in the corrupt future he had left behind. In this era, it was still strong and powerful enough to hide itself in the skies and storm clouds.
Ewoden was staring up at the god like creature, having reverted back to his human form in a moment of shock. He stood there trembling with wide eyes, mouth agape.
“What.....” He began but his tongue seemed to freeze in his mouth, so immense was his awe and fear. Kain held up one hand to steady them all, not taking his eyes from that immense face.
“Do not be alarmed.” He said. Ewoden shut his mouth and snorted, still shaking.
“A bit late for that, my friend.” He replied.
Slowly and ponderously the great mammoth head turned to regard the kneeling form before them, one large yellow eyes rotating in its rocket to regard the fallen king of the Divus. The injured and defeated scribe of heaven kept his face turned up towards the creature, his breath hoarse and ragged.
“Raziel-Divus...” The keeper began in a voice that echoed as if spoken from inside a deep vault.  There was in that voice a sense of agelessness, as if it spoke to all moments in time and space rather than this one event. “Since you affixed that ‘Divus’ to your name you have not called on me. It has been a millennia and more since you even thought of me.”
Kain started and cast a glance down at their enemy who seemed to no longer notice any of the rest of them were there.  Raziel joined him in staring, not quite grasping what was being implied.
“You mean... he once served you?” The vampire asked, turning to look back up at the creature. The Keeper did not nod, most likely because if it did they would be crushed beneath its massive tusks. Rather the light in his eyes dimmed sadly.
“He was once a convert, one of few I had amongst the ancient vampires who preferred me over the Wheel of Fate.” It said slowly. “But then the Elder told him of his destiny, warping the vision into a thing of horror rather than of purpose so that in desperation and chagrin he turned his back on me.”
All the eyes rotated on that flat face like a whales to look at Raziel-Divus directly. There was no reprimand in that gaze, no judgement or condemnation.
“He betrayed me, to serve the other.”
The fallen king’s face contorted with guilt.
“I was wrong...”  He managed to say but that was about all before his throat was clenched in a sob.
“And can you finally admit that now, broken, beaten and surrounded by enemies?” The Keeper asked sadly in reply with the coils of its body looping back and forth around the Bastion. “Can you only admit that now... at the very end?”
The fallen king of the Divus said nothing, only knelt that in pleading from the god he had forsaken.
The contempt and loathing Raziel had for him began to ebb away at that point. For all his arrogance and unreasoning zeal, his past incarnation had proved now that he had one golden virtue. He was willing to admit when he was wrong.
Suddenly, the defeated and broken body of their enemy began to rise up into mid air until he hovered before him perhaps a few feet of the ground. Surrounded by a white glow he hung there almost listless with his arms hung loosely at his eyes. His face however was puzzled and confused as he looked upon his former god.
“You were once a great scholar who learned much from me, you had a purpose and destiny I had intended for you to fulfil.” The Keeper explained and slowly the glow surrounding the former king of the Divus grew more intense.
“But the temptations of power and immortality were too much to resist from the Elder, weren’t they?”
By now the glow was too bright to look at directly and Raziel had to squint, watching his former incarnation slowly being consumed by it.
 “You thought that by serving him over me that he would shield you, raise you up above the threads of destiny and keep you whole?”
The light engulfing him flowed in the mounds he had received and watching, Raziel saw them all heal over one by one. The wings Kain had torn away did not grow back however, but were rather smoothed over so that there was no trace that there ever had been wings.
“Fear not.” The entity above them said and that light became a sphere of force surrounding their enemy, encapsulating him completely. “Destiny comes to you now, not as an agony but as a release.”
The last glimpse Raziel had of his past incarnation face showed his expression of confusion giving way to a profound revelation and a gratitude so overwhelming that all the arrogance and self importance almost seemed to bleed out of him.
“Let yourself go...” The keeper said to him comfortingly.  “...into absolution.”
Then the ball of force became all encompassing and Raziel-Divus disappeared completely from view. Raziel had to bring a hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden flare. The air was filled with a powerfully loud thrumming noise that pulsed so intensely the blue wraith could feel it inside his skull.
Looking out through the gaps between his talons however he could faintly make out a shape within the light and that shape was shrinking, flowing down and down until it was perhaps no larger than the length of his forearm.
Out from the bottom of the orb of light dropped bits and pieces of the items of clothing Raziel-Divus had been wearing. Whatever armour was left clattered to the floor, followed by a chainmail undercoat and finally a white toga smeared with blood.
Then finally the light died away and the object within that light floated gently down to lie on the ground.
Ewoden stared at what lay before them now, blinking several times in confusion.
“The pack will never believe me when I tell them about this.” He breathed, almost slack jawed.
Raziel stared as well, coming to the forefront to look down at the new form of the scribe of heaven.
.
“The life of my past incarnation was over and our second began. Before me lay a shivering human infant, the half way point between the Scribe of Heaven and myself.”
.
The human baby looked as if it had just been born, mewling and wailing in the cold. Atop its head was a thick shock of raven black hair over a red face twisted in its cries.
With a dawning sort of wonder, Raziel realised that he was looking at the baby version of the Sarafan inquisitor who would one day murder Janos Audron and tear from him his heart.
The very man Raziel would run through with the Reaver in the chapel of the Sarafan stronghold.
It was strangely symmetrical, to be present and instrumental in his birth as well as his death.
