The Order, page 18
“It’s all right, Leah,” he said. “I won’t leave you. I promise. We shall go to Kurast together.”
EIGHTEEN
Tristram’s End
Deckard Cain clutched like a drowning man at the slippery bars that stood between him and oblivion. The cage rocked gently in a hot wind, bringing the smell of charred wood and scorched human flesh. Shame and horror twisted like a knife in his guts, and he moaned in sorrow at the memory of all the pain and bloodshed he had seen, and all he had lost.
Everything that had ever meant anything to him was gone. Aidan, the king’s eldest son, whom Cain had tutored so long ago, and who had slain Diablo and emerged from the catacombs a hero, had disappeared in the night, and Hell had come back to Tristram.
“My Aidan,” he whispered through cracked lips, and then gasped a plea that fell away into emptiness. “My Tristram. Please, no more. No more . . .”
His limbs shook with exhaustion, his body near collapse. He had not eaten in days. He peered with watery eyes at the last of the flames guttering among the remains of his town. They had come with little warning, returning to finish the survivors, who had barely had the chance to breathe after the Diablo’s reign of terror. The people had fought valiantly with the last of their strength and taken a few of the damned with them; a bloodied goatman lay sprawled across a pathway with an axe in its chest, and the head of an imp stared vacantly back at Cain from the edge of the well, its eyes like half-lidded, foggy windows to hell.
But the people of Tristram had paid dearly for their efforts. The ground was soaked with blood; human limbs and chunks of bodies ripped and bitten littered the space where the town’s bonfire had been built not long ago.
One of the limbs lying closest to him was recognizable by the jagged, half-healed bite marks along the forearm: Farnham, the drunken father of three who had emerged from the catacombs a ruin of his former self.
Deckard Cain’s beloved home was gone forever.
The old man screamed, shaking the bars, his voice ragged. The horrible, crushing weight of his sins was too much. He could not live any longer with the knowledge that Aidan was lost, consumed by the spirit of the evil that he had fought against. This slaughter could have been avoided, if only Cain had been the man his mother had always wished him to be. Was this penance for his earlier transgressions? Had he brought this upon them all? He couldn’t bear the thought.
“Come back for me, you filthy, murdering cowards! Come do your dirty work! I am WAITING!”
As if in answer, something moved from the shadows behind the smoking rubble of the old pub.
A man lurched into sight, dragging his right leg. He stopped, cocked his head as if listening, then lurched forward again, directly toward the square where Cain had been hung inside his iron cage and left to die.
It was Griswold, the town blacksmith. But something was wrong with him. Cain’s faint hope and shout of recognition died on his lips; the man’s eyes were wild, barren, and soulless, his mouth twisted in a snarl, his bloody hands up and clutching at the air. His body was bloated and pale, the color of the dead.
Griswold came nearer. He stopped below the cage, staring up with hunger on his face, his mouth working like a man looking at his last meal. He moaned, a sound like a wind through an empty, echoing crypt.
“No, Griswold,” Cain whispered. He shrank back from the bars, shaking his head. “Not you, too . . .”
As the cursed creature reached out for the rope to shake the cage free, an arrow thudded into his left shoulder. Griswold howled and tore it away. Black blood bubbled up from the wound and oozed down his arm, and he shook like a wet dog, sending splatters in all directions.
Another arrow whistled through the air, narrowly missing his head. The creature looked around and then lumbered off, still screeching in pain and anger.
Cain returned to the bars. A tall, beautiful woman in full amazonian dress emerged from the cover of the scorched trees, glanced around her, and then approached the cage, slinging her bow back over her shoulder. She wore a golden helmet and armor.
She released the rope holding the cage aloft, then caught its end and lowered Cain gently to the ground. He tumbled into the blood-soaked mud, his fingers clutching the ground, his limbs trembling with release.
I am free, he thought, and I am saved. But for what?
