The Order

1 Ruins of the Vizjerei Secret Repository, the Borderlands, 1272

In the great, dark depths of what followed, there would be little time to reflect on the moment when the crumbling of the line between this world and the next began to accelerate out of control; the explosion on the mountain was like two warriors rushing toward their doom, swords flashing by in the blink of an eye, seeming to emerge unscathed until they began to stumble, bloody mouths opening, mortal wounds bringing them to their knees.

But perhaps that moment was here, held within the endless, baking heat of the Borderlands, with the ruins hovering just out of sight. When the two travelers neared the top of the final dune, they might have heard a ringing, like a piece of metal struck with a hammer and vibrating at a pitch just out of hearing range that set their teeth on edge.

The pair paused for a drink of water. Sunlight shimmered off the endless sands, baking their skin. The younger one, a proud knight of Westmarch, wearing golden armor and bearing a red shield, spat a yellow stream and wiped his shining face with a rag, then drank deeply from the canteen before handing it to his companion.

The older man, who wore a gray, hooded tunic belted around his waist and a rucksack across his back, shifted his walking staff to his other hand to accept it and took his fill. The belt was etched with strange designs the color of dried blood. He was thin enough to blow away in the wind, and his wild, white hair and long beard made him appear slightly mad, but there was a strength to him that had grown more apparent the longer they traveled together. He walked slowly but at a steady pace, no matter the time of day or night, and the young man had often found himself scrambling to keep up.

The old man pointed to their right, where the sand held a slight depression that ran in a line for about twenty feet before disappearing again. “That marks a place where a thresher surfaced to feed,” he said. “They become more aggressive as evening falls. We must be very careful.”

The end of the slight depression was speckled with dark red spots. Blood. The young man had heard about the threshers, terrible beasts like dragons with monstrous teeth and claws that could tear a man apart. He could fight with his sword against anything made of flesh; it was the creatures not of this realm that posed a far greater threat, he thought, although he had never met one in person. But looking at the old man and knowing something about the scars he carried, the young man thought his companion might be able to hold his own against those just as well.

After a moment’s pause, they continued on, and at the top of the very next rise, they found what they had been seeking.

Twin columns rose up out of the sand in the distance like jagged teeth, their tops ending abruptly as if snapped off by something inhuman. That could be so, Deckard Cain thought, if this was in fact the entrance to the ancient ruins of the Vizjerei repository. He could only imagine what sort of horrors might have visited this place in years past, looking for sorcerers’ blood.

They had been traveling for days and had left their mules at the last town to continue the final part of their journey on foot. Mules would be of little use on this shifting sand base. The location Cain and his companion sought was remote. He had no doubt that these ruins would have remained well hidden for many years more if this young warrior had not brought him the obscure Zakarum texts now safely nestled in his rucksack. The Ancient Repositories of the Vizjerei in Caldeum were far larger and better known among mages, but this one, if it did indeed exist, could be even more important.

It had been a very long journey. After the narrow defeat of Baal at Mount Arreat and the destruction of the Worldstone, Deckard Cain had been unable to convince his traveling party that the immediate danger to Sanctuary was not over. Far from it, in fact, if everything he had read and understood in the Horadric scrolls was true. The archangel Tyrael himself had warned him of it, before he had been lost. Cain sensed a subtle change in the world that mirrored the prophecies, a disruption in the delicate balance between the High Heavens and Burning Hells that had existed for centuries. The loss of the Worldstone was devastating, and left Sanctuary open and vulnerable.

To make matters worse, Cain had begun dreaming again about his childhood and his mother’s stories, waking in a cold sweat nearly every night. He fought against endless armies of darkness with nothing to protect him, or sat hunched and broken in a cage hung from a pole while monstrous creatures taunted him. And he relived things even worse than that: ghosts from his past that he had thought were buried forever.

He hadn’t dreamed like this since the fall of Tristram. His own guilt over those events consumed him; he had been too late to stop the demonic invasion of his own home, as self-absorbed as he had been back then, and he had been too late to change what had happened on Mount Arreat.

Cain’s companions remained insistent on celebrating their victory, returning to loved ones and picking up the pieces of their shattered lives, and he could hardly blame them. He, however, had nobody waiting for him, and with Tristram destroyed he had nowhere to go, so he set off looking for the pieces that would fit together to reveal the pattern underneath. If the invasion was truly coming, he would need help: the Horadrim had been formed to battle evil but had since faded away into history. His mother’s voice echoed back to him from years before: Jered is your blood, and you—you are the last of a proud line of heroes.

Akarat started down the slope of sand toward the columns, but Cain held his arm. The paladin was trembling, full of the energy and recklessness of his age, which masked his more delicate senses that might have otherwise given him pause now. But Cain felt it, like a faint sour smell on the wind.

The scent of danger.

Akarat unsheathed his sword in his eagerness to charge down upon whatever was waiting for them. “We’re exposed here,” he said. “It’s better to move quickly. I’ll protect you from threshers or sand wasps. Besides, we might find nothing at all.”

“We should watch a moment longer,” Cain said. “The texts warned of a spell that shields the repository from sight. By all rights, these columns should not be visible to us. Something has weakened it.”

He did not say more about what he was thinking: If there are such valuable artifacts hidden here, there may well be other powerful forces guarding their secrets. He knelt in the hot sand and removed his rucksack, searching inside for a particular object. This young man reminded him of another he had known years before, an old friend who had descended into hellish catacombs in an attempt to save Tristram. That hero had paid dearly for his overconfidence, as had all of Sanctuary, and Cain had been unable to save him.

If I’m right, it’s you who will need protection, he thought.

He removed the object, something like a looking glass with an amber lens, and held it to the light. The sun was falling to the horizon, giving the air a more deeply yellow tinge. They had no more than an hour before darkness fell, and the best thing to do would be to set up camp now and explore the ruins in the morning. But Akarat had spoken the truth; they were exposed here, and neither one of them wanted to face what might come out of the sands as the shadows deepened.

He stood up, trying to ignore the bite of pain in his back and the throbbing ache in his knees, a constant reminder of his age. How had this happened? It seemed only moments ago he was a boy playing fetch back in the fields, watching out for cow patties in the long grass or stealing eggs from Grosgrove’s henhouse. Ah, how fickle life was, drifting through your fingers like this forsaken sand, gone before you could catch it . . .

Cain’s own self-doubt crept back in. Most of his life had been spent in selfishness and denial, living among his books and ignoring his own past. He had waited fifty years to embrace his destiny, and in the process had helped destroy everything he had held dear. Could he even consider himself Horadrim at all?

He was no hero, despite what his mother had always told him. The thought of everything resting on his frail old shoulders was terrifying. Something terrible was coming, something that would make the previous attacks seem like child’s play. Nobody he had spoken to about the demon invasion believed him, except for Akarat; they all thought he was a doddering old fool at best, and dangerous at worst. The people of Sanctuary went about their daily lives and rarely sensed the intrusion of angels and demons into their world. Life was hard, but it was mundane.

They hadn’t seen what he had, hadn’t dreamed his dreams, or they might have felt differently.

The paladin grunted. He had sheathed his sword again but was shifting from foot to foot. When they’d been in Westmarch, he had been eager to hear Cain’s stories, insisting they stay up long past when old men should have been in bed; but now, out here and close to battle, he wanted action. The young paladin was named after the founder of the Church of Zakarum himself, and it seemed to be a fitting name for him. Although young and headstrong, he was both a true believer and a zealot.

Cain muttered several words under his breath, a brief incantation to activate the power inside the artifact, and handed it over. “Look through the lens at the ruins,” he said. “Quickly now, before it fades.”

The young paladin raised the glass to his eye, and his sudden intake of breath was enough for Cain to know the artifact was working. “By the Light . . .” he said softly. He lowered the glass, staring down at the ruins, then raised it again. “Incredible.” He handed it back to Cain, his eyes wide with wonder.

The old man peered through the glass. The lens coloring gave the entire scene a tinge of orange, like a fire burned just out of sight. The remains of a massive structure and its surrounding grounds spread out below them, just beyond where the two columns marked the entrance. More columns in various stages of decay marched in twin lines to what had been the front doors of a temple. Broken walls rose to where they had been torn away by some great explosion many years ago. Huge stone blocks, chipped and worn from the drifting sands, lay half buried where they had fallen.

Cain scanned the scene carefully and lowered the glass. Once again, all that was visible to the naked eye were the two columns. The spell that had protected these ruins was powerful enough to last centuries, but it was weakening now. The real question was why.

There was no stopping Akarat, however. He was already twenty feet down the slope, moving as quickly as his armor allowed. He glanced back at Cain, the excitement on his face touched by the warm glow of the sun before he descended into shadow.

“Come on, then,” he said. “It’s right before us! Do you want a written invitation?”

2 The Hidden Chamber

The air was cooler near the ruins. The reveal spell held within the looking glass had faded away by the time they reached the massive columns, but the two travelers had no need for it after they had passed the entrance.

The two columns cast deeper shadows across their path like black lines drawn in the dust. Beyond the shadows the veil gradually lifted away, and the ruins of the secret repository loomed all around them, coming into view like the rise of mountains through the mist. Broken stones thrust through the sands, swept clean in places by the wind. Ancient carvings of runes covered the sides of the larger blocks, marking this as a place of great Vizjerei power. Cain felt his heartbeat quicken, the palms of his hands growing moist. He could feel it thrumming beneath his feet, deep within the earth.

Or perhaps, he thought, he felt something else.

There was darkness here. Although the sun still touched the tops of these rocks, it did not warm them. Even the paladin sensed it now, his steps faltering as they moved deeper into the ruins. Before them lay the remains of the temple, its entrance covered in rubble, what was left of the roof all but collapsed upon itself. Massive timbers reached toward the sky like the ribs of a giant beast. This was where the ancient texts would have been kept, if they had existed at all. But it would be dangerous inside, possibly unstable.

A sound reached their ears like the rustling of leaves. Akarat stopped and drew his sword. “Do you hear it?” he asked. His voice was quiet.

Cain nodded, stepping to the young man’s side. “There may be something else here with us, after all,” he said.

“Like . . . what? An animal?”

“Perhaps,” Cain said. He could tell that the paladin was both scared and excited, and trying hard not to show it. Stories of demonic attacks were one thing, but actually facing something most people thought was only a legend was another. Cain knew that all too well.

The sounds swirled faintly around them, almost fading away before returning again like waves on a beach or the hushed muttering of a crowd. A curious prickling sensation warming his skin, Cain held his staff like a talisman as he moved ahead on the broken path, Akarat close behind. “Close your ears,” Cain said, “as if you were deaf. Should you hear voices, do not listen to them.”

“I don’t understand—”

“If something foul is present, it will try to corrupt you, find your weaknesses. Ignore anything it tries to say. Whatever it is, I promise you are not meant to hear it.”

He reached the edge of the tumbled rocks at the entrance to the temple and peered around them, looking for a way in. There was a space just large enough for a man. Darkness loomed beyond the narrow passage that was the height of his shoulders. Cain swung his rucksack down again and found a crumbling spellbook, searching the brittle pages for the right words. As he said them aloud, the glass sphere at the end of his staff came to life, taking on a blue glow and lighting the space within.

Beyond the reach of the wind, where the sand began to fade, the drifts held the faint impression of a footprint. Either a man, or something that walked like one, had passed through this place not long ago.

He tucked the book away and turned to the paladin, who stared at him and the glowing staff and back again, mouth agape.

“Magic? True magic?”

“A simple spell, nothing more. Like the looking glass, held within the objects themselves. I simply have the knowledge to unlock it. This is a place of sorcery, chosen, at least in part, because of the power in the soil. A spell is more useful in a spot like this.”

“Are you really the last of the Horadrim?”

Cain considered how to answer. “What I learned, I learned from books,” he said finally. “It’s a forgotten order. If there were any others left, they would surely be more prepared than I am, and would have made themselves known by now.”

“So if you are the last, what then?”

“I must do what I can to stop what is coming to Sanctuary.” Cain shrugged. “And pray it is not too late.” And may the Heavens help us all, he thought, but did not say it.

Akarat glanced to his right and left, as if waiting for something to pounce. “There is much of this world still to know,” he said. At that moment he looked like a boy who had just walked in on something he shouldn’t have seen and was trying to make sense of it. He hadn’t noticed the footprint.

Cain put his hand on Akarat’s shoulder. “Have you ever been in battle?”

“I—I’ve fought many times,” the paladin said. “I’ve patrolled the city, and in the ring I’ve proven my skill—”

“Not in training, or on patrol,” Cain said gently, “but against those who would run you through, if given half the chance. Or worse.”

Akarat shook his head, his eagerness betraying his attempt to appear more confident. “There have not been many opportunities since I came of age.”

“I forget that. The battle on Mount Arreat occurred years ago. You would have been no older than . . .”

“Ten years,” Akarat said, his eyes bright. “I remember hearing the stories from the men who returned. I wanted to be like them.”

“There’s no shame in that.” Cain smiled. “The world has been calmer, at least on the surface, since then. But it will give you an opportunity soon. For now, I want you to guard this entrance.” When the young man started to protest, he shook his head. “I am an old man, not very strong. I cannot fight with a sword. But I am not wearing armor, and I’m slender enough to squeeze through these smaller spaces and find something that may help us, if given the time to do so. You’ll do me far more good out here, making sure nothing can surprise me from behind.”

Akarat set his feet and took the hilt of his sword with both hands. “I won’t let you down,” he said.

Cain smiled, but when he turned back toward the darkness, the smile faded. Again he was reminded of the hero whom he had once known in Tristram as King Leoric’s oldest son, and who had later been known as the Dark Wanderer. He had said much the same thing before descending into the depths of those cursed caverns beneath the cathedral. Cain had tutored the boy himself and had loved him—at least, as much as he had been capable of love, back then.

He ducked his head to enter the makeshift passage. Inside the narrow space, the height required him to shuffle forward with his shoulders slumped and knees bent, turning sideways to slip through a tight spot as the rock brushed against him. The pain bit into his back again, an invisible and constant enemy.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have come in myself, he thought. Perhaps this is a younger man’s task, after all.

But only a few feet farther in, the makeshift passage opened up and dropped away. He held up his glowing staff to see more clearly. A set of rough-hewn stone steps led down into the earth. They were in good shape; the lower levels of the temple had apparently survived the building’s collapse. More footprints marked the dust, several going up and down. It was impossible to know how long they had been there.

