The Order, page 20
It was the third time since they had reached Kurast that someone had mentioned Gea Kul. “Kulloom told a similar story, of a trade merchant who had witnessed something like these feeders.”
Hyland’s gaze grew distant, his face flushed in the light that filtered in through the window. “There are rumors all over. Many claim to have witnessed feeders creeping around in the dead of night, horrible ghouls that seem to float in the air and appear and disappear at will. They are like human insects, crawling upon all fours, up walls and across ceilings—bloated, misshapen things that are so horrible to behold, they turn people mad. They say these creatures are commanded by the Dark One I spoke of earlier.”
The shadows in the room seemed to grow, the air gaining a chill. “And you think these Horadric scholars brought these creatures to Sanctuary?”
“Many here do. But perhaps the group, along with Rau, left here to travel to Gea Kul and battle the evil that was already gathering there.” Hyland shrugged. “I knew some of these young men from their time in Kurast. They seemed well intentioned enough. I had no reason to think they were . . . corrupted.”
“Do you know the feeders’ purpose?”
“Perhaps they are simply here to drain the people’s will, to make them easier to overcome. Or perhaps it is all simply a rumor started by fools and drunkards.” Hyland stood up to pour himself another grog. “Perhaps I am one of them.”
“I would like to speak to someone who has seen one,” Cain said. “If they could tell me something of better use—”
Hyland waved a hand. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone willing to come within a hundred yards of you,” he said. “And let’s just say that most of those who have seen them are no longer interested in talking. But I’ve got something else.” He set the glass down and began rummaging through piles of books. “I know I put it here somewhere . . . ahhh.” He held up sheets of parchment. “Several weeks ago, a woman came to me in fear of her life. Her son, a talented artist of no more than twelve, was wasting away with the familiar sickness. I went to see him, and he gave me these.”
He handed the parchment to Cain. The first held a roughly scratched drawing of an unsettling figure, perhaps an animal of some kind, crouched in the corner of a room. The room was dark, the angles shaded with angry marks from the charcoal from which it had been drawn, and the shape was indistinct, as if emerging from a fog.
The second was more detailed, and the creature’s shape was clearer—a large, misshapen head, hunched back, distended belly, face like a black hole. But the third drawing was so strong and so terrible Cain drew in a sharp breath. It showed a humanlike creature hovering over a small child in bed, claw-like hands extended as if to caress its victim. The creature had advanced upon the viewer so that its presence appeared to fill the page, bringing with it a feeling of terrible, overwhelming dread. Its face was turned upward, wisps of hair hanging across a white, shiny scalp, and its eyes were blank holes, blindly staring with a hunger that could not be quenched.
Below the drawing, scratched so roughly the parchment had torn, were two words: Al Cut.
“I don’t know what it means,” Hyland said. “I don’t think the boy did either. The strange thing was, his mother did not beg me to save her son. She asked for him to be banished, to drive the feeders away from her home. I refused, and two days later, she disappeared. The boy remains, a shadow of himself, haunting the alleys of Kurast. I have seen him since, but he does not recognize me.”
Cain stared at the thing in the drawing. Even through the parchment, the evil in the creature was strong enough that it almost appeared to move, tilting its cursed, ravenous face, its long fingers slowly opening as if to reach out at him. But it was the thing’s mouth, open and puckered, searching blindly in hunger for something to feed upon, that left him deeply shaken and ice-cold.
“If you remain here,” Hyland said, “you may no longer need to worry about finding out more about the feeders.”
He drained his glass again and looked bleary-eyed at Cain from across the room. “You’ll dream of them. And I think you may see one in person soon enough.”
TWENTY-ONE
The Feeder
Deckard Cain found Mikulov and Leah near the water’s edge, where Mikulov was teaching the girl how to skip stones. They had found nothing to eat. Gulls screamed above their heads, also searching for food. By the time they returned to the Red Circle, it was late afternoon.
