The only sounds were the disembodied cries and moans of lost souls in the distance. The only way to measure the passage of time being the distant sun overhead, the only thing of the physical world apparently permitted to move in this realm.
Raziel did not know exactly how long he had laid there before he could summon the will power to get up. It must have been at least until morning as when he finally dragged his stiffened body up, the sun was already high above once more.
The Spectral realm was as dank and endless as ever, everything seen through a green miasma and a strange kaleidoscopic tunnel vision.
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“I found myself trapped in the spiritual realm, with no means to escape it while I wandered the ocean floor.”
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Weakened, Raziel hunted for the energy necessary to restore himself. He found that in a pack of foraging Slaugh. There were four of them, lurking around the ancient and sunken remains of a galleon. They were feeding on a few souls that they were sucking away from the wreck, devouring the energy they provided.
Raziel watched them for a time and found himself wondering about them. He had once come across creatures called ‘wraiths’. They were the spirits of vampires that had been trapped in the spirit realm for too long, morphing into hideous demonic creatures that were devours of souls like himself.
Where sluagh the same? Had they once been human perhaps? If that was true what about all the other creatures of this place, the Archons that the Elder used to hunt for him or his crab like dreadnaughts?
The theory was not a pleasant one to contemplate, to think that the end result of death was eternity in a dark place where you either fed or were feed upon and if you lived it was a warped parody of what you had been.
Setting those thoughts aside he moved forward quickly and set into the small group. Sluagh were not strong creatures, used to devouring souls that could not fight back. Four of them were little challenge.
The blue wraith devoured them down, drawing them down and swallowing them. Their energy merged with his and bolstered it, renewing his strength and vitality. Once he was done he finished by consuming several of the lost ambient souls around the wreck, stockpiling his reserves. He had to be well prepared for when he caught back up with Marduk.
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“The ship had been sailing south west. With the mainland far behind me I resolved to press on and follow. Marduk would not evade my questioning again.”
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His desire to catch the leader of the house of knowledge was not mere stubbornness nor even a need to chastise him for a humiliating defeat.
Raziel had been watching his face when he had declared his intent and the Hylden had flinched at the mention of Janos’ name. He was certain now that Marduk knew were Janos Audron was.
He was turning, about to begin again on his journey when he stopped in mid stride catching sight of something out of the corner of his eye; a faint, luminous object that hovered just on the edge of his vision.
He turned to try and see it clearly, but each time it evaded his gaze as is teasing with him. It was growing stronger, more pronounced and tangible.
Then it seemed to manifest there before him, coming together to condense into the form of a human woman.
The spectre floated back and forth, not a lost soul but clearly an intangible spirit that glowed with a faint white light. Raziel knew who it was even before it had turned its luminous beautiful face to look at him.
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“And there she was again, the shade of Ariel. She floated free, as if a leaf tossed on the wind her face drifting from restored perfection to skeletal damnation and back again.”
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She was face to face with him now and he could watch her face warp back and forth. He was transfixed by the eyes that looked at him.
Even when her skull appeared she was still beautiful in her own way. Raziel wondered that he had not noticed such beauty before, always distracted by her maiming.
“Ariel…” He began reaching out a hand towards her, the action so automatic that it came unbidden.
“Raziel…” Her reply was a rush of wind, a barely heard whisper. But it carried something along with it, a feeling of understanding and support, a surge of approval that he would never fine anywhere else.
He knew at once that this was not just some figment of his imagination but the real thing, Ariel herself; her shade and spirit tailing him here.
Slowly she began to drift away, silently moving west. Every now and then she spun about to watch him and then turned away again.
.
“I felt compelled to follow her, regardless of my own sense of purpose. It was almost as if I were entranced, like a field mouse before the snake that would consume it.”
.
But unlike the field mouse he did not feel threatened or endangered in any way; and so he followed, walking after her neither a slow walk nor a run. The ghost of the former guardian of balance drew him on, a luminous beacon guiding him onwards. He followed her, letting her light guide him through this alien landscape on the bottom of the ocean.
She glided on, watching him follow and the expression on her face was one of awed compassion. As if she was looking past all the hard bravado that he had surrounded himself with and down directly into the core of his soul. That look of compassion filled Raziel with an intense want that he could not ignore, a powerful itch that refused to be scratched.
Eventually she led him to the foot of a large stack of rocks that loomed up high. She did not stop here but carried on, levitating up.
Raziel clambered up and over them, Ariel’s glow drawing him on.
How was she here, he could not help but wonder. Had she not finally been set free form her torment, absorbed by the Reaver transforming the wraith blade and baptising it with purity?
Raziel froze then, in mid thought. Just as he had been trapped inside the sword, had she been trapped inside with him?
The blue wraith quickened his pace and ascended the top of the rocks. Beyond them was a deep valley in the sea floor that stretched away for all the way to the horizon. Its floor was littered with a thick layer of silt and the other way down was a sheer drop of a good few hundred feet.
Ariel had disappeared now, no trace of her left physically but Raziel could sense her essence lingering. It wrapped itself around him, swirling and tracing his body like a consoling touch.
“Raziel…” Her voice echoed, fading away.
“Raziel.” Another voice said; this one far different from Ariel’s. It was a deep resonating sound that seemed to echo up from the very ground upon which he stood. Ariel’s essence disappeared in an instant as if not able to withstand that new intruding voice.
Raziel looked around in alarm, talons raised defensively. There was a new sense of presence now, something foreign and alien.