The smell of mold and dust drifted up to him, like something from a tomb that had been opened up after many centuries. He heard the faint rustling again and peered into the deeper blackness, but saw nothing.

Deckard Cain descended slowly, the air growing much colder as he went. The stairs ended in a stone floor. His light revealed a large chamber supported by massive wooden beams and strung with thick cobwebs. There were runes of both power and warning carved into the beams. Cain read them with increasing apprehension. These were the marks of the followers of Bartuc, a Vizjerei mage who had lived many centuries before and had been corrupted and overcome by bloodlust after summoning demons to do his bidding. His clashes with his brother, Horazon, had been the climax of the ancient Mage Clan Wars and led to the deaths of many thousands of people.

If this had been a repository for Bartuc’s army, whatever Vizjerei artifacts he found here would be infused with demonic magic. They would be suspect at best, and possibly very dangerous.

Had they made a terrible mistake, coming here?

Cain flinched as dust or sand sifted down from above his head and something large and black skittered along a beam and disappeared. It was too large to be a spider, and no rat could have clung sideways to the beam like that for long.

Better not to look too closely at such things . . .

In the center of the room, something sparkled in the light. The dust had been brushed away here, exposing an intricate, circular pattern of runes carved in rock. A portal, to where Cain could only guess. Set at its center was a jewel the color of blood. Someone had tried to remove it, scratching the floor with deep grooves, but had apparently given up. Cain knelt next to the stone, studying the runes carefully. What he read made his heart race. Then he spoke several ancient words of power to release the jewel and slipped it into his sack.

He made his way across the floor, following the footprints to an alcove in the far wall. Rotted boards clung to supports, the last remains of an ancient library. This had been a ritual chamber, many centuries before, used to summon things from beyond the human world. A portal to the Burning Hells themselves, perhaps. The shelves were empty now. He saw a speck of yellow underneath a splinter of wood and bent to pick up a corner of parchment paper, curled and speckled with mildew.

Something moved in the shadows to his right.

He whirled, holding the light up. For a moment it appeared as if the shadows themselves were alive, bunching and swirling like ink in water. At the same time, a voice like the distant moan of wind drifted through the empty room and raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Deckaaaaarrdddd Caiiinnnn . . .”

Cain felt a strange doubling, a memory of a night many years before, when he was just a boy. A whispered voice calling to him, just like this. He backed away, fumbling in his rucksack with one hand, holding the lighted staff with the other against the darkness. Already he was doubting himself: had it just been the wind moving through the broken remains of the building above him, a trick his mind had played after so long in the sun?

The voice came again, a sound like bones scraping together in the grave.

“Your ghosts are many, old man, and they are active.”

A grating of metal over rock seemed to come from everywhere at once. Once again a pool of black smoke thickened and then dissipated, only to reassemble somewhere else: a shape carrying a sword, the form of a man, but with eyes that glowed red with the fires of Hell.

Cain knew what this was, yanked from the depths of his own mind and used against him: the image of the Dark Wanderer himself, conjured up to weaken his resolve. The smoke-shape swirled and shifted, reforming into two indistinct human shapes, one taller and clearly female, one small and delicate. Shock raced through Cain’s limbs as an older, familiar memory fought to surface. He closed his eyes against the darkness as the yawning pit of despair opened within him, threatening to pull him in.

You must not listen.

“A storm is coming,” a voice said, from the direction of the stairs. “We need to seek shelter—”

Whatever lurked in the chamber gave an audible hiss of pleasure as Akarat stepped onto the stone floor, blinking in the light, a look of confusion on his face. “Get back!” Cain shouted as something uncurled from the shadows and flowed across the chamber toward the young paladin.

But Akarat rushed forward instead like a fool, pulling his sword from its sheath and slicing down with a two-handed thrust that split the shadow in two. The sword hit the stone floor with a shower of sparks. He lifted it and swung the heavy blade sideways to no effect. The darkness flowed like smoke around the young paladin, swirling around his legs and moving upward as Cain knelt in the dust and set his staff down.

The paladin began screaming.

Cain’s scrolls spilled onto the stone. Where is it? He fumbled through them frantically, finally found what he wanted, and unrolled the delicate paper, shouting the words of power with all the strength he could muster.

The demon shrieked with anger, an inhuman sound that was cut off at its peak as the scroll crumbled to dust in Cain’s hands. The chamber grew brighter, glowing with its own emerald light as a spell bubble formed around the two men. Thrust outside the bubble, the shadow writhed, swirling around an invisible barrier that would not let it pass. Cain caught a brief glimpse of multijointed legs, something insect-like about the seething form as it coalesced and drifted apart again.

Akarat crossed the floor to Cain’s side, gathering the older man’s scrolls and helping him to his feet, then looked at the writhing blackness that now seemed to batter itself against the emerald shell. The young man was breathing heavily, covered in a sheen of sweat. “How . . . how did you do this?”

“An Ammuit spell,” the old man said. “A matter of illusion, it will keep us safe for only a few moments.”

“You are a true sorcerer, after all!”

“I’m only a scholar who has learned how to use what others have given me.”

Akarat turned back to stare at the thing that had attacked them. “What is it?”

“A servant of a Lesser Evil, sent here to guard whatever had been kept in these chambers. You must not listen to what it says or it will begin to twist you inside until you break.”

“I . . . I saw things. Terrible things.” The paladin shook his head as if to clear it. “About you . . . and about me.” He turned back, and his eyes were haunted.

“You must not believe them, my son. We need to leave this place, and quickly.”

“I . . .” The young man’s face grew dark. “That thing is evil. We have to kill it!”

“It’s not flesh and blood—”

“I can defeat it. I must try, for the sake of everything holy. The Zakarum faith teaches us to resist all evil things, to fight against them to our last breath. Creatures like this corrupted the high council and murdered Khalim, and turned our temple to darkness! The Zakarum is in shambles because of them.” Sweat plastered Akarat’s hair against his brow as he raised his weapon and turned back to the wraith. “The archangels will support me in this, I swear it.”

He is already lost. Cain’s heart sank, and a deeper chill settled into his bones. He reached out to touch the paladin’s arm. “There is a way to fight demons like this one, but it is not with the sword—”

The shadow congealed into a blackened face with empty eye sockets, mouth gaping wide, hovering just out of reach. Akarat gasped, his entire body tensing as the face began to melt into a mirror image of the young man’s own, its features showing shock and then terror as a gaping wound appeared in the specter’s throat. Its head tipped backward off the stump of a neck as smoke poured out like black blood.

With a strangled cry, the young paladin leapt at the thing still seething outside the emerald shell. A brilliant flash of light illuminated the chamber as he passed through the spell’s protective barrier, and Cain threw his arm up to protect himself and fell back, but not before he caught a glimpse of the paladin’s sword slicing through empty space.

The light crackled like a lightning strike as Akarat screamed again and was suddenly silenced. It seemed that the world had stopped for a moment, that time had shifted back upon itself again, sending Cain hurtling backward to other days that he did not want to remember, dreams filled with the shrieks of a young child lost and alone. The spell broken, darkness filled the room until the old man held up his staff again and slowly regained his feet. The orb had lost some of its brilliance, as if the shadows themselves had begun to absorb the light from it.

The blue glow revealed the paladin still standing upright, his back to Cain, his body slumped. He had dropped his sword on the floor, his arms hanging motionless at his sides.

“Akarat,” Cain said. He took a step forward, consumed with dread. The young man did not respond; only his shoulders moving slightly up and down indicated he was still breathing.

We must leave this place. I was wrong, coming here.

An icy cold draft caressed Cain’s face, bringing along a foul stench of death. When he touched the paladin’s arm, a chill spread through his fingers.

The young man turned at his touch, but the face that greeted him was no longer Akarat’s.

Leathery skin stretched tight over a swelling brow and cheeks, and the lips were cracked and bleeding. What had been Akarat’s eyes now regarded him, from puffy pockets of flesh, with glittering hatred. Cain thought of cold, dead things rotting away in a nameless grave, and he knew he must not look, must turn away now and run, or the darkness would creep into his own soul and blacken his blood.

“We have been waiting for you, Deckaaaaard Cainnnn.”

“Release him,” Cain said.

“We think not.” The thing smiled, exposing long, canine-like teeth sharpened to points. “There’s so much to do, to prepare for the coming.”

He tried to think of what he had in his sack to assist him, but he had no spell for this, no magic artifact to drive the demon away. Without spells or artifacts, he was lost; he had no magic of his own.

“Last of the Horadrim,” the thing hissed, mocking him. “You are nothing. And you are wrong. Look around you, at the footsteps, the missing scrolls. Others of your kind have been here, and failed. Why should you be any different?”

Others? He glanced at the shuffling footprints around the chamber, some of them his and Akarat’s prints, but some unfamiliar. A faint thrill of hope lifted him from his despair. Yet he knew it was impossible, knew in his heart that he was the last. Nothing this creature said could be trusted. The demon lies. You must not pay attention.

You are the last of a proud line of heroes.

“Akarat,” Cain said firmly. “I am speaking to the man inside this shell. You must fight it, my son. You must fight against the thing that has taken you.”

“Our master comes,” the creature said, licking its bleeding lips. Its breathing rasped heavily in Akarat’s chest, the smell coming from it like that of a thousand rotting corpses. “The true lord of the Burning Hells. He will be upon you soon, and your death will be slow and painful. Perhaps he will make you a slave, forced to serve him forever. We know many others of your kind who are with him now.” The demon grinned at him. “Even those you know and love.”

“Akarat. Listen to me. Do not let it win. You are in control. You hold the power within you!”

The skin on the demon’s face rippled, and it hissed as if in pain. Cain held up his staff between them, and it recoiled from the light. “Release him!” Cain shouted.

The creature hissed again, and for a moment its face became Akarat’s again, the young paladin blinking in bewilderment at Cain before his features twisted into something ugly, and he was gone.

“The boy is not strong enough. And neither are you.” The demon took a step forward until its foot touched the sword Akarat had dropped. It bent to pick up the weapon, looking at the blade shining in the blue light. Then it looked back at Cain, grinning once again. “Shall we use this one? Small cuts, perhaps. A thousand of them.”

Cain stumbled, fumbling in his pack again with one hand, his trembling fingers moving over the texts within, searching for something that might help him. His other hand ached where it gripped the staff, the only thing that seemed to stand between him and a slow and painful death. Akarat was lost, he knew that now, and already he mourned for the man he would have become, while the demon raged before him.

If it only knew that I have no power of my own, and this staff is nothing magical at all without a spell to enchant it . . .

Immediately he regretted thinking such a thing, but it was too late. The demon’s smile grew wider, and it took another step forward. “Not a real Horadrim, after all? Of course not. Your weaknesses betray the truth.”

Cain stumbled backward into the ancient chamber until he neared its center. “Stay away!” he shouted, brandishing the staff. The blue light contained within the globe flickered, began to dim. The grin grew wider still, as if Akarat’s twisted face would collapse into it, a black hole that would consume all light and everything good in the world.

“Do you know what you have begun? The Heavens will burn, Horadrim. The scourge of Diablo and his brothers will seem like days for celebration compared to this. Our master is all-powerful, and he will tear down the walls of Sanctuary until the ground trembles and splits. Caldeum will burn, the archangels in the High Heavens will fall, and all of Sanctuary will be ours. And you will be too late to stop it.

“So pathetic. Your savior is so close, hidden among thousands in plain sight not three days’ journey from here. Yet you know nothing, see nothing.”

Cain fell to his knees. His hand found what he had been searching for, and he curled his fist around the dark jewel pried from the rune-inscribed circle on the floor.

“Where are your angels now, old man? Where are your heroes for you to hide behind as they ride into battle? Is this all you have? This boy you have given to us to mask your own selfishness and pride? You are worthless. Just like your forebear.” The demon lifted the sword in both hands and stood over him, cackling, and Cain recoiled, scuttling backward on his hands as he dropped his staff, the glowing globe ticking across the floor until it came to rest a few feet away. “We have changed our minds. Not a thousand tiny cuts, but only one, to separate your head from your shoulders.” The demon cocked its head, as if listening. Whatever it heard made it cower like a beaten dog. When it spoke, it was not to Cain, but to someone hidden from mortal eyes, and the sound of its voice had changed to a pathetic whine. “We thirst for blood. Why is it not time?”

Then it spotted Cain’s hand gripping the stone. Cain moved as if to hide it, but the demon made a lunge with the sword, chopping down at Cain’s wrist so quickly he dropped the jewel in his haste to move away from the blow. The sword missed his flesh by inches.

“You thought you could banish us with this?” It picked up the stone and held it aloft, the blood-red jewel glittering in the blue light, then took another step closer. “It holds no power without the runes and the magic to awaken it, old man.”

“I—I command you to leave this body—”

“Silence!” The demon raised the sword again in one hand, the jewel still clutched in the other. Cain glanced down at the stone floor. One more step . . .

The demon shuffled forward, hatred etched into its features, unaware that it had walked directly into Cain’s trap. Quickly he spoke the words of power, read from the runes he had committed to memory, the words leaping to his lips in a suddenly clear, strong voice. The demon glanced down, surprise plain on its foul face as the circle of runes where it stood began to pulse with a fiery light and the jewel it still held came to life.

It howled in anger at what Cain had done, and along with the rage there seemed a new expression of begrudging respect. “Trickery!”

But Cain could take no satisfaction in that, knowing that he had sentenced Akarat to death.

The portal that Bartuc’s followers had used to summon demons from the Burning Hells opened with a burst of red light. The demon screeched as the jewel clutched in its hand matched it in brilliant color, the sword clattered to the floor, and Akarat’s outline disappeared, fading like the afterimage of the sun in men’s eyes as they blinked against their own blindness.

“Back to the Hells with you,” Cain said to the sudden emptiness as the portal snapped shut again. His entire body ached.

Akarat, my son, forgive me.

He climbed slowly to his feet and regained his staff. The blue glow was nearly extinguished now. The demon was gone, but so was his companion, and they had found nothing. Akarat had perished in vain.