When he looked up, several others had emerged from the trees: among them a necromancer, barbarian, sorceress, and paladin. They crossed the open space to stand next to the amazon, forming a half circle around him. He gathered himself and tried to regain his feet, but could not. The amazon took his arm and helped him up, where he stood with legs planted and shaking with effort.
“I . . . am Deckard Cain,” he said, with the last of his strength. “The only survivor of this cursed place. I am in your debt.”
“We have fought through hell itself to get here,” the paladin said. “Spared by the grace of the Light. We are ready to fight on. But we need your guidance.”
Cain’s knees buckled, but the amazon caught his arm. Emotions swirled like a storm within him: thoughts of all who had died here and all who would perish in the days to come. For surely, this scourge of Hell was not over but only just beginning, and now it would spread across the lands, infecting everything in its path.
Unless they could find a way to stop it.
“The Dark Wanderer,” Cain whispered, the cursed name springing to his lips almost unbidden: he could not use the man’s name, not anymore. The Aidan he knew was gone. “He has the demon inside him, and he is trying to release Mephisto and Baal from their imprisonment. We must find him before it is too late.”
A scream echoed across the valley, high and shrill, and as it faded away into silence, a deeper, more menacing sound like the thunder of many feet brought chills to Deckard Cain’s spine. It was not the sound of men, nor anything the others could hear.
It was the sound of death, coming to march upon them all.
Cain awoke to a hand shaking his shoulder. Mikulov stood over him in the early, gray light, his face filled with concern. “You were screaming,” the monk said quietly, glancing at Leah, who lay still nearby, her back to them.
They had walked for another full day, and made camp in the hills with Kurast just over the next rise. Mikulov had proven an able companion so far, scouting the road ahead for thieves and keeping them going with stories of his life in Ivgorod; Leah had grown more fascinated with him as they went along. Cain had meant to question the monk further after they had made camp and Leah had dropped into sleep, but exhaustion had taken him quickly once again, only to bring these terrible dreams of his own imprisonment and near death at the hands of the demons that had overrun his town.
Cain rolled over and took several gasping breaths, wiping the sweat from his brow. He looked up into the leaden sky as dawn broke above the mountains. The dreams were growing more vivid and more disturbing, thrusting him back into days and events he would rather forget. Even now, he smelled the filth, felt the iron floor of his cage beneath his bare feet, the heat of the fires washing over him.
The horror of the loss and the guilt over his role in the slaughter felt like a fresh wound. He remembered the pain and despair of it all—the beloved son of the king, forced to kill his younger brother. Tears overcame him.
“I dreamed of the Dark Wanderer,” he said, his breath catching in his chest. “And the end of Tristram.”
Mikulov squatted next to him, balanced on the balls of his feet. Cain’s sense of sadness and loss made it almost impossible to speak. He lay quietly for some time, staring into the sky.
“Aidan was burdened, haunted by something terrible. I should have seen the signs right before my eyes. I had been his teacher! But I thought it was a result of what he had been forced to do to his own brother. I thought it was despair over what he had witnessed. I never thought . . . that he would shove that cursed soulstone into his own head. That he had taken on the essence of evil, and Diablo still lived inside him. That he would become . . . the Dark Wanderer.”
“You pursued him across Sanctuary.”
“Along with a group of brave adventurers, yes. He snuck away in the dead of night, and shortly after that, a new demon plague descended upon what was left of Tristram. I . . . I was imprisoned in a cage hung upon a pole and left for dead. Forced to watch as . . .” Cain’s voice quavered and failed him, and he wiped his wet face with his sleeve. “As . . . unspeakable things happened below me. Finally I was freed, and the demon horde pushed back, but Aidan was already far away, consumed by evil and intent on releasing Diablo’s two brothers from their soulstones. Aidan, our hero, my friend, was hopelessly lost.
“My heroes went after him, and I followed shortly thereafter, but we were always one step behind. We defeated Andariel beneath the chambers of a cursed monastery and fought the Lesser Evil Duriel in the tomb of Tal Rasha. We chased the Dark Wanderer through Kurast after that city had fallen, and we vanquished Mephisto, his brother, in Travincal. Finally we pursued Diablo into the Burning Hells and defeated him. Aidan was . . . killed.”
