The Order, page 27
“Daddy!” The boy was crying hysterically. “I don’t like the monsters, Daddy! Please come get me!”
With a strangled cry, Cain launched himself at the possessed figure, the walls he had erected around these memories during so many long years suddenly crashing down all at once, and the flood of pain and suffering pouring out like rushing water over a broken dam.
“A letter for you, sir.”
Deckard Cain looked up bleary-eyed from the table where he had fallen asleep. The empty bottle and glass, still crusted with wine, stood in silent witness to his despair. He glanced at the door, where Pepin stood framed by sunlight. “It was open,” Pepin said. “I thought I’d deliver this. Thought it might be important.”
The healer stepped forward too quickly, setting the envelope down on the table and rushing back to the doorway, as if Cain might have a contagious disease. It was uncharacteristic behavior. But he could not be blamed. Cain had shut everyone out, even his family, so absorbed in his scholarly pursuits, he had left no time for anything else.
And so his wife had left him, taking his young son. He was thirty-five years old and alone. He had no friends left in Tristram.
“Get out,” he said.
“I—”
“Out!”
Pepin stepped back across the threshold and closed the door, leaving him in silence.
His head ached from drink. “Amelia,” he whispered. He wasn’t quite sure why. They had fought bitterly several nights before, the same argument they had had for years now: he was always locked away among his books, she said, always more attentive to them than to his students, his wife and son, or anyone else, for that matter. Why had they named the boy after his famous ancestor when family apparently meant so little to him, she had asked? Where had he been when his little Jered had spoken his first word, taken his first steps? Where had he been when the boy had nearly died from fever? Where was he when she needed him?
He had retreated from her tears and her pleadings, going to his library and locking his door, leaving his son standing in the hall, looking after him with his tiny hands clenched into fists. When he had come out again, she and Jered were gone.
What had he done?
Deckard Cain’s hands trembled as he reached for the envelope. It was stamped with the royal seal of Khanduras, marking it as an official missive from the local lord’s men. He tore it open, removing the thin parchment from within and scanning the contents with growing horror.
Dear Schoolmaster Cain: We regret to inform you . . .
As he reached the thing that had taken Egil, it closed its fingers around Cain’s throat, holding him like a small toy, their faces inches apart.
The thing’s features had changed again. This time, what was revealed was not man, woman, or child, but something inhuman. Raw flesh stretched shiny-slick across knobs of bone surrounded a gaping maw full of sharpened, bloody teeth.
“They cry for you,” Belial spat at him, his breath like rotting flesh. “You never could look at their bodies, could you, Deckard? See what we did to them on that empty road? Yet their physical pain was nothing—only the beginning. We took their souls and made them slaves, and they have been suffering under the watch of my loyal servants ever since. You ignored them for so long for your precious books, you hardly noticed what they meant to you until they were gone. And now you have brought us another one to play with, just in time. We thank you for doing our bidding, even if you weren’t aware of it.”
Deckard Cain saw a flash of an empty, overturned wagon upon the road to Caldeum, the splash of blood across the spokes of the wheel. Red-stained shapes under rough blankets that men had draped over them. “You . . . lie . . .”
The demon roared, throwing its head back and howling at the ceiling, its laughter shaking the foundations of the building like an earthquake. “Everything is a lie, old man. All that you see, all that you believe. Your family was a lie, your sad little life of solitary study, your loneliness and anger. Even your pathetic little quest to find us. You think all that you’ve done, the things you have found along the way, the signs that brought you here—all that was your doing?”
Cain’s legs gave way, and he sagged against the creature’s arms as its fingers tightened around his throat. Everything seemed to click into place: Akarat’s discovery of the texts that had led them to the ruins, and the Horadric prophecies he had found there that had been left by the First Ones seemingly by accident, texts that had eventually led him to Caldeum, Kurast, and finally to Gea Kul. So many coincidences, so many close escapes.
“Even now, you do our bidding, old man. This shell we inhabit will die in a moment, yet you will be too late to stop what is happening.” The thing grinned at him. “The little girl. You left her alone, didn’t you? Left another one alone again. You thought she was safe. You poor fool. Check the book. You—ahhhhh.”
The creature sighed, eyes suddenly growing dim and fixed, face re-forming, features bubbling back to their original shape as its hands went slack and Cain dropped, gasping, to the floor. Egil slumped, already dead, falling toward Cain and wetting his face with blood.
He looked up as Mikulov slid his punch dagger back out from the base of Egil’s skull. Mikulov stepped back, breathing hard, his eyes wild, as the green light that had bathed the room began to fade into darkness. Cain pushed Egil’s body off him, scrambling backward as the blood soaked through his tunic, wetting his skin. He fumbled in his rucksack, pulling out a bag of Egil’s powder and throwing it against the wall. The pop and flare filled the room with light once again, and Mikulov retrieved the torch and lit it.
Cain found his staff in one corner, snapped in two. The cracking sound he had heard when he had fallen earlier came back to him, and as he gathered the pieces, a deeper fear spread through his limbs and urged him on. His fingers touched the piece of parchment paper in the hidden pocket of his tunic, the edges old and crumbling, its message seared once again across his memory: We regret to inform you . . .