Deckard Cain climbed the stone steps alone, squeezing his way back through the narrow passage and out again into the open, where a storm had come up over the ruins and now threatened to drench everything in sight. He carried Akarat’s sword, along with a heavy heart. He had failed once again to do enough to keep those close to him from dying.

Dark clouds hovered overhead, and the wind tugged at his tunic. The light was fading swiftly.

I must hurry. There still might be something to salvage from this trip, and he would do anything in his power to honor Akarat’s memory by finding it. Cain skirted the edge of the ruined main building, following more footprints. In the back, among the broken columns and shards of stone he found a path to what might have been a garden of some kind many years before. In the center of an open space stood the remains of a fire, along with abandoned packs and three broken walking staffs.

Cain’s pulse quickened. Whatever had happened to those who had come before him had happened here; whether they had lived or died was unclear, but they had clearly brought up whatever they had found in the basement chamber and made camp before being interrupted.

Something fluttered in the wind, half buried in a drift of sand. He walked over to find a spellbook. Vizjerei. Demonic magic, Bartuc’s work. Old enough to be from the temple. There was something important here, after all.

He scanned the sand for more. A few steps away and near a partial design drawn in the sand he found another, this one a book of Horadric prophecies.

He stood for a moment in shock. Horadric texts, here, in this place? How? The pages were torn, pieces missing, the words barely legible. Cain cradled it tenderly, with reverence, as he did all texts. They were precious to him, all of them like his children. But this one stood above the rest.

A crest of arms appeared, burned into the first of the pages like a brand. A sign of a great lineage, and a testament to the text’s immense value. It appeared to have been written by Tal Rasha himself, one of the first Horadrim tasked by the archangel Tyrael to hunt down and imprison the Prime Evils.

Cain flipped through it, his heart thundering in his chest. What was still legible told of another war coming between light and dark, one that would make all others pale in comparison. And the High Heavens shall rain down upon Sanctuary as a false leader arises from the ashes . . . the tomb of Al Cut will be revealed, and the dead shall lay waste to mankind—

A noise made him turn. A sand wasp flew about ten feet away, its heavy abdomen and stinger hanging low as it ducked and darted across the ground, hovering near the abandoned packs. Cain remained still until it moved on, then went to see what had drawn it there.

Inside the packs was rotting food, which had surely brought the wasp, but also more texts. He set the stack gently on the ground and looked through the texts one at a time as the sky rumbled overhead, the moist wind bringing the scent of rain. They were an odd mixture of Vizjerei, Horadric, and Zakarum writings, and he could not make sense of how anyone would have gathered such a collection—or why they would have left them here.

Cain read through them, a familiar rush of excitement building as he flipped the fragile pages. As he lifted the second one from the bottom, it felt different in his hands. This text was much more recent: a reproduction of a spellbook, barely a year old by the looks of it. The workmanship was sound, the pages newly bound and transcribed. It also appeared to be from the Horadrim.

(Look around you, at the footsteps, the missing scrolls. Others of your kind have been here, and failed . . .)

Deckard Cain’s mind raced. There had been a lot of false Horadric texts spread across Sanctuary over the years, but this one appeared to be more authentic than others he had seen. He studied it more closely, paying attention to the prose style of the words, the music of the language itself. He became aware of the energy held within it, the book seeming to vibrate at a pitch just beyond normal human perception. The more he read, the more confident he became that this was an accurate reproduction of an original text. Finding it with the other, much older volumes made this even more likely.

Who could have had access to these books? Was there some kind of organized effort to bring the mage clans’ magic back to these lands?

He thought of something else the demon had said. Your savior is so close, hidden among thousands in plain sight not three days’ journey from here. The closest place of thousands was Caldeum, the largest trade city in Kehjistan. That was also a place where a book of such quality might have been manufactured or sold. And there was something else, someone else, in Caldeum—someone he had been meaning to check in on for a long time. A friend from the dark days of Tristram, a responsibility he had been avoiding. This would give him a good reason.

You must go to Caldeum.

The voice was so strong that for a moment Cain saw Akarat standing there in plain sight, golden armor aglow, his eyes shining with an inner light.

The fate of this world lies in the balance. You must go.

Cain blinked, averted his eyes, and looked back again. There was nothing before him but the wind whispering across the rock, as the first, fat droplets of rain began to fall.

Deckard Cain took Akarat’s sword, its weight strange and awkward in his hands. He was no fighter, and a blade like this was useless to him. He stuck it deep into the sand, leaving it standing like a small monument for others to see. Then he gathered the texts he had found into his satchel and made his way through the strengthening rain out of the Vizjerei ruins, climbing the sand dunes as quickly as his old body would allow. He thought of resting for the night, but a voice kept urging him on. There was no time to waste.

The battle for this world had begun.

3 The City of Caldeum

The girl, bone-thin and barely older than eight years, emerged from a rusted sewer grate as the sun touched the tops of the streaked copper domes and tall spires of the city. The world was drifting down toward night. Brown hair hung in strings across a pretty, pixie-like face streaked with dirt, bangs cut short to ease the time between already infrequent washings.

She crouched in the shadows of an alleyway. The wind shifted, and a fine mist from Caldeum’s man-made waterfalls touched her face. The water thundered in the distance. She muttered something under her breath, and a young woman passing by gave her a startled look and a wide berth, clutching the folds of her peasant’s dress to her waist; she had been so still among the shadows that the woman hadn’t noticed her there. The girl glanced at her with little interest. She was used to others avoiding her presence, as if the very sight of her made them shiver.

What was happening nearby kept her attention. The girl watched the activity around the trade tents that had been pitched in the sand beyond the city walls. Her mother had told her not to come here, but the trade fascinated her, so many different kinds of people milling around shouting at each other—peasants with carts loaded with fabric, vegetables, and meat; city guardsmen standing watch with heavy swords and shields; merchants bargaining for lots; nobles in their silk robes; and servants trailing behind tending to their needs. Caldeum was a city full of color and heat, despite the tension that people seemed to feel lately, as if something terrible was about to happen. But she, alone and filled with a restlessness she could not understand, lived apart from them, among very deep, dark shadows of her own.

The smell of food wafted upward from the tents, and the girl’s stomach rumbled just before an old man in tattered clothes stumbled into the street near her, as if appearing out of thin air. His hair was a mass of tangled, filthy curls, his beard long enough to touch his chest. He carried a cloth sack bulging with his personal belongings over his shoulder, and it was large enough to make him stagger from side to side as he went. She tensed as he weaved into traffic; surely he would be run down, but as he dropped the sack in the street and planted his feet, glaring at the carts and packbeasts, they all cursed and drove around him, parting like water around rock.

The old man mumbled to himself, but it was too quiet for her to hear the words. He rummaged in his sack for a moment and held up a bolt of cloth, the remains of a tunic. The end of all days was scrawled across it in blood-red letters. He pulled it over his head and held up his wrinkled, filthy hands, as if to testify.

“Beware the coming of the evil ones!” the beggar shouted, his voice as ragged as his clothing. “It begins with the fall of the mountain and the opening of the gate, and it will end with terror and death! The sky will turn black, the streets fill with blood!”

A group of boys were gathered across the street. One of them elbowed another and pointed at the old man. They laughed and went out to meet him, forming a loose circle. “Get out of the road, old man,” one of them said. “You’ll end up with that beard caught in someone’s wheel.”

The beggar’s head bobbed back and forth, his gaze darting between their faces. “You are doomed. The Dark One is powerful, I tell you. He will raise a demon army! The dead will walk among us!”

The boys laughed again, rolling their eyes at each other. “You smell like a dead man,” one said. “Maybe you’re confused.” Another picked up his sack, and the beggar’s hands began to flutter like birds, reaching out for it as the boy tossed the sack to the side, narrowly missing a woman and her child, who scurried past, eyes averted. The beggar tried to get his belongings, but the boys closed in, forcing him back and cursing at him. As the old man reached out again, brushing their arms, one of them shoved him. He stumbled and nearly fell.

The girl could not stand it anymore; their cruelty was like watching a monstrous wave approaching from the shore. She set her small shoulders and stepped out from the shadows. “Leave him ’lone,” she said.

The boys turned to stare at her. “Well, look at that,” the lead boy said, sauntering over to her. He was larger than the rest, at least a foot taller than she was, and his eyes were piggish and cruel. “He’s got a guardian angel, after all. Or maybe you’re the walking dead he’s going on about?”

The girl’s heart beat faster as the rest of the boys left the old beggar and approached her. “What do you want with a fool like that?” Pig-Eyes said. “He your boyfriend or something?”

The girl glanced through the boys at the old man, who had gathered his sack and was wandering away from them, muttering again. The wave she had felt building had broken momentarily like water on rock, and for a moment she allowed herself some relief. But then Pig-Eyes was shoving her shoulder with a pudgy finger.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

The others snickered, grinning at each other. The fun was about to really begin, those grins said. Time for Pig-Eyes to do his thing.

“I don’t like you,” the girl said. “You’re all ugly, inside here.” She touched her thin chest.

Pig-Eyes narrowed his gaze, the grin fading away. “Well, you’re ugly on the outside,” he said. The tone of his voice had gained an edge. “I seen you before, haven’t I? Leah, you are? Where’s your crazy mother? Servicing the men at the tavern again, is she?”

The other boys whooped and guffawed, slapping each others’ shoulders, but Pig-Eyes didn’t look away from her face. “Listen, I don’t like you either,” he said softly. He poked her again. “Understand? Nobody does. You’re a sewer rat. We should toss you in the fountain, wash off the stink from those filthy tunnels you crawl around in, but then we’d sell no tickets to the show.”

The others laughed again. Sewer rat. She hated when they called her that. “Don’t touch me,” she said, and when she looked into his gaze with her own, he took a small, involuntary step back. Her eyes held a glittering darkness, a depth that made others turn away in discomfort. She did not know why, only that others found something unsettling in her, and at the strange things that sometimes happened when she was around. She was like a divining rod for bad luck, it seemed. But that would not hold this one at bay for long, especially not in front of his friends. He would try to hurt her, things would get out of control, she would get out of control, and she did not know what would happen then . . .

A crow cawed above them, circling the group and settling with a flap of black wings about twenty feet away. It cocked its head, beady eyes studying them, and hopped to where a dead rat lay in the sun. A wagon went by, the wheel dangerously close, and the crow hopped away and then back again, peering at the flattened mess of guts and fur before pecking at a long, wet strand, tearing and pulling it up off the hot dirt like a worm before tilting its head back and gulping the meat down.

Leah’s stomach churned as the crow cocked its head again, its black eye staring right through her, I see you, little one, and she began to feel as if that eye might open up enough to swallow her whole, just like the raw, red flesh the bird was eating.

Her body trembling, she clenched her hands into tight fists, ready to fight, but the boys were distracted for a moment by the crow, and she took the opportunity to dart underneath Pig-Eyes’ arm and up the darkening alley, running hard. A moment later someone gave a shout, and she could hear them coming after her, their running feet like thunder as the blood began to thud in her ears. Somewhere below them she heard the old man’s hoarse voice screaming out his prophecies of the End of Days, and in her mind’s eye she saw the crow staring at her as if she were next on the dinner menu.

Something terrible is coming.

For a moment she did not know if the voice was from the crazy beggar down the street or from her own head. A chill ran down her spine, and she shivered as she ducked into another, narrower alley between the backs of a bakery and a dress shop, swerving to avoid a drunkard fumbling at a woman’s breast in the dark amid a muttered curse and more shouts from the boys. Something terrible. She did not know why she thought that, but it was there, all the same, flapping over her like the wings of that crow. She had heard the voice inside her head before, and it was not at all like her own. She had often wondered if everyone had these voices that spoke up every now and again, or whether she was alone in that, too.

The alley opened into a larger street with more foot traffic, and two soldiers watched her from the other side with their hands on their swords. With luck, they would spot the boys running and stop them, but she could not count on it. She swerved right, into the cool, shadowed doorway of a smoke shop, the smell wafting over her like rich, mossy earth. She knew the city well, knew that this shop ran deep and had another door in back that led to safety; the boys might know too, but they did not know what lay beneath it. By the time they figured out what she’d done, she would be gone.

As she darted through, ignoring the startled shout of the proprietor, she tried to get herself to relax. Nothing had really happened, nothing that would cause her trouble as long as her mother didn’t find out.

The grate was neatly hidden by shadows on the other side of the shop. She pushed it aside and dropped soundlessly into the blackness of the sewer hole, sliding the grate back into place above her head. She knew these tunnels better than anyone, and their darkness and close walls comforted her. She had played in them for as long as she could remember. This one would lead her safely home.

You’re a sewer rat. We should toss you in the fountain, wash off the stink. She angrily brushed away tears as she dropped to the floor and padded silently forward, her eyes already picking out dim shapes from the faint light that filtered down from the grates above. She would not let them get to her, not like this. She had endured the odd looks and jeers most of her life, feeling like she did not belong, and today was no worse than others.

But in the end, it was not the boys’ taunts that stuck with her; she could not get the image of the old man out of her mind, the haunted sound of his voice, and the black-eyed crow peering at her from the gutter as it bent to feed.

Its beak tearing at dead flesh.

Something terrible is coming.

What that might mean she did not know, but she felt its arrival like a foul stench on the wind.

By the time Leah emerged from the sewers and reached her home, the last of the day’s light was bleeding from the sky, and the air had cooled enough to make her shiver. The boys had given up the chase long ago, and she had calmed down enough to begin to question her own sense of doom. Today was like any other; the beggar was a crazy old man, nothing more.

But when she opened the door, her mother was waiting, her eyes holding that glittering edge Leah had come to know and dread. Gillian snatched her arm and yanked her inside. “Where’ve you been, child?” she hissed, shutting the door and throwing the bolt. She looked around as if expecting someone to jump out at them. “Playing in those damned sewer tunnels again? You’re filthy. You can’t go wandering around at night alone!”

“I—I’m sorry,” Leah mumbled. “I was visiting . . . Jonah.” This was the owner of the small shop where they got their eggs and milk; for a moment, Leah was afraid that her mother would realize that she had returned empty-handed, but Gillian didn’t seem to notice. She had always been absentminded, and some in town might even say she was crazy, but her strange ways hadn’t used to feel so unsettling. Lately, though, things had changed. Leah rubbed at her arm where Gillian had gripped her with fingers like iron and thought of the crow again, talons razor-sharp and clutching at raw, reddened flesh.