“I am sorry,” Mikulov said. “Our Patriarchs teach that death is simply a chance to be reborn.”
“I would like to think such a thing exists,” Cain said. “But the horrors I have seen . . .” He trembled with emotion, tears wetting his cheeks. “The Prime Evils are gone. But even the Lesser Evils of the Burning Hells can destroy worlds, should they choose. Some would say they are even more dangerous. If Belial or Azmodan come to Sanctuary, may the archangels help us all.”
After gathering their few things and taking only a moment to drink at a small stream nearby, they resumed their journey, the monk in the lead. They had camped a few hundred feet from the road and reached it quickly enough, setting out down the middle with grim determination.
The day was gray and cold, wind ruffling their clothes and bringing a stench to their nostrils. The smell of death, Cain thought. Perhaps Leah wouldn’t recognize it, but Mikulov, he realized immediately, certainly had; the monk glanced at him with a somber expression.
They crossed a branch of the river again, this bridge intact and strong, running over rushing water that cascaded through rocks. The sky darkened, and the wind picked up, until the first drops of an icy rain fell over them. The trees had become withered and bare, the ground gray and lifeless. Once, Cain thought he smelled smoke, and they passed the remains of a fire that appeared to have been hastily doused. But there were no signs of people.
They proceeded more cautiously, keeping Leah between them. The last of the trees gave way to small, deserted shacks; piles of trash and broken furniture; and, once, the rotting carcass of a horse.
And then, opening up before them like a boil on the face of Sanctuary, was the city of Kurast.
NINETEEN
The Red Circle
The area they had entered appeared to be deserted. Crows flapped and cawed overhead as they walked down the wide road and through the open city gates. Parchment flipped across the street, carried by the breeze, and the scent of the mudflats near the docks permeated their clothes, along with smells even fouler and less identifiable.
The former center of power in Sanctuary, the height of learning and culture, reduced to this: a ghost city filled with beggars and thieves. The tragedy of it all nearly brought Deckard Cain to his knees. He was catapulted back in time to the day he had arrived here after his traveling party, pursuing the Dark Wanderer. The city had been under siege then, and the people had been running for their lives. They had met the last of these people at the docks, rushing away with their belongings tied into cloth sacks: men, women, and children with haunted faces, forever scarred by the things they had seen.
Kulloom’s warning about Kurast came back to him once again, like a whisper on the breeze: The people there will take what they can from you and leave you to die on the road. And there are other things . . . Things that are not so kind.
Larger drops of rain began to spatter down, and Leah shivered. It wouldn’t be long before nightfall. They had to find shelter soon.
In the streets of Lower Kurast, all was silent. The small, communal huts were abandoned and falling into ruin, their doorways dark and empty. This had been the poorest section of the city, meant for laborers, and a good place to hide, if hiding was what you desired. Above them rose the larger buildings of Upper Kurast, the forgotten temple and reliquary looming over all. The things that had lived beneath these places the last time Cain was here made his blood run cold: underground chambers and sewers full of lurching undead and beasts, both mortal and demonic. So many of the people had been blind to the horrors that were lurking just beneath their feet, as many more across Sanctuary still were. They did not believe in angels and demons, or worlds beyond this one.
Leah moved nearer to Cain and Mikulov, the three of them closing ranks as a rat the size of a small dog skittered across the street in front of them. “Stay close, little one,” Cain said. He glanced at Mikulov. “We must remember why we have come. Somewhere in this city is a man who may hold the answers to whether the Horadric order is still alive and well.”
Something else moved in the shadows between two huts, something large and raw and glistening, slipping out of sight quickly. Cain stepped closer; the corpse of a woman sat propped up against one wall, maggots squirming in her empty eye sockets, her neck half missing, as if something had been chewing at her. The wound was still wet.