There was no sign of Cyrus. The inn still slumbered, those few who remained present sleeping like the dead, the smell of stale ale and sweat drifting through the downstairs rooms. Mikulov found more rancid stew in the kitchen, and they ate what they could stomach before the first few patrons began to stumble in, bleary-eyed and sour, and wet from the rain that had again begun to fall.
Out of earshot from Leah, Cain explained to Mikulov what Hyland had told him. The Horadric scholars were apparently real, and had been close to Kurast. Perhaps they were still in Gea Kul. It was as much as Cain could ask for, considering the circumstances. But their connection with the creature Hyland had called the Dark One and his feeders was troubling. Cain had little doubt that this Dark One was the false leader from the book of Horadric prophecies that he had found in the ruins and, most likely, the same man Mikulov had seen in his visions. He was probably also the “master” referred to by Lord Brand back in the village.
Had this sorcerer killed Rau and the Horadric scholars? Or were they plotting together against the people of Sanctuary?
“Al Cut,” Mikulov mused. “Do you suppose it’s a living man?”
“The text is quite old, and it referred to his tomb, so I’m assuming he’s dead unless it is a prophecy of coming events. But I have never heard of such a person in all my years of studying history. One would think he might be written of, were he this important.”
“Hmmm.” Mikulov shrugged. “Gea Kul is not far from here. Perhaps a day or two’s journey, if we make good time.” Darkness was falling outside as they set their dinner bowls on the table near the kitchen. They listened to the sound of the wind moaning against the eaves. “At the monastery,” Mikulov said, “the masters teach us to listen to the earth and sky and wind, that the gods are in all things if only you learn how to open your mind to them. They are speaking to us now.”
Cain nodded. There was something heavy in the air, a presence like the promise of violence and blood. Leah seemed to feel it too; the girl had been mostly silent since the docks, keeping close by Cain’s side, and once, as a group of large men came into the inn with voices raised, her small hand had snuck into his and squeezed it. Her skin was clammy, her bones as fragile as a bird’s wing.
They returned to their room, and Leah fell asleep on the bed of straw. “Forgive me,” Mikulov said, “but I sense something else is bothering you.”
“Everyone has a history they would like to forget.”
“Some more than others,” Mikulov said. “The Patriarchs say that if we do not face these things, we are not whole. And we are vulnerable to the darkness.”
“I’ve seen horrors that most other men would not recover from,” Cain said. “I have seen my friends murdered, my town destroyed. I’ve lived most of my life with guilt because I let these things happen, and did not fight back soon enough.”
And Leah, he thought, but did not say it: What was her role in all of this, and what did she mean to him? A chance to change things, a way to fight back against the darkness that had plagued him most of his adult life?
You cannot change the past.
Mikulov studied his face for a long time, as if looking for some kind of truth written there. “I sense there is more, much more. Whatever else may be inside you, it is your burden alone to carry. But should you need a friend—”
“Thank you, Mikulov.” Cain removed the Horadric book of prophecies from his rucksack. “Now I must search for more answers, before the morning comes. We have only five days before the prophecies say Hell will come to Sanctuary. There is no time for this. We must rest soon, and be on our way again.”
Mikulov opened his mouth as if to speak again, then shrugged and nodded. “As you wish.”
Cain pored over the text until late into the night, searching for anything that might help them, but he found nothing else of substance. An increased sense of urgency drove him on far longer than he might have thought possible; time was getting away from them, and they were no closer to a solution. It was maddening.
Finally he fell asleep sitting up, the book dropping into his lap, and he dreamed he was walking down a long, dusty road lit by fire on all sides, the heat prickling his skin and turning the hairs on his arms black and twisted. Somewhere nearby there was a presence so foul, so filled with evil, it made his stomach churn with sickness. He was searching for someone he had ignored for far too long. The evil presence had taken that person from him.