Gillian cocked her head, listening to something out of sight. She muttered under her breath and pulled Leah farther into the room, backing them away from the door as if waiting for someone to come through it at any moment. “They’re watching,” she said, suddenly dropping to her knees in front of the girl and gripping her arms forcefully with both hands. “They’re everywhere.” Her voice dropped a notch. “They want you, Leah, and if they find you, you’re never coming back from that. Never. Understand?”

The urgency of her pleadings made her sound more pathetic than dangerous, but Leah was frightened, all the same. This was different than the boys outside, but it was no less worrisome.

The air in the room had cooled, and a charge seemed to run through them both. Leah nodded, clenching and unclenching her fists, although she didn’t understand anything at all. Who is watching? Those boys, or someone else?

Gillian shuddered and dropped her hands as if they had been scalded. She stood up, putting a hand to her head, wincing in pain.

“Shut your mouth!” she shouted, whirling, her rage directed not at Leah but at something unseen, unheard. “She’s just a girl. She doesn’t mean for it to happen!”

The chill deepened. Something rattled like plates on a table. Gillian turned back to her, eyes wide and frightened. She grabbed Leah again by the arms and shook her, hard enough for the girl’s teeth to snap together. “Stop that!”

“I—I didn’t—”

“I don’t believe them,” Gillian whispered. “What they’re saying. You’re a good girl, Leah. Aren’t you?”

Leah nodded again, looking around the shabby room with its weathered table and chairs, soot-encrusted fireplace, and threadbare rug, so worn and dirty it had lost all color. There was no help to be had here, nobody to hear her scream. Her tongue probed a raw spot where she’d bitten her cheek. She felt something building within her, as if a strange and unknown part of her had been asleep but had begun to stir, and she thought of the dreams that came to her in the middle of the night of a world that could not be real yet felt as vivid as any place she’d ever seen with her own eyes.

“The dead are restless,” Gillian said. “The demons, ready for blood. They want it, Leah. They bathe in it. They—”

The lantern hanging in the kitchen flared brightly. A bowl tipped off the table and clattered to the floor, puckered green apples rolling across bare wood before coming to rest at their feet. Gillian jumped away from Leah, arms out as if warding off a blow. Then her mouth set in a hard line, and her eyes flashed with anger. She grabbed Leah again and pulled her roughly out of the room and down a short hallway to Leah’s bedroom. “I won’t have that happening in my house, you understand me?” she snapped. “I won’t have it. You stay in here until I say so.”

“Mother, please—” Leah felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“Sometimes I think you’re a demon too,” Gillian whispered, but her eyes were unfocused, and Leah didn’t know whether she was talking to her or to someone else. Then she slammed the door, and Leah heard the bolt slide shut.

Leah rested her head against the cool wood and wiped her tears away. She could hear her mother rattling pots in the kitchen, muttering to herself, but the words were too muffled to make out. She did not know what was going to happen to her. But Gillian did not return. After a while Leah lay down on her bed, curled up on her side, and closed her eyes.

Some hours later, Leah awoke to darkness. The house was silent at first, and she did not know what had made her stir. Through her window the moon was fat and full, a bloated yellow tick hovering above the city’s massive copper domes in a cloudless black sky. She had a vague memory of more unsettling dreams, monsters chasing her through wild lands full of fire and magic. Her mother had warned her about these dreams, saying she must not confuse them with what was real, but the stern voice she used had always made Leah uneasy. Perhaps Gillian was afraid of the madness that was slowly creeping up on her.

Going crazy. That was what was happening to her mother, wasn’t it? Hearing voices, talking about demons and blood and death. Gillian had taken an abrupt turn for the worse, and for the first time, the girl wondered what might happen to her if her mother could not take care of her anymore. She had never known her father, and Gillian refused to talk about him; for all Leah knew, she had been born without one, and no other family had ever come to visit them in Caldeum. She didn’t know much of anything about where she had come from; she knew only of some distant tragedy in her mother’s past that had led them many miles from where they had been, unmoored and alone.

She heard a creak from somewhere down the hall. A faint line of light under her door brightened and then faded again, as if someone was moving around out there with a lantern. She got up and passed silently to the door, pressing her ear against it. Her mother was arguing with herself in a harsh whisper that was getting louder; her creaking steps became faster as she paced back and forth. Again, Leah could feel something building both within her and without, a crackling energy that was so terrifying she could hardly breathe. She shrank away from the door as the light brightened under the crack, climbing up onto the narrow bed, clutching her knees to her chest and rocking.

Gillian shrieked in the hallway, her voice startlingly loud in the quiet house. A small, animal moan escaped Leah’s mouth as the bolt was thrown back and her door swung open, crashing against the wall. Gillian stood framed by the lantern she held up, swaying slightly in her night robes, her hair a wild, ghostly aura around her head. “Come here, child,” she said. When Leah did not move, her voice grew needle-sharp. “You need to listen. I’m talking to you.” Her mother smiled, but there was no warmth in it. It was almost as if her mother wasn’t there at all, as if she had fallen into a trance. “There’s something important we have to do.”

Leah didn’t know exactly what happened next—as Gillian entered the room, the world seemed to stretch and fall away and go dim, as if someone else had taken control of Leah’s senses. The next thing she knew, she was in the hallway, her mother’s sweaty hand on her arm, propelling her ahead, and when the rapping came at the door, she didn’t know whether it was real or inside her head.

Gillian froze halfway into the living room, a haunted look on her face. The remains of the fire crackled in the hearth as a log shifted. The lantern’s flame sputtered and threw shadows that danced across the gray walls.

The rapping came again, louder this time. Gillian sighed, dropping her hand from Leah’s arm, and her entire body sagged as if releasing something she’d been holding tightly inside. Whatever darkness had fallen over them had broken. “S’late,” she muttered. “Who might that be?” Her eyes suddenly focused on Leah’s face, her trembling shoulders. “What’s wrong with you? And what are you doing out of bed? Fetch some water while I get the door.”

She set the lantern down on the table and pulled her robes around her thin frame. Leah did not move, her legs rooted to the floor as her mother reached for the knob and swung the door open.

An old man stood there in a gray, hooded tunic, white hair and beard long and unkempt, a walking staff in his hand and an old, battered pack over his shoulder. For a moment she thought of the crazy old beggar in the streets, but this man was entirely different. His dress was strange, and he seemed to be carrying a heavy burden. But his features were ancient and kind, and his eyes seemed to twinkle like stars in the shadows of his face.

“Gillian,” he said. “I’m sorry to call so late, but I’ve been traveling for days, and I didn’t want to wait.”

Leah’s mother stood absolutely still, seeming to not even breathe for a long moment. Her hand slowly drifted to her mouth. “Deckard? Deckard Cain? Is that really you?”

The old man smiled. “I believe so, although the dust of the road is thick enough to make one question it.” His gaze left her mother and settled on Leah. “It’s been a long time. I wonder if I might come in?”

Gillian said nothing at first, as if struggling to find the right answer. Let him in, Leah thought, please, although she wasn’t sure why. There was something about the old man, something comforting. And anything would be better than being alone with her mother now.

“Of course,” Gillian said finally, stepping aside. “Forgive me. I don’t know where my . . . mind is.”

The old man put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “We have things to discuss, after all, do we not?”

She nodded, meeting his eyes, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them.

Then he stepped through, and Gillian closed the door softly behind him, shutting out the night and whatever else might be lurking out of sight.

4 Gillian’s Residence, Caldeum

Deckard Cain stepped into the shabby home, looking around at the nearly colorless walls, the chipped and scratched old table, and the filthy hearth, his heart sinking in his chest. The protective spell that Adria had placed over the house and its inhabitants had still been active, and he had found them only because he knew precisely where to look. But everything inside was too tired and worn. There was a tension in the air that was palpable.

He had come to Caldeum because of what had happened at the ruins, but he had also come to visit an old friend and fulfill a promise, and had hoped to find everything well. But Gillian was not the same woman he had left here a few years before. She had aged far more than she should have; formerly young and beautiful, with a laugh that could infect a room, she had gone puffy and soft, her hair graying and brittle as straw. Her eyes had become haunted and bruised, and an air of neglect hovered around her, as if she could barely remember to care for herself.

It was no real surprise, he thought, considering what had happened to her in Tristram. What had happened to all of them. But with guidance from his Horadric texts, he had known better how to manage the madness that threatened them, while those few others who survived the demon’s carnage were left exposed, broken and lost.

“I’ll get you something to drink,” Gillian said, waving at the table. “Please, sit. Leah, did you fetch that water?”

Cain took the opportunity to study the girl as she moved into the tiny kitchen area and took an earthen-fired cup from a dusty shelf, dipping a ladle into a wooden barrel. She was thin, long-limbed, and coltish, as if some parts of her body had begun to outgrow others, her hair was cut short and uneven, and her nightdress was tired and gray. But she had an elegance about her, even beneath her layer of dirt, an inner thrumming of energy, and he could tell she would be a stunning woman someday.

Like her true mother.

This was the real reason he was here tonight. He had neglected it for far too long. He glanced back at Gillian and caught her watching Leah too. He could not tell whether her eyes reflected love, sadness, or fear.

Leah returned to him with the cup, and he took it with a smile that felt awkward and stiff. He had never been good with children—even years ago, when he’d been a much younger man and had run the one-room schoolhouse in Tristram, they had been like foreigners who spoke a different language that he had never bothered to learn.

“Thank you, young lady,” he said. He took a sip of water, which was lukewarm and tasted slightly metallic, but good all the same on his parched throat. “I must say, you are quite different than I imagined you.”

The girl’s eyes widened slightly.

“This is . . . Uncle Deckard,” Gillian said. “We knew each other in—in the town where we grew up.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Leah said, putting out her hand. Cain hesitated, then took it, feeling the small bones in his own, as delicate and light as a bird’s wing. At the same time he felt the strength coiled within her, and he had to bite back a gasp of surprise and refrain from yanking his hand away. This was no ordinary little girl, but he could not tell what sort of magic she held, or what its purpose might be. Still, it unsettled him, the way a glimpse of movement in a dark alleyway at night would make one pause before entering the shadows.

Cain released his grip. Now was not the time for this, but he made a mental note to study the girl further when he had a moment. She intrigued him, and her true lineage made him even more curious about what sort of gift she might have been given.

Gillian put her hand on Leah’s back and propelled her toward the narrow hallway. “Now, off to bed with you. We have things to talk about that would bore you to tears, and it’s late.”

She waited until Leah had closed the door to her room. “What are you doing here, Deckard?” she asked, returning to the table. She did not sit down and kept her hands at her waist, clenching and unclenching them as she clutched the folds of her nightdress.

“Wonderful to see you, too, Gillian.”

She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “Forgive me. But it’s been years, with no word, nothing at all. I thought you might be dead.”

“I have business in Caldeum, and I wanted to check on you and Leah.”

“Your business tends to be dangerous.”

He nodded. “That it is. I’m searching for the makers of this.” He reached into his sack and pulled out the reproduction of the Horadric text. “I found it among the ruins of a Vizjerei repository.”

Gillian lifted the book in her hands, then turned it over and studied the binding. “There’s a bookseller in town named Kulloom—he often drinks at the tavern where I put in my hours serving customers. He might know where a book like this was made.”

“Thank you. I’ll try him.”

“It’s important?”

“The fate of Sanctuary itself may hang in the balance.”

“What do you mean?”

Cain hesitated, wondering how much to say. Most of the citizens of this city would have laughed him right through the front gates if he told them what he feared, but Gillian had seen demons with her own eyes, and seen her town destroyed by them. “I have reason to believe that the rulers of the Burning Hells, Belial and Azmodan, are preparing for an invasion. The destruction of the Worldstone has affected our world in ways we cannot understand, and has left us vulnerable. Think of Tristram, Gillian. The horrors that descended upon us. The madness we suffered . . . I cannot let that happen again! We must learn as much as we can before it’s too late.”

“You always got right to the point.” Gillian stared at the Horadric symbol on the cover of the book, seeming to drift away. Her hands clenched harder, and the haunted look in her eyes returned. “I hear them,” she said softly, as if speaking to herself. “Whispering. All the time, inside my head. They won’t let me rest. They tell me terrible things. They want me to . . .” She stopped, her lip quivering.

“What is it that they tell you? What do you hear?”

Abruptly she put her fingers to her mouth, looked at Cain as if surprised by his presence, then whirled and went into the kitchen, busying herself with her back to him. “I’m a silly old woman,” she said. “You must be hungry. Let me get you something.”

“You’re hardly old. Where is your laughter, Gillian, your love of life? Where has your spirit gone?”

She stopped, muttered something, put her hands on the counter to brace herself, and made a muffled sound, her shoulders shaking. Cain got up from the table and went to her. She turned and pressed her wet face to his chest, silent sobs wracking her body.

It broke his heart to see her like this. He stood awkwardly for a moment and put his arm around her shoulders. He could feel her tears wetting his tunic, the bones sliding under her skin. He had never been much comfort to anyone, had always been more comfortable around dusty books and scrolls than people. But it didn’t seem to matter much to Gillian; after a minute her sobs began to ease, and she stood back and wiped her face with her sleeve. “I don’t mean to be rude. You must think I’m crazy.”

“The girl,” he said. “She doesn’t know?”

Gillian shook her head. “I’ve told her very little. It’s so hard. I’m . . . afraid of her, Deckard. There are things . . . things that happen when she’s around. Adria—”

“Is surely dead.” Cain put up a hand as if to dismiss the thought. Gillian had raised Leah as her own, just as he had hoped she would years ago, after Leah’s real mother had left her in Gillian’s care. “A witch may be powerful, but her reach does not extend beyond the afterlife. And Adria did not mean harm to anyone. There’s no reason to think there is anything to fear. If Leah has inherited any of her talents, she has had no training, no knowledge to shape them. She is innocent.”

“Adria once frightened me. Her child frightens me more.”

Cain thought of his reaction to Leah’s touch, and suspected many others had had the same response. The girl would need someone to help her understand her own gifts, and suspicion and fear would only cloud the waters. “You need to resist this feeling. It comes from what happened at Tristram. Such close contact with corruption and death can affect the mind. But you are stronger than you think.”