Not quite knowing why, he tenderly reached out and picked the infant up holding the baby close to try and keep him warm in whatever way he could.  It felt very odd, to hold this baby in his arms and know he was holding himself.
Absolution, what was what the Keeper had called this. For forgive his former acolyte for his mistakes, the Keeper had erased them simply by giving him a new life to lead. Of course Raziel knew quite firmly that he would make all knew mistakes both as a human and as a vampire but history would lead him from this baby to the ruined form he was now.
He had grown in many ways and finally he felt satisfied with himself. He had come back and endured much and he felt as if he had come to be that which he was supposed to be.
He turned to look up at the Keeper then, wondering what might have drawn him to this entity in worship before the Elder had warped his perceptions.
The vampire himself had not taken his eyes off of the god like being at all and the Keeper looked down now to meet his gaze.
“The time of reckoning draws near, Kain... Raziel.” It said to them both and its voice now was sharp and direct. “The time when the game will be over, one way or the other.”
Kain’s expression pulled down into a frown of concern.
“The promised day?” He asked and Raziel recognised the term from Ewoden’s words of the end game the Divus had planned for their enemies.
Slowly the Keeper was rising back up into the clouds, slipping its long snake like body back into hiding.
“Indeed.  You have now entered the time of preparation. It will be a storm the likes of which Nosgoth has never endured before. But know this; the wasteland from which you hail is not beyond redemption. There is a means to restore it through the coming danger. Do not let opportunity slip through your fingers.”
Then the god like being turned and plunged back into the clouds, trailing its long green dorsal thin through the haze.
“For what it is worth to you in whatever any of you believe...” It said in parting, the sound of its voice fading away. “My benediction upon you all.”

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Thirty years before the murder of Janos Audron, perhaps two or three leagues to the northwest of the great southern lake, there was a small peasant farmstead. It was a quiet lower class hamlet with a central cottage, a barn and a stable.
Surrounding the buildings were perhaps several acres of land that were tilled and fenced off, corn and wheat sprouting up in the beginning of the summer growth. It was late evening and the sun had turned red and was dipping belong the horizon when the head farmer made began back towards the house. With his scythe slung over one shoulder and his other hand carrying his rake he sloughed on tiredly until he came to his own front door.
He yawned, placed his tools in the wooden outside closest and reached out to turn the door handle.
It was only about then that he noticed the crude basket placed to one side, and what was in that basket. He stared down at the buddle wrapped baby for a long moment, gaping at it in stunned amazement before he nearly tore the door open.
“Helena!” He bellowed inside. “Come out here!!”
A dumbly woman came to the door, her apron stained with fresh and old gravy spots. Her face was cross and set into a scowl.
“What is it?” She demanded but when she saw what he was pointing at, she recoiled back in a stunned motion.
“Oh!” She exclaimed and was quick to pick the basket up, looking down at the infant who was sniffling loudly. “Did you see anyone leave it here?” She looked up at the farmer.
“No, nobody.” He replied, scratching the back of his head and then looking down at the dusty trail leading up to the door.
“Not even any tracks in the dirt.”
The woman looked the baby over tenderly, then frowned and reached under the dirty clothe wrapping that was serving as a pillow. She pulled out a small folded sheet of parchment and opened.
“Look there’s a note.” She said. The farmer leaned over to look at it and frowned with her.
“The hand writing is abdominal.” He said critically.
“I think it’s a name.” The woman replied with a raised eyebrow.
“What’s it say?”
“Raziel.”
.
From undergrowth some distance away, Raziel watched as the couple took the child inside the house. The baby would be taken care of now, either here or put up for adopt elsewhere. But the cohesion of history was secure either way.
.
“Now was my circular destiny finally complete. I had filled in all the gaps. The boy would grow up into the murderer of Janos Audron and I would kill him, leaving his body for Kain to resurrect as a vampire. My past finally settled with no loose ends, I could turn my attention towards the future.”
.
Deliberately he turned his back on the cottage and walked away, heading directly north to where the Chronoplast waited. Kain had taken them to this time first in order to ensure the fluid continuation of Raziel’s destiny and now it was time to take another step through time back to the future, to the wasteland they were all fighting to save.
“My hand writing its abdominal is it?” He muttered to himself as he walked. “I’d like to see them hold a quill with talons.”
There was much to do now and the blue wraith was not entirely sure of all of it. There were many twists and turns to even recent events that still left him feeling puzzled and confused, but the essential point was quite clear. Now they needed to discover what precisely this ‘Promised Day’ entailed and to prepare for it.
He cast a glance to his left down at the shield there, strapped to his arm. As he had surmised the device would now indeed travel back and forth between the realms with him. It was an interesting and welcome prize and a reminder that he never become like his past self ever again. This would keep him locked rigidly on the path of inner progression.
This shield and her. Turning he regarded the ghostly apparition of the woman he had grown to adore floating alongside him. She was looking at him with that same expression of pride on her uncorrupted face, her long blonde hair flowing in ethereal winds.
“Do you want to confront Kain now?” The blue wraith asked her. Ariel paused to think about it and then smiled, shaking her head.
“In a short while, when I am prepared.” She replied, laying one transparent hand across the side of his cheek. “For now, let us return to the others and to our own time.”
Raziel looked at her and nodded and together they turned to face the north and the future.