He became aware that feeders were following him, flitting like ghosts on the road’s edge, their pale, crab-like forms mirroring his pace. He went faster, but they grew closer, hundreds of them. As he walked down the road, he could make out two figures in the distance holding hands, one taller than the other. They walked away from him, and no matter how fast he went, they remained distant specks on the horizon.
He increased his pace until he was running, his staff banging the ground, rucksack flapping against his shoulder. But he could get no closer.
They are mine, a voice boomed inside his head, loud enough to make him cry out. Laughter echoed across the landscape, following him as he ran ever faster. I took them years ago, snatched on the road to Caldeum. Now they suffer for all eternity. The laughter raked him like claws as the fire roared up, and a tiny child’s voice began screaming.
You were blind, and now you see.
He awoke in a cold sweat, his mouth dry, legs numb. The room was dark and filled with the faint sounds of Mikulov’s and Leah’s breathing. The text had fallen to the floor. He gathered it up and slipped it back into his rucksack, trying not to think about the dream. It had been more vivid than any of the others, and the voice of the evil presence had sounded real.
Cain wiped tears from his face. That was many years ago, so many years. There was nothing he could do about it now, and no way he could change the past. He had to go on. That had become his mantra, recited so many times in his own head he had come to believe in its power to erase his history and to bring about his redemption: I must go on.
A low moaning sound drifted from somewhere down the corridor, beyond the closed bedroom door.
Cain froze, listening. He had heard similar noises the night before, but this one seemed to rattle him even more; it was a haunted, lonely sound, that of a dying man.
The moan came again, followed by a dull thud, like something heavy falling to the floor.
Cain took his staff and opened the door, peering out into the hallway. It was filled with shadows broken only with a dim light that filtered through a single window at the far end. The night outside was a gray-blue, the color of deep water. He paused, waiting, and heard something move from behind a door about ten feet down on the right. It sounded like a heavy object being dragged across the ground.
An icy draft wafted over him, bringing chills. There was something in that room. Every instinct told him to turn around, gather Leah and Mikulov, and take them far away from this place. But he also sensed that whatever was happening behind that door could not continue. Someone was in terrible danger.
Cain crept down the hallway as quietly as possible, keeping close to the wall. As he went, he imagined fires burning all around him from his dream, pushing him forward.
The door was open a crack. Darkness loomed inside.
Another soft moan broke the silence. Cain muttered words from the Horadric spellbook, his staff taking on the familiar blue glow. He pushed the door wide.
A pale, nearly translucent creature sat hunched over the prone body of Cyrus, the innkeeper, who lay upon the floor. A few strands of hair hung from a nearly bald skull, skeletal features covered with skin as thin as parchment. Blue veins traced patterns across dry, flaking flesh.
The creature’s claw-like hands were around Cyrus’s neck. Its bare shoulders moved as it leaned in again to the big man’s face and kissed his lips.
Cyrus’s fingers twitched.
The feeder attached itself like a parasite and breathed in. Its torso swelled, filling with something that Cyrus gave up with a slow, ghostly sigh. As the blue glow from Cain’s staff washed over the room, it turned to stare blindly over its shoulder at him, eye sockets black and empty, ghoulish mouth open in a glistening, toothless circle, saliva dripping from the hole.
Cyrus began to shudder, his bare heels drumming on the floor.
What hell is this?
Cain pulled the last of the black seeds from his rucksack and tossed them at the creature’s feet. They sprang to life, tendrils digging into the cracks and sprouting up with unbelievable speed. The feeder screamed, a high, ear-splitting noise like the screech of glass against metal as the black roots lashed across the room, grasping hold of anything within reach and creating a forest of waving limbs.
Cain slammed the door shut, shuddering. Mikulov had heard the noises and was already in the hall, Leah right behind him.
“There’s a feeder in Cyrus’s room,” he said.
From the sleeve that wrapped over his wrist Mikulov slipped a punch dagger into his hand so that it protruded from his fist. The blade glowed briefly with markings of power etched into the steel.