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” Gillian whispered, tears welling in her eyes again. “I’m just a barmaid. I’m not meant for this.”

Suddenly she stiffened, cocked her head, as if listening. Cain reached out to touch her shoulder, but she moved away abruptly, making a soft, strangled sound in her throat before picking up the loaf of bread she had been preparing from the counter. “Enough of me,” she said more firmly, the quaver in her voice evening out. “You will eat something, and then get some rest. You’re welcome here for as long as you need to stay.”

Cain took the bread she offered him and returned to the table, chewing the stale loaf while he studied Gillian’s back as she continued to busy herself in the kitchen, violently attacking the dirty pots with a scrub brush as if she might wash away all that had happened like so much dirty water. His heart ached for her, and for all the people who had been left behind, forever haunted by those terrible events, driven mad by the demonic contact. Most had been killed outright; perhaps, Cain thought, they were the lucky ones. Gillian’s physical deterioration surely mirrored her inner turmoil. Diablo’s contamination continued, even after the Lord of Terror was long gone.

He considered whether to push her some more, and decided it might make her condition far worse. He was worried for the girl. When he had learned that Adria had left her in Gillian’s care, letting her remain here had seemed to be the only option at the time; he had been concerned with much larger, more important things, and he had meant to come to Caldeum to see to her when the world had settled again. But then the battle with Baal near Harrogath had destroyed Mount Arreat, and things had taken a very dark turn. He had become distracted by the ominous signs of gathering evil (perhaps he had let it happen far more easily than he would admit), and the years had passed so quickly.

Looking around this place now, and seeing Gillian’s odd behavior, he wondered if he had made the right choice.

Deckard Cain stood before the shelves of the ancient library, the light from the small lantern barely enough to make out the spines of the Horadric texts that sat like mute witnesses to his failure. The wind howled outside like a living thing, battering itself against the thick stone walls of the cathedral; icy drafts blew like the breath of ghosts against his bare shins, and dust swirled and danced beyond the flame.

He took a book down from the shelf and sat at the desk, where he scanned the lines of print with a trembling finger. The more he read, the more it confirmed all that he had found in Jered Cain’s writings. His heart was full of regret. It could not be. Yet it was: everything his mother had told him, all her stories of demons and angels that he had dismissed as folklore for these fifty-some years, chronicled here, in careful detail like a book of forgotten histories rather than myth.

His mother’s voice echoed back to him through the years: Jered is your blood, and you—you are the last of a proud line of heroes . . .

Every logical fiber of his being cried out against this. He was not wired to accept anything he did not understand. He was a schoolteacher and a scholar, not some mad dreamer. Yet the events of the past few weeks could not be denied.

An unearthly moan drifted up from somewhere far below his feet, followed by the faint rattling of metal. Deckard Cain tried to convince himself that it was the wind whispering through empty chambers. He shivered and pulled his tunic tightly around his thin shoulders.

Tristram was in shambles. King Leoric had lost his mind and was surely under the influence of something powerful and black at heart. Cain could only guess, from what he had read, what that thing might be: Diablo himself, the Lord of Terror.

He took his battered journal from the pack around his waist, and bent to write. But the words would not come, not tonight.

Cain rubbed his aching, bleary eyes. He had been awake for more than twenty hours. The flame inside the lantern sputtered as a fresh draft of air washed over him, and a moment later he heard the sound of a door opening. He looked up to see a young woman hurrying down the aisle toward him, a heavy cloak wrapped around her sleeping gown to ward off the icy cold.

“Gillian,” he said, finding his staff and getting to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

The barmaid’s pretty blue eyes were wide with fear. “The soldiers have returned from Westmarch,” she said. “Our army has been all but destroyed! There are so few left. And now the king’s men have gathered against them.”

“Where is Aidan? Has he come back with them?”

“I don’t know.”

Cain’s fear deepened, swirling within him like smoke. While Captain Lachdanan and his army were battling the Westmarch forces, King Leoric had taken to executing some numbers of the townspeople he had deemed responsible for the disappearance of his son. The depth of his bloodlust knew no bounds. Dead birds falling from the sky, ghostly apparitions in the night, butchered livestock, accounts of strange and horrifying creatures wandering the edges of town—all of this paled in comparison to the corruption of men’s souls, the blackness of their hearts.

“And where is the king?”

Gillian shook her head. “Nobody knows. But the men are coming here, Deckard, to the cathedral. You must leave this place!”

“But the texts—”

She put her hand on his arm, tugging at him. “We can come back later for them.”

“I have waited too long, Gillian. So many years, absorbed by my own selfishness and small-mindedness, refusing to see the truth about the darkness that lies beyond our world—”

A sound like a distant scream echoed upward from the catacombs beneath their feet. Gillian recoiled, terror whitening her face as she clutched at the cloak around her shoulders. “We must go now. Please, Deckard!”

He nodded, returning his journal to his pack, along with the books he had been reading, and picked up the lantern, handing it to Gillian.

The last of the Horadrim. His mother had seen it all. How could he have been so blind?

Another noise reached them, this one from outside, the sound of men approaching in a hurry. Cain looked at the barmaid. “We’ll leave by the rear door,” he said, taking her hand. “This way.”

There was no time. A shout came from the antechamber, and the clank of armor and heavy footsteps echoed through the soaring hall. Cain blew out his lantern, plunging them into darkness and pulling Gillian down with him, behind a row of pews. She gasped, her fingers entwining in his and clutching at him as a line of men ran into the room, the first of them turning to clash with their swords against the others who followed. Cain recognized the king’s men, pursued by Lachdanan and the remains of the royal army of Khanduras. Brother against brother, battling through the very halls of the cathedral!

He searched for the king’s eldest son but did not see him. The fight was fierce. Grunts and cries mixed with the clank of metal. A pew shattered as the leader of the king’s guard was thrown backward, skewered through the throat. The horrible sound of his last gurgling breath reached Cain’s ears, and the coppery smell of blood filled the room. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. The moans of the dying rose up and were silenced with the blades of the remaining soldiers.

“Bring a torch!”

Lachdanan stood in the shadows of the aisle, breathing hard. A soldier approached him. Cain and Gillian crouched lower as torch flame washed the stone walls with light and threatened to expose their presence.

“Where is the Black King?” Lachdanan’s eyes were wild and glittering in the light.

“We believe he is somewhere below us, sir, in the catacombs.”

“Lead me there. He must pay for his sins. Quickly now!”

The soldier nodded. The group of them set off, passing no more than ten feet from where Cain and Gillian were hiding. Lachdanan had been a friend once, but something told Cain that they must remain out of sight. When the men had passed through the chamber on their way to the stairs leading below and the cathedral had fallen back into darkness, he stood up, looking at the carnage with a terrible sense of outrage and loss. Blood pooled in the aisle, black in the shadows, while the bodies steamed in the cold.

Dread filled his heart. How had it come to this?

Gillian stifled a cry. Cain turned to find a figure looming over them, eyes like the fiery pits of Hell, the stench of death in the air.

Behind the figure stood a woman holding hands with a small boy, their eyes watching him with a mixture of sorrow and reproach.

Cain awoke to darkness, momentarily confused by the power of the dream. Much of it had happened like that, except for the end; why had he imagined that figure?

And the woman and child . . .

Cain cut off the thought abruptly, aware of a distant threat looming over him like boiling thunderheads. He had made himself a bitter promise many years ago. He would not think of them. Never again.

He wiped his wet face with the sleeve of his tunic. Something had awakened him. He listened to the ticking of the hearth near where he lay on the floor, his old bones aching from the hard boards underneath his back.

The sound of someone moving and a soft mutter of voices came from the hall.

Cain slowly got to his feet and found his staff. There was just enough moonlight coming through the window to avoid running into things. He shuffled forward, stopped, listened again. Nothing.

Leah’s door was open. He walked to the end of the hall and peered in. Gillian stood at the foot of the girl’s bed, staring down at her and whispering, slowly swaying back and forth, her arms at her sides.

“Gillian,” he said softly. She did not seem to hear him. Moonlight filtered through the window, falling across the bed. For a moment, a shadow seemed to pass, darkening the room, and Deckard Cain imagined huge, black wings flapping across a cloudless sky. Gillian turned abruptly and walked past him as if he weren’t there, her sightless eyes open and staring, as Leah muttered wordlessly in her sleep and turned over.

Cain followed Gillian down the hall, where she entered her own room and closed the door. He stood there waiting, but nothing happened, and eventually he returned to his spot on the floor before the hearth, where he lay for a long time without sleeping, troubled thoughts crowding his head, waiting for the dawn to come.

5 The Black Tower

Two hundred feet above the ground, in an empty room of blackened stone, a solitary figure watched the ruined landscape as the sun dipped below the horizon. The wind slipped through narrow, glassless window holes, rippling his robes and threatening to tear his hood from his head; he held its edges in his long, bony fingers. The man’s flesh was translucent, blue veins running just beneath the skin like threaded tattoos. This was as much as he cared to expose to the air. It would not do to reveal his face, even here, even when he was alone. He no longer revealed that unless darkness shrouded him from any prying eyes.

It was a small price to pay for immortality.

The Dark One turned from the window. He thought of dead things clawing their way loose from a muddy grave. Creatures such as these rarely left his thoughts these days. He had departed the land of the living long ago, but he was not deceased; and as such, he existed between two worlds, bound to that very thing which had freed him. A strange paradox, to be sure, at least for now. But the dark magic of the ancient Vizjerei sorcerers had taught him that he could harness the same forces that controlled him, in time.

There had once been days when he had not been so utterly confident. He had been treated like scum, ignored, beaten down, and considered next to useless for most of his younger years. But with the help of the true lord of the Burning Hells and the ancient texts he had consumed voraciously as soon as he could get his hands on them, knowledge had turned to power, a revelation to him, and it had vindicated his feelings of superiority. He was a kind of royalty, if truth be told, meant for much bigger things. This was his destiny, to bring the world full circle and exorcise the plague of humanity that had come to control it.

Now it was time for another meeting.

His skin already prickling in anticipation, he swept out of the chamber and down the stairs, his robes flowing like black water across the stone. He had come to look forward to these meetings with a mixture of terror and awe, and an almost religious fervor overtook him; he trembled with it like a small child faced with death for the first time.

He remembered the moment his lord had come to him, a momentous, life-changing event, although he hadn’t quite grasped its full significance then; he had been hurrying home through the streets of Kurast with a package for his master, a powerful and cruel Taan sorcerer known for beating his servants, and he had been terrified of tasting the whip for being late, when a beggar woman had gestured to him from the shadows of an alley. He had hesitated, wary of the woman’s sheer bulk and her filthy state of dress, but there had been something in her eyes that compelled him.

His master would surely beat him, but that was nothing new. He was well accustomed to the lash of the whip. He had gone to her, and that moment had changed his life forever.

The Dark One reached the bottom of the tower stairs. Below the main floor were other, hidden rooms. He opened a panel and exposed a second staircase that descended into gloom.

Moist air wafted up from below. He stood for a moment and listened. A moan echoed through the blackness, followed by the clank and rattle of metal, bringing a prickle of excitement to the back of his neck.

The staircase curved around the massive, hollow center of the tower, and his nails made scraping sounds as he let his long, skeletal fingers trail along the stone of the core, feeling the energy thrumming beneath his touch. The stone was feverishly hot and coated with a luminescent moss. As he continued down, the glow of torchlight grew brighter, and he could hear more shrieks and moans of the damned. Finally he emerged into a hallway with arched doorways leading off it on both sides. These chambers had been carefully designed, their stone floors containing a grate and piping that focused the energy of the inhabitants’ suffering to the building’s center shaft, down to the reservoir far below his feet.

The Dark One walked to the first doorway and entered the chamber. Torchlight flickered, making shadows move across the stone walls. He liked to sneak up on his prisoners and watch the fear in their faces as they found him standing there, his power over them absolute. This one was hanging by four chains running from the ceiling, their ends embedded in the flesh of his shoulders and upper arms, so that he looked like a puppet suspended by thick strings. The man’s head was down, his long hair obscuring his face, and his body sagged against its own weight. He might have been already dead, except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. This had been a villager from Gea Kul, known for a spark of natural magical ability in days past, a raw energy that had never been cultivated. Until now.

The Dark One slipped across the stone to the man’s side like a ghost. The man was relatively fresh, had not been drained as fully as some of the others. Perfect. He reached out with one claw-like finger and caressed the man’s cheek. “Awake, my son,” he whispered, thinking of the beggar woman in the alley.

The villager jerked and raised his head. Terror registered in his pale gray eyes and he tried to scramble backward, but the chains with their cruel hooks held him fast, and he screamed, his outstretched arms straining against his weight. The Dark One smiled, delighted at the man’s spirit. The Lord of Lies would find this one quite suitable, indeed.

“Lɪft ðә vel frә hɪz ajz,” he whispered. As he began the incantation, the torches on the wall flared up, washing the room with light, and the man’s flesh glowed white-hot with the mark of the sacred rune. Others seemed to sense the building energy, and more shrieks echoed through the stone hallways like the gibbering laughter of the damned. The man on the hooks jerked once again, his head whipping back and forth and his entire body going rigid, muscles standing out in his arms and neck; then his head fell forward, eyes closed, and his breathing grew slow and deep.

The room grew darker again, the walls retreating into blackness. When he raised his head again, the man who had been inside that human shell was gone. Yellow eyes, fierce and full of intelligence, fixed themselves upon the Dark One’s face. The trace of a smile touched the possessed man’s lips.

Power radiated outward in waves. In spite of himself, the Dark One shivered, remembering that day many months ago in the alley, and many others since. He was once again in the presence of his lord, ruler of the Burning Hells.

He waited until Belial was prepared to speak. The Lesser Evil’s voice, when it came, was deep and powerful, a rumbling of stones that came from within the human’s chest and seemed to resonate everywhere.

“Our time comes quickly. You are ready.”

It was a statement, not a question. Nevertheless, the Dark One nodded. “The constellations will align in less than a fortnight, as you and the texts have foretold, and we will enter the month of Ratham. Our servants have been busy. The chamber is filling quickly now.”

Belial gave a slight nod. “Yet the girl remains hidden from us. Do you know what this means?”

“The spell that protects her is powerful—”

“That is no concern to us, not any longer. I have intervened.” The creature smiled. “She will be revealed soon enough. You will not fail.”