“Wait!” Mikulov cried, but Cain ran as fast as his trembling, nearly useless legs would carry him, careening through the shadows with the torchlight following behind and Mikulov continuing to call out. Egil was dead, poor Egil, another young man who had trusted Deckard and had paid the bitter price for it, as had Akarat, the young paladin who had been filled with such confidence. Used like all the rest.
I will not let you down, Akarat had said, back at the Vizjerei ruins. Egil had said much the same thing before they had come here. And they had not let him down, but Cain had been unable to protect them in return, as he had promised himself he would. And now he feared the worst for someone else under his care and protection. Someone he had promised to keep safe.
The demon lies.
Yes, of course it did. But lies were often wrapped in truth.
Deckard Cain reached the library, Mikulov close behind with the torch. The room was silent and empty and shrouded in shadows, the remains of their search strewn in piles on the floor. The book of Horadric prophecies was still open on the table. Check the book, the demon had said. Cain flipped through it with trembling fingers, all the hidden text still legible as Mikulov stepped to his side and the flickering torchlight brightened its pages.
“What is it—?”
Cain let out a small cry, stepping away from the table and the book. But it was too late. He had already seen what had been scrawled across the last two pages, written in blood, still fresh and wet.
The words were seared into his brain:
The girl is mine.
TWENTY-NINE
The Warning
Long before they reached the caves, they could smell the smoke.
Cain and Mikulov had caught up with Thomas and Cullen before the two men left the tunnels. They had been slowed down by their heavy burden of books, while Cain and Mikulov had been propelled ever faster by their fear of what they would find when they returned to camp. The two men sagged as Mikulov explained briefly what had happened to Egil, Thomas leaning on Cullen for support. Thomas and Egil had been close friends, Cullen explained, as Mikulov assumed Thomas’s sack of books for him. It was a tough blow to take.
But it was nothing compared to what they found when they reached the clearing.
Black smoke billowed from the cave’s entrance. The bodies of men and other creatures still lay scattered across the ground, many of them with arrows buried to the fletching in their necks and chests.
What drew their eyes was the huge wooden cross that had been erected in front of the cave, and the thing that hung there.
Lund’s chin rested on his chest. The huge man was naked, his hands and feet lashed to the wood, rope digging cruelly into flesh the color of white marble. But Lund was beyond any pain now.
He had been split from throat to groin, his innards spilling out and hanging down to the dusty, blood-soaked ground.
The crows had been at work on him. One still remained, perched upon the right crossbar above Lund’s fingers, a gigantic black bird with glossy feathers and curved talons. It pecked at his fleshy thumb, pulling loose a string of meat, and cocked its head at them, peering, as if deciding whether they were a threat. Then it opened its beak and cawed, the sound echoing across the hillside like the scream of the damned before it flapped its wings and rose, still screeching, up and over the tops of the dead trees and out of sight.
Thomas fell to his knees in the dirt, a high wail bursting from deep within him. Cullen closed his eyes and looked away, then was violently sick. Cain’s apprehension turned to a full-blown, galloping panic as he shouted Leah’s name over and over and received silence in return.
Cain held the sleeve of his tunic against his face as the smoke washed over him, along with another smell that made his stomach churn: burning flesh. The heat from the fire inside the cave nearly beat him back, but he pressed on, shouting Leah’s name again and hearing nothing in return but the crackle of the flames.
He got close enough to the fire to see the remains of charred bodies, clawed hands reaching upward as if searching for salvation, before his eyes threatened to boil in his skull and the hairs on the back of his hands started to curl and burn. There was no hope of finding her in here; he had to turn back. But the smoke was thick and swirling all around him, filling his lungs, and he lost his bearings, stumbling in the searing heat until someone grabbed him with strong hands and pulled him back out into the cooler air as he gasped and coughed and spat into the dirt, tears streaming down his face.
The girl is mine. The words had kept running through his head as he’d hobbled into the cave’s entrance. Garreth Rau had Leah. He felt it in his heart, like a black hole that threatened to swallow him up. He remembered a night not so long ago when James had pulled him and Leah out of the burning house in Caldeum. This time it was Mikulov who held him up.
“She’s not in there,” Mikulov said. “Listen to me. They saw her being taken away. She’s alive, Deckard. She’s alive.”
Slowly, Cain came back to his senses. He looked up to find a small group of men gathered around him; along with Mikulov, Thomas, and Cullen, there were perhaps a dozen more, most of whom he recognized from the camp, many of them with injuries of some kind. He saw a man with a lacerated cheek, as if he had been clawed, and another with a maimed arm. All had the haunted, beaten look of abused dogs, their eyes darting here and there in anticipation of another attack.
Cain set his trembling legs back under him and wiped his face clean, bringing himself back under control with tremendous effort. His eyes still smarted from the smoke, and his lungs were burning. But now was not the time to panic; if Leah had any chance at all, it would be because he remained calm and rational. Every single moment, every move he made, was crucial.