A sickeningly sweet smell wafted over him, and he imagined her turning slowly toward him, her wound like a second mouth, eye sockets fixated on him as she raised her arms for an embrace.
A low, distant moan drifted beyond the buildings ahead. About twenty feet away, an emaciated male figure stumbled into the street, weaving drunkenly sideways before correcting himself and standing rather unsteadily before them. The man was hardly taller than Leah herself, wearing ragged clothing stained with dark blotches that might have been blood or feces, his hair long and hopelessly tangled, his wispy beard caked with filth. His nails were so long they curled back toward his palms, and there were raw patches where he had cut into his own flesh with them.
The man glanced around, muttering, his face contorting as he chewed at his own cheek. His glassy eyes rolled wildly before he suddenly fixated on the three travelers. He shambled forward, hands up in supplication. “Do you have any food for us? We are hungry. Please.”
“We seek lodging,” Mikulov said, stepping in front of Cain and Leah. “A place to stay for the night.”
The man stared at him, openmouthed. He began to chuckle, quietly at first, then louder, lips curling upward to reveal yellow, broken teeth. “You want to stay . . . here?” he said, wheezing with laughter, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. “Are you mad?”
“We’re looking for a man named Hyland,” Cain said. “If you take us to him, we can pay you well for it.”
“It’s too late for you now. It will be dark soon. Poor souls.” The man cackled again, glancing around as if afraid he might be overheard. “We’re all damned. We cannot escape. They take from us what they need and leave nothing.”
“Whom do you speak of?” Cain asked.
The man stared blankly at him. “They come from Gea Kul, traveling far in the night. You will see.” He nodded again, eyes fixed on a point of reference that was not in this world. “You will see.”
The man tilted his head, exposing his neck. It was covered in dark purple bruises, as if he had been gripped by giant hands.
Leah tugged on Cain’s tunic, pointing to the huts. Others had gathered in the shadows, all of them watching silently. They were all as thin as this man, and dressed like beggars, faces as white as parchment. He saw a girl about Leah’s age, standing by someone who might have been her mother, and another woman old enough to be the grandmother.
An old wound tugged at him, an emotion he refused to acknowledge.
Cain reached into his rucksack, removing some of the seeds he had collected back in Lord Brand’s manor. “There is black magic in these,” he said, extending his hand toward their visitor. “You may have them, if you help us find lodging. Plant them outside your door during the day, and at night they will grow up into a forest of roots. You must be careful, because they will grab and hold anyone within reach. But they may also protect you from what preys upon you. Black magic is not discriminating about that which it entraps.”
The man snatched the seeds away. He looked around furtively, as if expecting an attack at any moment.
“Come with me,” he said.
The man led them through the narrow streets without speaking, shuffling from side to side. The sky darkened as evening came on swiftly. The rain continued to patter down. They saw no others on the way, but as they left Lower Kurast and neared the docks, they began to hear music: a lyre, from the sound of it, plinking out a muffled tune, accompanied by raised voices. They followed the strange little man down a wider street, the buildings no longer quite as deserted. A light glowed from one window, and farther down was a row of abandoned shops, the windows of the largest of them filled with light.
“The Red Circle,” the man whispered. “They may have rooms, for a price. Good luck to you.” He melted into the shadows and disappeared, leaving them alone.
The smell of cooking meat came from the inn. They heard the sound of something shattering. As Mikulov opened the door, more smells and sounds assaulted them, a raucous mixture of food and human sweat, off-key strumming, hoarse singing, and lots of conversation. The inn was packed with people, some of them belting out songs accompanied by a lyre in one corner, others sitting at tables over mugs of ale.
Almost immediately, one of the drunken men spied them and waddled over, taking Cain by the arm with a grip of iron and pulling him inside.
“This is no place for a girl!” the man roared into Cain’s face, his beard dripping with sweat. The man gestured at Leah. “What do you mean, bringing her here?” Then he winked. He wasn’t as tall as Cain, but his body was solidly built. Mikulov tensed, but Cain made a calming gesture and let himself be led forward, into the fray.