“What is this?” He demanded every part of him tensed to spring. “Who’s there?”
There was a deep profound moment of silence.
“I am the opponent.” The deep voice replied. Suddenly was a wrenching sound followed by a deep base a thud of something unimaginably heavy dropping down. Before him, the valley shuddered and the silt piled on its floor began to heave upwards. It rose higher and higher, shuddering up until it cascaded to either side in an avalanche of dust.
Raziel stared, stunned. Whatever was out there had the power to move objects in the spectral realm that belonged to the physical.
The silt continued to shift, rising higher and higher until finally a pair of large, impossibly large, tusks jutted out of the ground. They had to be a hundred feet long at least, curbing upwards until they brushed past the valley rim.
The head the husk were attached to was even larger and as five eyes opened to look at him, Raziel stumbled back.
The creature raised its head on a relatively snort neck and swayed, a deep rumbling coming from is colossal throat. It had the face of a whale and the body of a serpent, its skin a mix of stretched hide, scales and thick fur. Its colouration was mostly a deep violet, almost black but running down its back was a neon green fin.
Its eyes were the worst, glowing bright yellow.
Raziel was rooted to the spot, face to face with a being capable of crushing him like an ant. His instincts told him to bolt but strangely he found himself rooted to the spot.
“I am the Keeper.” That same deep voice said and now it definitely seemed to be coming from the beast, but its baleen mouth did not open.
It was speaking directly into his mind.
“Long have I slept here, unable to keep up my strength.” It said; shaking itself and the silt around it shivered in response.  “I rouse myself only that you have come to me… the Reaver.”
Finally Raziel managed to find his own voice.
“What… what are you?” It was a stupid question but the only thing his mind could grasp on to ask.
The ‘Keeper’, as it called itself, lowered its head and studied him closely.
“We are gods.” It replied quite readily. “Entities outside the understanding of those beings limited by the corporeal and the linear.”
It paused to look him over and then, apparently satisfied it straightened back up again.
“Welcome.” The greeting was full of weary joy, as if a long wait was finally over.
By now Raziel had regained enough of his composure to bring back some measure of his courage.
“You know me… creature?” He demanded, keeping his eyes on the tusks that swayed back and forth as the creature turned around.
“Of course.” It replied seeming not to notice the testy tone. “I know you all.”
Suddenly before Raziel there manifested images, pictures that moved in mid air as if projected from somewhere else.
“Kain the disruptor.” The image of Kain was there, the Reaver blade in hand laying into his enemies around him; blood flying.
“Vorador the tormentor.” The vision changed and there indeed was Vorador, standing on the bluff of some unknown castle that overlooked a frothy storm whipped ocean.
“Janos the suffered.” The next scene caused Raziel to catch his breath. Janos was falling, down and down his wings unable to carry him to safety.  His feathers were flying away from him one by one, leaving a trail of black in his wake.
“Umah the barren.” The next was a vampire that Raziel did not know, at least by face. She had curved tattoo markings across her face and was lean and fit, but still retaining great beauty in her face. She stalked the darkness of an alleyway, creeping up behind a man in armour who had not noticed her approach.
“Raziel the Reaver.” And now he was there, standing there tall and proud. His tattered wings bellowed out behind him in some great wind. In the vision he raised his right hand and then the wraith blade erupted forth, forming into his grasp.  
“All children, all pawns… moved across the board in a game that has been played since the beginning of life on this world.”
Raziel brushed the images away with his hand and they disappeared like puffs of smoke.
“Kain is dead.” He declared with some spite.
The Keeper looked down on him.
“No... he is not.” It replied.
Raziel froze and snapped his head up to stare at the beast, more incredulous then he had ever been in his life.
“You mean he is alive?!” The blue wraith asked, realizing even as he said it that it was a stupid question.
“Alive, but lost.” The Keeper replied, swaying the large head back and forth wearily and perhaps almost drunkenly. “His sacrifice was necessary in order to bring you back. Much was made so in order to free you from the never ending ouroboros that was the fate of the sword.”
Raziel shuddered at fresh reminder of the purgatory he had so recently avoided. One eon within the sword was quite enough for him.
“I request of you not to hold rancour for the Hylden seer.” The creature above him asked suddenly. “She acted on behalf of her people and in demands of the necessity required by the game.”
Raziel was barely even paying attention to the request, his mind working frantically. He waved his assent, not bothering with such concerns now.
“If this game is what I believe it to be…” He began slowly, his thoughts finally taking form for him to grasp. “Then it has been responsible for more death and destruction than any other cause.”
He looked up challenging, despite his disadvantage of height, mass and strength.
“Tell me… you said you were an opponent. An opponent of who? Who is the player you play against?”
The Keeper did not immediately answer, his gaze fixed on him but its large eyes blinking rapidly.
“Could it be the same god that demands the submission of all other forms of life?”
Raziel found himself actually hoping that the answer would be ‘no’ but that was simply too much to hope for.
“You are as perceptive as Kain.” The Keeper said instead, not replying to the actual question and not really needing to.
Raziel stood there for a long time simply looking at the creature. Another god, another creature like his former master?
“In losing Kain then you have lost your strongest piece.” The blue wraith remarked coldly, lifting his hands.
“You threw away the king…” He dropped his left hand.
“… in exchange for the knight.” He dropped his right.
The Keeper’s lined face wrinkled more deeply around his eyes and Raziel found to his surprise that the giant creature was actually smiling.
“But the king can be reclaimed.” It said.