“We tried to fight, but there were so many of them,” Farris said. They were still gathered in the clearing, and Cain was asking those who remained to tell him exactly what had happened. The youngest and strongest of those who were left, Farris also seemed to be the only one who could speak of the massacre that had occurred without breaking down. “They came with no warning. There were townspeople from Gea Kul carrying knives and pitchforks, and other . . . unspeakable creatures. We saw goat-things and fallen ones, and some kind of monstrous walking dead. Some of us were able to escape into the woods during the madness. I watched from the hill as they surrounded Lund and the little girl. He fought them back with his bow, killing many.” Farris nodded toward the smoke pouring from the cave. “They began burning those who had fallen inside. Some of those bodies in there are not ours but were killed by Lund’s arrows.”
A few of the remaining men muttered their agreement, all of them avoiding looking up at the body of Lund that still hung over them, a stark symbol of their failure.
They made an example of him, Cain thought. A warning to us, should we choose to fight back.
“Tell me what happened to Leah,” he said.
“They killed Lund in front of her. The crows . . . they attacked him, and they were so fast, and there were so many. He could not hit them with his arrows. When he was finally overcome, the townspeople tried to take her, too.” Farris shook his head, his eyes haunted by the memory. “But she fought back. I don’t know how she did it, but she used powerful magic and killed several. It was like an invisible hand was battering them. I saw one who was picked up and crushed against the rocks like a doll. Then they used some kind of dart and drugged her. They dragged her off with them.”
“Was she hurt? Tell me!”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Farris said. He looked around the small group, his bloody face growing flushed with anger. “But this should serve as a lesson to all of us! Many of us wanted to end this long ago, but we were convinced to wait, that help was on the way. Look at what that help has done for us!”
Farris pointed up at Lund’s broken body, then back at Cain. “You are no savior,” he said. “No true Horadrim would have allowed this. That way of life is long gone, and many have lost their lives pursuing it. Sanctuary has changed, and not for the better! It’s time for us to stop playing at fantasies, stop pretending to be something we are not. We would all be well served to accept the truth, run far from here, and live out what time we have left before they come for us again.”
The other men nodded. Mikulov started to speak, but Cain held up a hand to stop him. “You are all good men,” he said. “I thank you for your bravery here today. I am no Horadrim, and never was. I’m only an old scholar. Perhaps Farris is right: perhaps you should all get as far away as you can. I’m sorry.”
Blinded by fresh tears, Cain stumbled, nearly falling to his knees without his staff before catching himself and continuing on, away from the group. It was no use carrying on like this anymore. They had been outsmarted at every turn; what was worse, it appeared quite possible that his entire search for his Horadric brothers had been orchestrated by Rau and Belial. He was like a puppet, and they had been pulling the strings.
He pulled the parchment from his hidden pocket and unfolded it carefully, his fingers shaking. He had spent more than thirty years banishing everything that had happened from his memory, erecting such strong walls around the disappearance of his wife and son, it was as if they had never existed at all. But it was all crashing back down upon him, every moment, every emotion, his overwhelming guilt, his rage, his sorrow, and he was not strong enough to stop it anymore.
Dear Schoolmaster Cain:
We regret to inform you that a wagon was found abandoned and heavily damaged yesterday on the road to the east, one that we have confirmed was carrying your wife, Amelia, and four-year-old son, Jered. Their bodies have been discovered at the scene, along with that of the wagon’s driver. From their conditions, foul play is suspected.
We will be sending representatives to gather more information from you shortly. Please be assured that we will not rest until we have uncovered the truth about this unfortunate incident.
My sincerest condolences,
Thomas Abbey, Captain, Royal Guard
Cain folded the parchment with the upmost care and returned it safely to his pocket. The lord’s men had suspected bandits, but they had never discovered who had done it. Justice had not been served, not for all these years.
Sometime later, he was not sure how long, Mikulov was at his side. “You cannot mean what you say,” he said in a low voice. “All you have fought for, all we have been through—”
“Is for nothing,” Cain said bitterly. “There are no Horadrim left in Sanctuary. I am not even Horadrim, just a crude shadow of what I might have been. If I had listened to those who loved me, if I had embraced my destiny, I could have stopped this. I could have been strong enough. But I am not.
“We must face the truth.” He stopped, and grabbed Mikulov’s arm, holding on like a drowning man. “We are alone, and Ratham is upon us.”
THIRTY
Blood Ritual
The tower was trembling.
The man formerly known as Garreth Rau placed his blue-veined palms upon the moist stone of the interior chamber wall and closed his eyes. It had been built for him in less than seven days by inhuman hands, under his very specific instructions, for a purpose only he fully understood. The tower was perfectly straight, each seam of rock flawlessly smooth and strong, its circular interior exact in its measurements, down to the width of a human hair.
It was made to channel the lifespark of the living directly into the arms of the dead. Its shape would harness the demonic magic he called into existence, magic that existed deep within the ether and had been banned in Sanctuary for generations.
The Dark One smiled. The stone hummed under his fingertips, slight enough to be barely noticeable. But he felt it. He was in tune with the vibrations, acutely aware of their power. The tower was a conduit, a focal point of sorts, built upon the well of power he had spent so many months preparing, and upon the graves of thousands of dead mages, buried where they had fallen among the cursed streets of Al Cut.