Once again, it was not a question. The Dark One dropped his gaze, his throat dry; he wondered if he dared make his doubts known. All his life, people had underestimated him. He did not need any assistance. He had everything under control, and besides, the girl might not even exist.

He felt the immense power thrumming beneath his feet. He imagined the warren of chambers far below, the lost buildings and dusty rooms and those lying dormant within them, waiting for their leader to call them back to life. Waiting for him.

“Are you sure this is necessary? I . . . I am confident that it is only a matter of time until I find her—”

“Have I ever misled you? Have I ever given you any reason not to trust what I am saying?” The yellow eyes were lighter now, full of mirth, and the smile had grown wider, the voice more serpentine and playful. But the Dark One knew the power behind those eyes, the promise of violence. One did not question the Lord of Lies; his authority was absolute.

“Of course not, my lord.”

“I have chosen you because of your rare gift of sight, and the blood that runs through your veins. The blood of kings. I have shown you this, given you proof of who you are, in spite of how you were raised by those who had no knowledge of it. But there are others who would lead our army, should you prove yourself not worthy.”

“I will not let you down.”

“I have no doubt of it.” The yellow eyes blinked, and suddenly the Dark One was no longer in the stone room beneath the tower. The walls dissolved around him, and he was standing upon a vast, empty plain with a city in the distance, the sky above blackened by boiling clouds. The parched and cracked ground exploded upward as legions of the dead tore their way free, climbing to their feet and standing ready for his command. Beyond them rose the tower and the gigantic, looming shape of the Lord of Lies, king of the Burning Hells, a beast so monstrous and powerful it was like looking into the sun.

The vision was gone as quickly as it had come. The Dark One stood gasping and shaken by the strength of it, his entire body buzzing with excitement. It hardly seemed possible that a poor orphan child from Kurast could become the most powerful person in the world, yet that power was at his fingertips. Belial himself would walk these lands, and the Dark One would lead his army upon Caldeum and would take his rightful place as the ruler of Sanctuary, ushering in a new era in which humankind was in its proper place. He shivered, and thought of the revenge he would take upon those who had wronged him.

“Find the girl. Bring her to me before the stars begin their pull and Ratham begins, and all this will come to pass. Our call for ancient blood must occur precisely on the first day of Ratham, as the sun touches the sea. There is much to do, but you will prepare everything perfectly before then. If you do not . . .” Belial’s voice trailed away for a moment, and the possessed human shell grew silent. But the eyes were still blazing with light, and they fixed upon the Dark One’s face. “If you do not, I will need to use other means that you may not find so rewarding.”

The Dark One climbed the stairs once again, more slowly this time. Belial had left his presence without another word, returning to the fiery depths from which he had come and leaving the villager from Gea Kul bleeding from the eyes and nose and mouth. The man would be useless now; the feeders would have to bring others, and there were few left nearby. They would have to step up their work in Kurast and extend it beyond the city’s borders.

Soon, Caldeum will be mine. Their plans were moving quickly. He had sensed the disruption in the balance between the Heavens and Hells for some time, but more recently he had felt other forces at work. An energy was building far across the land, led by that damned old fool Deckard Cain. Something powerful in its own right was gathering against him, mirroring an epic battle of years ago, and he did not like the feel of it.

Find the girl. The Dark One remained unsure what the Lord of Lies intended for her, but the prophecies in his most ancient texts told him the same thing: a young one hidden somewhere, not far from here, held the key to everything he had worked toward for so long. Yet she had been hidden by a spell that could not be broken, it seemed, no matter how hard he tried. There was powerful magic at work.

Where is she?

The Dark One reached the top of the tower’s ritual chamber, returned to the narrow window slots, and peered out. As the last of the sun’s rays sparkled on the horizon, his eyes began to tear, and he squinted against the pain. He could not tolerate such bright light. A creature of darkness, he had evolved from the sorry, ragtag bunch that had been his disciples, casting them off long ago. Horadrim. What a silly game they played. He had no need for them anymore. He had outgrown them; they were weak, mindless, limited in what they could do. They did not understand him or his talents, did not recognize the true power hidden within the demonic magic of ancient times. The strength to command the very creatures that haunted human nightmares. The power of the Hells themselves.

Beyond him, the land spread out like a wasteland of death and destruction. The sea lurked at its edge, flat and deadly silent, the slumbering beast of a thousand tentacles, the home of bloated corpses and watery graves.

He spoke words of power, a call that carried into the coming night, and raised his arms to the sound of wings.

A murder of crows flew by the windows, their black bodies flashing by before they whirled and returned, landing on the narrow sill and hopping inside. Thirteen of them came, all large, fattened birds, a glossy sheen to their feathers, their bright eyes studying him. “Come here,” he whispered, and they hopped toward him, briefly taking wing again with a flutter before settling on his outstretched arms and shoulders. He felt their sharp talons digging into his flesh beneath the robes; relishing the pain, he looked at them all fondly as they stared back, heads cocked and waiting, their cold, bloodless stare bringing chills.

“My eyes,” he said, “my ears and heart and lungs. Fly for me now, this night. Spread your wings across this land, from mountain to sea, city to desert. Search to the ends of the lands. Find her.”

The largest crow, the size of a dog, opened its beak and cawed, a raw, brutal sound like the screech of stones on metal. The others took up the call, and the stones echoed back their cries in a thunderous cacophony that seemed to shake the stone floor. The Dark One dropped his arms, and the birds took flight, swooping once through the chamber before slipping through the window cracks and out, into the night.

He stepped to the window and watched them go, spreading out in all directions. Soon they were invisible against the dark sky. The Dark One imagined them as an extension of him, and he watched through their eyes as the ground wheeled by far below, felt with their minds as they studied the alien landscape and the things that moved upon it, searching for their target.

She could not hide from this, not for much longer, whatever spell might surround her. He would bring her here by the first day of Ratham, one way or another. His destiny foretold it.

Sanctuary would fall, and he would rule the new world, reborn in the shape it should have always been. There would be hell to pay for anyone who stood in his way.

6 The Bookseller’s Tale

The next day Cain awoke to the smell of freshly cooking bacon. His stomach rumbled loudly as bright sunlight filtered through arrows of dust. The end of stale bread the night before had been the last meal he had eaten in some time, and he was starving.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up. Gillian was busying herself in the tiny kitchen, humming tunelessly as the meat sizzled on a flat iron that lay across the fire.

“You’re awake,” she said when she spotted him. “It’s about time. You slept like the dead. I sent Leah earlier to fetch us something good to eat. We don’t have bacon and eggs often, but this is a special occasion. We don’t get a visit from Uncle Deckard every day.”

“You didn’t have to go to the trouble,” Cain said, getting to his feet and stretching until his back cracked. He was too old for this sleeping on the floor business. “Let me offer you something for it—”

“Nonsense.” Gillian waved her hand at him. “I’m not about to be thrown out on the street, you know. I have gahah tea.”

Cain nodded his thanks, and sat at the table while she brought him a steaming mug. He sipped the hot liquid slowly, embracing the warmth that spread through his limbs. Gillian’s mood was so different from when he had arrived, she appeared to be a completely new person, and he wondered if she even remembered her sleepwalking incident from the night before.

“Where’s the girl?”

“Oh, she likes to wander. She’ll appear when the food’s ready, I’m sure.” Gillian set a plate full of eggs and bacon before him, and he began to eat, the hot food making him smile with pleasure in spite of the vestiges of the dream that still clung to him like spider webs.

Leah did not appear, however, and after he had eaten his fill, Cain said good-bye to Gillian and set off to find the bookseller Kulloom. She had given him directions to the man’s shop, which wasn’t far, but Cain’s feet ached from his long walk through the sands of the Borderlands, so he stopped to wrap his blisters in gauze that he bought from a woman selling cloth on a street corner. The woman was old, with a back twisted and hunched from disease, and she would not look at him, as if frightened of his presence. He was a stranger in town and dressed differently, although with a city as large as this, that should have been a common occurrence. Odd. Others seemed to act the same way as he passed, avoiding his gaze, all of them walking quickly, heads down and purposeful.

The city was going through its paces, but there was no happiness here. Although the sun was shining brightly, there was a cloud over Caldeum.

Cain reached the bookseller’s shop, but the thick wooden door was locked, and the shades were drawn. As he knocked, receiving no answer, a man sweeping the front steps of the grocery next door took notice. “Looking for Kulloom, are you?” The man squinted at him and hooked a callused finger over his shoulder. “Not much business for him these days. I’d wager you’ll find him drowning his sorrows at the Searing Sands Inn. Probably boasting of his supposed adventures, the sot.” The man cocked his head, looking Cain up and down. “You might think twice about visiting there, with that look of yours. They don’t take much to your kind.”

Cain thanked him for his advice, and set off in the direction the man had given him, wondering what he had meant by your kind. A few blocks down he found the inn, a shabby, dark place with camels and mules out front and the sound of music coming from within. When he entered, the smell of stale ale and hot food washed over him. He was surprised to find the tavern was nearly full, even at this hour. In contrast to the streets outside, there was life here. But the energy was nearly frantic, almost as if the people here had been told they were to be executed tomorrow, and they were determined to make their last day count for something.

As the people began to notice his presence, the organ music faltered, then stopped. All eyes turned to him, except for one fat man sitting near the bar, who continued to gesture wildly and speak loudly to a group of others. Eventually, even he realized the place had gone mostly silent, and he looked at Cain with indignation.

Cain set his staff on the sticky floor and stepped forward. “I’m looking for a man called Kulloom,” he said, to nobody in particular.

“Well, you’ve found him,” the man commanding an audience said, his face flushed red. “What’s the meaning of this? I have important things to relate to these fine people.”

“Gillian told me to seek you out. I have business to discuss.”

The man’s face grew guarded, and a few other patrons muttered something to one another. “He’s no priest,” the man said, his eyes sweeping over the room. “Look at the state of his tunic. Just a wanderer.” He looked back at Cain, and gestured to an open table near the back. “Come on, then. Have a seat, and we’ll talk.”

Cain nodded, and made his way behind Kulloom through the dim tavern to the table, watching the man’s considerable bulk waddle side to side. “Never mind them,” Kulloom said, when they had sat down and the conversation around them began to come to life again. “You look a bit like Zakarum to the uneducated masses; that’s the trouble.” He shook his head. “No-good snakes in the grass, those priests, and the nobles from Kurast along with them.” He studied Cain’s face with slightly bleary eyes, and his voice was slurred by drink. “But you’re not a member of the order. I’ve been to many a place in my time, and I recognize a necromancer when I see one. Am I right?”

“I’m afraid not. Just a wanderer, as you said a moment ago.”

“Well.” Kulloom waved his chubby hand, as if it was no longer important. “And when you mention that woman’s name, it’s all the worse for you. People here think she’s lost her mind, raving on about the end of the world. The owners don’t want her waiting on the customers anymore. And that girl . . .” He shook his head. “She’s bad luck. Do you know that after she came in here once, the bar nearly caught on fire? Gillian had her in the back, and a stove flared up. It took some quick thinking by yours truly to put it out.”

“They are in your debt, then.”

“Precisely. I can’t buy my own drinks here anymore, which is half the trouble.” Kulloom sighed. “It’s far too easy to drink and reflect on what’s past, rather than work my shop. The truth is that business has dried up. The emperor has brokered a deal with the trade consortium council, and the members of the former Kurast government have been accepted into our ranks, with Asheara and her mercenaries providing some . . . err . . . assistance. But it’s all smoke and mirrors, you understand. It’s only a matter of time before things begin to crumble.” Kulloom’s face glistened with sweat. He brought his mug to his purple lips and took a long drink of ale, wiping his face with his sleeve. Then he leaned closer across the table, lowering his voice. “It’s not just here in our fair city that things are falling apart. I’ve traveled across Kehjistan, and by the looks of you, you have too. Perhaps you know what I mean? The world is changing, and not for the better. I’ve seen things . . . things that would make you tremble in those sandals of yours.” Then he sat back and regarded Cain with some newfound suspicion, as if a thought had suddenly penetrated his addled brain. “How do you know Gillian? And what’s your business with me, anyway?”

“I’m an old acquaintance of hers, and she recommended I speak with you. I’m interested in your expertise.” Already Cain was beginning to wonder if he would get anything at all of value here; Kulloom seemed like more of a drunken lout than a clever businessman. But if he dealt in rare books, there was still a chance that Cain might glean some morsel of information that would help him. It was worth the risk, he decided, although he would have to be careful what he shared about his own intentions.

He reached into his rucksack and removed the reproduction of the Horadric text he had found at the ruins. He had covered it in cloth, and when he unwrapped it to reveal the symbol on the cover, Kulloom’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you get this?” He stared at Cain. “Are you Vizjerei? The Zakarum are more tolerant of the mages these days, but it remains a dangerous place for those who don’t take precautions.”

“I follow the teachings of the Horadrim, and I believe this book is a copy of a genuine ancient text. I need to know where it was bound.”

An odd change seemed to come over Kulloom. His eyes grew distant, his face slackening and losing some of its color. When he spoke, his voice was almost completely without inflection. “Horadrim . . . It was said by many people that they were long dead, if they existed at all. But I’ve heard differently.”

A surge of excitement ran through Cain. He reached back into his pack and removed a nugget of gold, which he placed on the table between them. He had no Caldeum currency, so this would have to suffice. “Tell me what you know.”

Kulloom did not seem to notice the gold at first. “In one of the trade tents below the city several weeks ago, I met a merchant who had come from the south, a man of considerable learning and experience. He told me of a group of men who called themselves Horadrim and were led by a sorcerer who had amassed great power. The rumor was his purposes were dark, however, and he was preparing to summon something terrible to our world. What his goal might be, the man I met did not know. But the people were afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Their dreams. It was said that this man, or whatever he had become, had been corrupted by a creature more powerful than anyone could understand. This creature’s tendrils are already spreading across our lands, in the form of ghoulish creatures that visit the people in the darkest night and steal their souls while they dream, leaving soldiers of evil in their places. The merchant saw the fear on people’s faces, and once . . . he witnessed one of these ghouls, in a trade tent some distance outside Caldeum’s walls, beyond the hills. He would not speak more of it, only that it was horrible, and that it still haunted him.”