The noises from inside had ceased abruptly. “I’m scared, Uncle,” Leah said. Cain looked down at her pale face, which shone like a tiny moon in the darkness.
“I will not let anything happen to you,” he said. “I promise.”
Mikulov opened the innkeeper’s door to a thicket of black roots that had spread across the frame. He sliced at them with his blades. The cut roots fell, writhing like snakes before shrinking away again to seeds, which Cain scooped up. In a few moments, the monk had cleared a path, and he stepped into the room and disappeared from sight. Then Mikulov appeared at the door again, Cyrus over his shoulder.
“The thing is gone out the window,” he said. “We are safe, for now.”
He carried Cyrus back to their room and put him on the floor, and Cain crouched over him, looking for any obvious wounds. His neck was deeply bruised. A moment later the innkeeper opened his eyes, his gaze unfocused; his head fell to the side, his limbs unresponsive. Cain tried to get him to speak, with no luck. It was as if the man was in a trance of some kind or had been drugged.
The big man seemed smaller and thinner than before, his flesh sunken around his eyes and cheeks, bones protruding in more angles and sharp points. He appeared as drained as a piece of dry fruit, his skin cracking, a hollow husk of flesh made all the more horrifying by the way his eyes rolled loosely in their sockets and his mouth hung open, breath rasping in and out like the last gasps of a dying man.
But Cyrus did not die. Instead he remained in the same state, unresponsive, his breathing irregular, his pulse faint. Cain listened to Cyrus’s rattling breath and thought about the creature he had seen, its eyeless face staring blankly at him. The sound of flapping wings came faintly from outside their room, and Cain felt a momentary darkness cross their path with a rush and a sigh, then pass out of sight again. He shivered.
The moment of truth was getting closer. Soon he would know whether the Horadrim still lived on or whether they had faded away into legend, leaving him as the last bastion against oblivion. Soon Ratham would be upon them.
May the archangels save us all.
Tomorrow, they would go to Gea Kul.
TWENTY-TWO
The Blood of Al Cut
Underneath the tower of stone and sea, the Dark One drew a circle around a familiar symbol: a figure eight with two pointed dagger tips at its bottom, amber gemstone in the middle. A candle fluttered in its center, but the edges of the room were shrouded in shadows, deeper than the night outside. Yet he saw everything with perfect clarity; his eyes had developed a peculiar sensitivity to light, the way a cat’s eyes cut through the darkness to spy its prey. There were other changes as well that were more dramatic. It was all part of his transformation from human into deity.
His ghouls had continued to spread across the land, bringing the essence of life back to him and filling the containment chamber. He felt its power swelling beneath him, a ticking bomb ready to explode.
Only four days until his coronation. It was time to make the first contact.
Something splattered across the symbol’s center. The Dark One looked up at the chained man hanging from hooks through his shoulder blades as he kicked and writhed at his bonds. Blood ran down his legs, dripping to the stone. A rune, the mark of Belial, glowed upon his upper arm like the embers of a fire.
The Dark One smiled. His master would not be satisfied to remain within his human host much longer. But the flesh was simply a vessel, and now he would call a new visitor to occupy it, a visitor he had been waiting a very long time to meet.
He went to the book propped upon the stand near the circle and read a passage aloud. It was a delicate ceremony, and it strained his abilities to call through so many years and planes of existence. The past was like a complicated series of interlocking plates that constantly shifted and rearranged themselves, marking the path through a dangerous maze of illusions; one could easily get lost inside and never return.
The candle flared up in a roar of flame, then died down again. The circle and symbol glowed red. He slid a dagger from his sleeve, held his other palm up, and pricked it. Blood welled from the wound, pooled there, and began to thread its way slowly upward like a fleshy, liquid worm, reaching for the blade and then running over it. He watched, fascinated, as the blade soaked up the blood, binding it to him forever.