Suddenly Kulloom focused on Cain. He reached out with a fat-fingered hand and grasped Cain’s wrist. His flesh was clammy and slick with sweat, and as he pulled Cain closer, he seemed like a drowning man, fighting to keep his head above the rising waves.

“You must do something,” he said. “You must find these men and stop them . . .”

The man’s grip was like iron. Cain resisted the urge to yank his arm away. He waited, but Kulloom said nothing more, and as the silence lengthened and the two of them sat together like partners in a strange dance, the room began to quiet again, and heads turned their way.

Kulloom blinked. The intensity seemed to run out of him as he sat back in his seat and noticed the gold nugget for the first time. He snatched it up in a meaty fist and folded his arms across his chest, and when his gaze reached Cain’s face once more, he was again bleary-eyed with drink.

“Tell me more about this group that calls itself Horadrim,” Cain said. “It does not make sense that they would be in league with evil. That is not the way of the order.”

“I’m sorry, but I was told nothing more.” Kulloom shook his head. “Lost myself for a moment there, with my stories, but that one’s got no ending. I tend to get carried away, damn the ale in this place. I’ve said too much, haven’t I? Scared you silly.”

“Not at all,” Cain said. He sat back and studied the man. “You’ve been most helpful.”

The conversations around them slowly began again, as people realized there would be no bar fight today. The barmaid brought Kulloom a fresh mug of ale, which he drank from greedily before slapping it down and waving for another. “This book.” Kulloom tapped the text still lying on the table. “Cheap workmanship, not something I would sell in my shop. Most likely from Kurast. But I could get others, if that’s of interest to you.”

“Kurast? I thought the city was abandoned.”

“It’s a den of thieves, and worse.” Kulloom took another swig of ale. “The people there make the patrons of this fine establishment look like angels.” He gave Cain a smile, but it was not a pleasant one. “There’s no rule of law in Kurast, and it attracts those who prefer to operate away from the emperor’s prying eyes, so to speak. I have a contact who could make some inquiries—”

“I’d rather speak with whoever made this book in person.” Cain reached back into his pack and withdrew another gold nugget, this one larger than the first. Kulloom’s eyes widened as Cain placed it on the table. “This is yours, if you can give me a name.”

“If you go there, ask for Hyland. I don’t know if that’s the name he was born with, but that’s what he goes by these days. He’s what passes for leadership in that hellish place.” Kulloom picked up the second gold piece and tucked it into his pocket. “In Kurast, you may find out more about this group of mages and the creatures their master commands. I have to warn you, it’s no place for an old man. The people there will take what they can from you and leave you to die on the road. And there are other things . . .” He shrugged. “Things that are not so kind.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Kulloom studied him, his eyes growing sober. “Off with you, then,” he said finally. “I have things to do.”

“One last question.” Cain had been thinking of the other Horadric text he had found at the ruins, the one that had appeared to be penned by Tal Rasha himself. Something nagged at him about the passages he had read—a name he did not recognize, even with his vast knowledge from years of scholarly study. “Have you ever heard of a man called Al Cut, or where his burial chamber might be?”

Kulloom shook his head. “I have not. But burial chambers are not pleasant places. Perhaps you would do well to avoid them.”

Cain looked at him for another long moment, trying to sense whether anything else was hidden behind the man’s hooded eyes. If there was, he could not see it. Finally Cain thanked him for his time and stood, gathering his book and staff. As he turned to go, Kulloom called back to him. “And be careful with that woman you’re with,” he said, as the conversations again dried up and heads turned to watch. “The girl, too. She’s not right in the head.”

“Aye,” someone else said, a balding man with a bulbous nose and blackened teeth. “Tales of demons and black magic and dead men walking the earth. It’s enough to make your hair fall out.”

“You have little enough as it is,” Kulloom said to him. “Now let’s have another drink and forget this nonsense for now. Some of us have to go back to work soon.”

Several of the patrons laughed, and one of them slapped Kulloom on the back. But the man did not smile or take his gaze from Cain’s face. Cain nodded and left the man to his small group, the sound of more laughter and raised voices already drowning out Kulloom’s final words, which might have been a further warning, or simply a dismissal.

Cain emerged onto the street, blinking in the bright sun. The buzz of excitement that had begun inside the tavern still consumed him. He wondered how much of what he had learned today was trustworthy, and how much was the drunken rambling of a man who couldn’t find his backside with both hands. Kulloom was nothing like he had expected from what Gillian had told him, but it was clear that she was no longer welcome in that place. If so, her funds would surely be growing short. He felt a lingering sense of guilt for leaving her burdened with a child who was not her own, mixed with a growing concern for Leah. Without the proper training, whatever natural power she held could very well destroy her. But what could he possibly do? He had nothing to offer a young girl, and had little use for children in general. When he’d been a teacher in Tristram, his job had been to impart the wisdom he had learned over years of solitary study, but the children had been frustrating and difficult. They did not want to listen to his lectures, nor did they care much about the books he cherished so deeply.

And there were far more important things for him to worry about these days. Kulloom’s words came back to him: You must do something. You must find these men and stop them . . .

Stop them from what? What did they have to do with these ghouls that were supposedly haunting Sanctuary? The rest had been left unsaid. Too much, in fact, but Cain had sensed that Kulloom knew little else and he was wasting his time trying for more. The thread he had picked up inside the tavern was tenuous at best, but the idea that a group of rogue sorcerers was operating somewhere to the south filled him with renewed purpose.

Horadrim.

Kulloom himself had used the word, but he had hardly seemed to realize the import. Almost in spite of himself, hope lightened Cain’s steps: could it be true? Could there really be a link between these mages and the teachings of the Horadrim? It seemed impossible. All he believed, all he had read, and all the accounts he had heard over the years led him to believe the way of the order was long dead.

Surely, Kulloom and his merchant source were mistaken; these particular men, if they existed at all, were more likely simply an offshoot of a Caldeum mage group. Underneath all this was the warning Kulloom had given him, and the idea that the purpose of these men was more sinister in nature. The Horadrim had been tasked with saving Sanctuary from Diablo and his brothers, commanded by the archangel Tyrael himself. It was hard for Cain to believe that any true follower of the order would become involved in the dark arts.

One thing was clear: whether it was a dead end or not, he knew he had to find out more, and whatever answers there might be would be found in Kurast.

The tomb of Al Cut. Cain worried the phrase about in his mind like a small dog with a bone. He had never heard of anyone in history by that name. There must be more to the prophecy, but the ancient text had ended abruptly, as if there was more contained in a second volume. He could not make sense of it, but he had the feeling it was important. The answers might lie in the missing volume.

As Cain hurried down the street as fast as his poor feet would take him, he had the feeling he was being watched. He whirled around, expecting to find that Kulloom or others from the tavern had followed him out, perhaps bent on braining him with his own staff before taking the rest of his gold; but the street behind him was empty, save for a man and his child, who were walking with their heads down, ignoring him. The two turned a corner almost immediately and disappeared from sight.

The sun beat down on Cain’s head, washing the buildings on either side with bright light. He had the strange sense that he was alone in Caldeum, that all the other people had winked out of existence at once, and he was the only one left alive in all of Sanctuary. He imagined creatures among the shadows, the city falling into ruin as undergrowth began to reclaim all that had once been human. The illusion was broken when a mule-drawn cart clattered into view and a group of men exited an inn, talking loudly and gesturing to each other.

Nobody had been watching him, yet he still felt eyes boring into his back as he turned once again to go.

7 The Burning

Cain spent the rest of the day exploring Caldeum, searching for any more information about the group of mages who called themselves Horadrim. He tried to keep his excitement from becoming too evident, but the people seemed to shy away from him, refusing to speak, and those few who did looked at him as though he had sprouted two heads when he mentioned Kurast. It was a dead city, and full of murderers and rapists, he was told, no place for an old man like him.

He grew more and more discouraged as he went, and the idea that there was any connection to the Horadrim or its teachings began to seem a desperate hope. He had been amazed by the idea of it as he left the pub, but as the hours dragged on without another lead, he became more convinced that Kulloom had been mistaken, or had simply told Cain what he wanted to hear to get the gold nugget that had been promised to him.

Later in the day he was questioned by three of the Iron Wolves, all of them large, muscled men in ornate gold-and-silver armor and carrying heavy swords. Luckily they did not go so far as to search his rucksack, or he might have been thrown in jail; it was clear that significant tension existed in Caldeum between the leaders of the mage clans, the Zakarum, and the trade consortium council, which was now a mixture of Caldeum and former Kurast nobles who had fled that city when it fell to Mephisto and his demonic forces. The people were terrified that the darkness and corruption of Kurast had spread to Caldeum, and perhaps there was something to it. Because of this, allegiances were everything, and the guards had little use for an old man who may or may not have been a rogue sorcerer.

After a warning to finish his business and move on, they let him go, and Cain returned to Gillian’s home as the sun dipped below the city walls and night fell.

He did not know what to expect when he arrived. Gillian’s mood that morning had been such a stark contrast with the night before, it was almost as if he had been dealing with two separate people. The house was dark and silent, and when he knocked, nobody came for so long he thought Gillian might have gone out. Just as he turned to go, the door opened, and he found her standing in the shadows, her face gray and lifeless.

“I spoke to your friend Kulloom,” he said after he had entered and set his staff down. “He’s an interesting man.”

Cain smelled something familiar on the air that he could not place. The smell turned his stomach. Gillian had swung the door closed, but had not otherwise moved. “He’s not my friend,” she said. “I wasn’t entirely truthful with you, Deckard. I don’t . . . work at that tavern anymore.” She glanced to the right and muttered something under her breath, as if speaking to someone else, although the room was empty.

“I see. How are you going to eat?”

“I—I make do.”

Gillian’s voice was strained. Cain went to light the lantern on the table, cutting through some of the gloom. Gillian shrank away from it as if the flame might leap out and scald her. Her gaze darted left and right, scanning every corner of the room. Her face was shiny, her eyes ringed with dark circles, and her mouth continued to move as if she were about to speak, but she said nothing.

Judging from the state of the house, she could not have much money left, and that, along with the stress of taking care of a child, may have been more than she could bear. What had she said to him last night?

Whispering. All the time, inside my head . . . they won’t let me rest. They tell me terrible things.

Close contact with demons often drove a person mad, and it could have an effect years later, like ripples growing in a pond.

Gillian refused to look at him. One hand was behind her back.

“What do you have there?” he asked, keeping his tone casual, although his sense of alarm was growing.

“Nothing.” She took a step back and shook her head.

“Let me see it, Gillian.”

She shook her head again, holding her other hand out, as if to stop him. Her back was against the door now, and he caught a flash of something shiny as she shifted her body. She seemed to be fighting a great inner battle. Her face crumpled, her lip trembling. A tear slid its way down one cheek; then she shook her head again, and abruptly her expression changed, growing hard and angry. “No. No. You leave this house right now, Deckard. You’re no longer welcome.”

“I think you should sit down. Let me get you some tea.”

“I don’t want any tea! You would probably enchant it to keep me quiet. Isn’t that what you do? Your kind likes to bury things in the past and keep them there. Like what happened to you in Tristram.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Gillian’s expression changed again. Her voice grew lilting, almost playful: “I grew up with him, don’t you remember? Until he disappeared—”

“Enough!” Cain shouted. “Do not speak of that.” His rage and self-loathing boiled to the surface, and he made a move toward her. Gillian brought her hand out from behind her back.

She held a large knife, its edge stained red.

Now he knew what he had smelled when he entered the house: the coppery scent of blood.

“I was cutting meat,” she said. “For our dinner. Chopping it up.”

“Where’s the girl?”

“She’s sleeping. They told me I must not disturb her.” Gillian suddenly smiled, and it was a wide and predatory smile, like a snake about to swallow a mouse. Her eyes went glassy and rolled back into her head, showing the whites.

The room seemed to revolve around Deckard Cain, walls bowing like giant lungs taking in a breath. The child! He had left another innocent one alone and in danger, focused on his own pursuits while blood was spilled. He cursed himself for his blindness and stupidity, his uselessness in reading the signs that had presented themselves plainly to him yesterday; Gillian was sick, quite possibly dangerously so, and he had ignored the warning signs. Just as he had always done.

His past tried to force its way back in, nearly overwhelming him. This time, he must act before it was too late.

Your kind likes to bury things in the past and keep them there.

Cain grabbed the lantern and limped to the hallway as fast as he could, light bouncing against the floor and ceiling and sending dancing shadows across his sight. Leah’s door had a latch on the outside, but it was halfway open. He entered the room, his heart racing, and stopped short. The lantern revealed an ordinary scene, the girl curled on her side on the narrow bed, her face smooth and peaceful. There was no blood, and she was breathing regularly.

He gave a great sigh of relief. Gillian had been cutting meat for their meal: that was all. There was nothing to worry about; Leah was fine.

That might be so. But it did not explain Gillian’s odd behavior, and it did not change the fact that they were clearly on the edge of losing everything, with money running low and tension in the home rising quickly. It did not explain the voices in Gillian’s head, or the fear she had for Leah.

Like what happened to you in Tristram . . . Cain heard a noise from behind him, and he turned to see Gillian enter the bedroom, the knife in her hand.

She did not appear to see him. As she approached the bed, the temperature of the air in the room seemed to drop. Leah sat up, eyes still closed as if asleep, and as Gillian raised the knife, a crackling energy leapt between them, and Gillian was thrown violently into the wall by some invisible force that reached out a giant hand and swept her aside.

Cain recoiled in shock. He had seen nothing, and there had been little warning, but some kind of strange magic was at work. Leah was like a puppet with its strings being pulled, her head weaving back and forth in a strange, hypnotic dance. He thought again of the touch of her hand, the feeling of power coiled within her, a strange magic that threatened to burst free, with unknown consequences.

What is this?

Gillian stood up, going at the bed again. Leah’s eyes opened, and she screamed in fear, shrinking back as the knife was torn from Gillian’s hand by that same invisible force, clattering onto the floor.

“Evil ones!” Gillian shouted, spittle spraying from her mouth as her eyes rolled wildly. She kicked and scratched at something that seemed to hold her in place. “Child of the witch! Your black ways will not save you much longer! The dead are coming for you!”

Fully awake now, Leah seemed powerless to stop whatever was happening, as if her own body was beyond her control. Her frantic gaze went from Cain’s face to Gillian’s and back again.

Cain had to end this quickly, before it was too late.

He set the lamp down, reached into his pack, and removed a vial filled with a white powder of Torajan jungle tree root and bone mixed by a priest of Rathma. He uncorked the vial, poured the powder into his palm, and blew it into Leah’s face.

The girl sighed, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slumped back onto the bed, unconscious.

Quickly Cain turned toward Gillian, who had been released from whatever had been holding her and was going for the knife on the floor. He threw the remains of the powder in her direction, and as it drifted over her, she dropped like a stone, her legs buckling loosely as her head hit the wall with a heavy thud.

The house was suddenly silent as the energy left the room all at once. Cain checked Gillian’s pulse where she lay and found it hammering at an unbelievable speed, her breath coming in fast, shallow gasps. His guts crawled. The necromancer’s powder was a gateway to a plane between the living and the dead—not enough and it would cause visions and confusion in people who remained conscious, but too much could be far more dangerous, sending people to a place from which they might never return. He had not been able to measure the amount he had used, but there was no way to change that now.

He went to the bed and checked Leah, who was sleeping soundly, her pulse steady, her face calm, almost angelic. An unexpected surge of emotion washed over him: this little girl was in the grip of something she could not control or understand. She did not know her own history and had just awakened to the woman she thought was her mother attacking her with a knife. Whatever was happening was not her doing, and she was both confused and terrified.

He had to find a better way to protect her. He had to help her, somehow. But he was no hero: he had proven that time and time again, and what could he do with a small child like this? He was an old man with enough problems of his own. If he did not find the key to stopping the evil that was coming to Sanctuary, none of this would matter, and they would all be dead, or worse.

Leah’s pulse remained strong. Cain managed to get his hands under Gillian’s arms, but carrying her was nearly impossible. His knees and back screamed at him until he finally gave up. Leaving her where she lay, he picked up Leah and her clothes and shoes and carried her through the gloom to the front room, where he set her as gently as he could on the rug before the fireplace. He lit a second lantern from the embers still glowing in the fireplace, washing the small room with light and banishing the shadows that seemed to pool around them. Leah did not stir.

Back in the bedroom, Gillian’s breathing had eased, and her heart had slowed its frantic pace. Cain managed to get her off the floor and onto Leah’s bed. Then he closed the door and threw the latch.

Satisfied for now, he took the knife and went back to Leah, going over in his mind what had just happened. The girl’s power seemed to be defensive, reacting only when she was threatened, but it was stronger than a simple spell. He had never seen anything quite like it before. Leah’s real mother had been a powerful witch, and it was possible she had passed her abilities to her daughter. But witches were not mages. Trained sorcerers were able to control the elements in similar ways, harnessing their power to influence the physical realm, but it took years of training to control such things. For a small girl like this to do so—and to do it without a conscious knowledge of the craft—was shocking. And potentially very dangerous.

There must be someone who could provide better counsel. Almost in spite of himself, Cain thought of the mages Kulloom had mentioned. If they were studying the ways of the Horadrim, perhaps they would be able to help. True Horadrim would understand her gifts and be able to guide her through the stormy waters she would enter as she grew to adulthood.

They may not even exist, his own mind insisted. But you, old man, are just a scholar playing at these things. You are no mentor. Without them, what hope do you have?

The smell of blood was still thick in the air. He looked into the kitchen and found the carcass of a large rat. It had been decapitated and partially disemboweled, as if Gillian had been preparing it for their meal.

Too exhausted to be disgusted at the thought, he swept the remains into a refuse barrel and sat down in the chair, watching Leah’s sleeping form. The powder would keep her under for at least another couple of hours, but he would have to decide what to do with her and Gillian before then. This situation could not remain the way it had been, yet he could not think of a remedy.

The burden of this new responsibility bore down on him like a heavy weight, and his dream from the night before drifted back to him: hiding in the shadows of the Zakarum cathedral with Gillian, and turning to find a monstrous figure looming over them, the other woman and child close behind. He’d imagined a look of reproach in their eyes, an accusation that he had tried to bury for nearly fifty years: Why couldn’t you save us?

That was not how it had really happened. There had been no hulking figure, no unsettlingly familiar woman and child. King Leoric had been slain by Lachdanan, but things had only worsened after that. Lachdanan had been cursed, and the townspeople began to disappear. The madness creeping through their little town and the strange sounds and glimpses of demonic creatures had sent many of the people who were left fleeing, and brought adventurers from across the land, looking to become heroes or intending to pillage the riches they had heard were hidden under the ancient Horadric building.

One by one, in spite of Cain’s warnings, these wanderers had descended into the depths of the catacombs, and their screams had echoed back through the dark corridors as they had perished against the black hordes of Diablo.

Cain had been wracked for so long by guilt over his lack of faith, his insistence on turning away from his own mother’s teachings and the ways of the Horadrim. He had read obsessively through the early morning hours, poring over every shred of information he could find and joining others at the Tavern of the Rising Sun to recount the histories. But he was too old and frail to have been able to go himself to face the demon hordes, and he had not been able to make the others understand what they were up against until it was too late.

More warriors had come, some of them more impressive than others. But everything had seemed hopeless until the king’s oldest son had returned from the disastrous attack on Westmarch: Aidan, who had left seeming like little more than a spoiled child, had come back an accomplished young man. Cain had barely recognized him, and it had swiftly become a measure of respect for Cain to refer to Aiden as simply “the hero.” Cain had explained what he had learned from Jered’s texts and those he had found in the cathedral, trying to warn Aidan about what he would find in the catacombs below the old structure.

But nothing could have prepared the young man for the horror of what was to come.

The corridors of the inn were dark and empty, whatever ghosts that lived here now silent and still. Cain found Aidan sitting on the edge of the bed, his head cradled in his hands. He was dressed in full armor, his heavy sword at his side.

As the old man entered, Aidan looked up, and for a single moment Cain saw beneath the young man’s carefully constructed shell: a mixture of anguish and white-hot rage twisted his handsome features.

“My father is dead,” he said, “my brother missing. The entire town is in shambles. How can you tell me to wait?”

“I did not mean to make light of your loss,” Cain said, as gently as he could. “But before you go down there, you must better understand what you are facing—”

“I understand enough.” The young man stood and took up his sword, running it into its sheath. He was calm once again. “The demon responsible for this abomination must be sent back to the Burning Hells. You’ve said so yourself.” He crossed the room and put his hand on Cain’s shoulder. “I am not the scared boy you once knew, my friend. I have studied and trained with the best teachers in Kurast. I have fought the brave soldiers of Westmarch. I will face the demonspawn, and I will strike them down one by one until I find the source and let him taste the edge of my blade.”

“The depths of these catacombs will be overrun by legions of demons, lesser ones and those more powerful,” Cain said. “Lazarus has led many of the people to their deaths. There will be . . . those you know, those you have loved, back from the dead and horribly changed. They may eat human flesh, desecrate the bodies of those in their path. Your father may be one of them.”

Aidan’s eyes grew dark, flashing with anger. “Lazarus is a traitor, and I will have his head before I am finished. I will do whatever it takes to drive these hellish forces from Sanctuary.”

“And your brother, Albrecht.” Cain placed his own hand over the hero’s own, interrupting him. He needed to make the young man see the truth, before it was too late. “What will you do, should you have to face him? He may have suffered an even more terrible fate. It is possible he is corrupted—”

“Then I will strike him down, too. It is my duty to end his suffering.”

“At least allow others to accompany you. There is a rogue from the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye who is of sound spirit, and a Vizjerei sorcerer—”

A horrible, wrenching scream split the night. Aidan rushed to the small window, then ran from the room. Cain followed as fast as he could manage, his old legs aching as he descended the stairs and emerged to find Aidan kneeling over a wounded woman, another form standing nearby with a pitchfork drenched in blood. It was Farnham, who had followed Lazarus into the catacombs and returned unable to speak of what had happened. After bouts of drinking, he had tried several times to return to the depths, and it appeared he had finally succeeded, only to return again to the surface, bringing someone along with him.

“Help her!” Farnham pleaded helplessly. He looked around in a near panic. “Where is the healer, Pepin?” His arms were covered in what appeared to be bite marks, and his scalp had been torn, a flap of skin and hair hanging by his ear. He did not seem to notice his own wounds, but remained fixated on the woman.

Cain moved closer. The woman’s pretty face had been split from cheek to jaw. For a moment he thought it was Gillian, but this one’s figure was slimmer, more girlish. Farnham’s daughter, no more than sixteen. There were other wounds to her torso, gaping slashes as if from a cleaver. Aidan had put his hand on her face, trying to hold the flesh there together, but she twisted her head and moaned, and his fingers slipped in the blood.

Abruptly her body convulsed upward, spine arching as she began to shake. The skin of her face slid away, exposing the bone of her jaw, and fresh blood flowed down her neck. Aidan tried to hold her still again as Farnham rushed forward and Cain stepped in front of him.

“What happened,” he said, “in the tombs? You must tell me.”

Farnham shook his head. Drops of blood spattered Cain’s face. “They followed Lazarus to their doom, along with the other fools. I went down again and found my daughter alive. The rest are dead. They’re all dead. Ah, the earth is cursed; the creatures down there are abominations!”

“Who did this to you?”

“The Butcher and his blade,” Farnham said. “He slaughtered most of the people himself. I faced him again, but we managed to hide until we could escape. I’ve seen his killing room, filled with bodies and surrounded by those who still walk upright. But they are not human, Deckard.” Farnham’s bloody fingers clutched at Cain’s tunic, leaving streaks of red. “They . . . bit me.”

The girl on the ground made a gurgling, choking sound. Farnham cried out and left Cain to kneel at her side, holding her hand. Aidan stood up, his eyes telling the story: she was lost.

Cain took him aside. “She may rise again, after her soul departs,” he said quietly. “I will get Farnham away from here. You must do what is necessary to end her suffering.”

Aidan nodded. “And then I am going down into those tombs to end this,” he said. “The terror must stop now.”

An unearthly howl rose up from the direction of the cathedral, echoing across the dark, empty landscape and sending chills down Cain’s spine. The howl was followed by a shuddering thud, and the chittering laughter of the damned.

Something moved in the shadows of the woods, something large and inhuman.

Cain looked around at the abandoned town, the only home he had ever known. His own house was only a few steps from here, the same home he had grown up in with his mother, and where she had told him her stories of Jered Cain, Tal Rasha, and the Horadrim, heroes who had battled the Prime Evils to the end.

His destiny, unfulfilled. So many had died because he had refused to listen, had ignored his mother’s warnings and the books that had lain gathering dust while he pretended to pursue more intellectual pursuits. He had not believed in such things as demons, but their time had come, nevertheless. The weight of his guilt was crushing.

I have let you down, he thought. I have let you all down, and now there will be hell to pay.

The smell of smoke drifted over him. The town was burning . . .

Deckard Cain awoke with a start, the image of the dying girl still fresh in his mind. He had fallen asleep in his chair, watching over Leah; he could see her in the flickering light from the lantern, still lying motionless on the rug near the hearth.

Something was wrong. The lantern’s wick had gone out. But the smoke and the light of the flames from the dream still lingered.

Tristram didn’t burn. Not then.

Alarmed, he snapped more fully awake. The flickering light came from the hallway.

Cain stood up and moved as quickly as he could manage. Smoke was pouring from around the door to Leah’s bedroom, flames licking the dry wood like demon tongues. Already he could feel the heat on his skin. He muttered the words to release the spell he had set on the door, then edged closer, trying to reach the handle. The heat was too strong to get close enough.

He had left the other lantern burning inside the room. Somehow, it had set fire to the wood. And now Gillian was trapped.

“Gillian!” he shouted. There was no answer from within.

Smoke swirled around his head, entering his lungs and making him cough. The taste was bitter on his lips. He tried to cover his face with his sleeve, but it didn’t help, and he felt himself growing light-headed.

“What’s happening?”

Leah stood behind him, her little face white, eyes wide with fear. She had dressed and put on her shoes, and her voice held a hint of barely restrained panic.

“The house has caught fire,” Cain said. “We’re in terrible danger.”

“But my mother—”

“She is beyond our help,” he said. “The heat is too strong for me to enter the room. We must go now.”

Leah shook her head, her hands clenched at her sides. “No! We can’t leave her!”

“There’s no time to waste, Leah. Don’t be foolish.” Cain went to her and tried to direct her back to the front room, but she stood as solid as a rock. He felt the need to do something, calm her in some way in order to get her outside, but he didn’t know how. He was used to giving advice to men who were going into battle, men who were logical, reasonable, who understood something of the risks and could make a decision based on facts. What did you say to a child in this situation? Gillian is likely dead, and we will be too if we do not act quickly? How did you deal with such a horror?

A rumbling noise shook the house, and something shattered in the kitchen. Leah had squeezed her eyes shut, her body beginning to tremble. Cain felt the same strange drop in temperature he had experienced earlier in the girl’s room, when Gillian had come at her with a knife, and a charge in the air like an invisible presence prickled his skin. Wood popped and groaned all around them, and a great whooshing noise came from the closed bedroom.

Something else shattered from the direction of the fireplace, and almost immediately Cain saw the reddish light of flames dancing across the hallway walls. He rushed to the other room and found the second lantern had fallen to the floor, splashing the nearly dead embers of the fire with fuel, which had ignited. A line of flames ran across the floorboards to the table.

If they did not hurry, they would be cut off from the front door.

Cain returned to the girl. She was still standing rigidly where he’d left her, eyes closed, hands clenched. Her skin was shiny with sweat. He got the feeling she wasn’t really there anymore, as if something had swept in and carried her away, leaving her body behind.

Had she done that, knocking over the lantern? What was happening to her?

As he took her by the shoulders, he had the chance to wonder for just a moment whether it was a good idea to touch her before the shock hit him like a monstrous wave of fire, shooting up through his arms and throwing him backward. He caught a glimpse of Leah’s eyes opening, that same confused, frightened look in them that he’d seen when Gillian had attacked her in her room, and at the same time he felt something else across a vast ocean of space. A presence, Cain thought, that was not purely human, soaring overhead with huge, black wings, sensing them somewhere close, but not quite finding them.

Then he hit the wall, the shock running up through him like a thousand ants biting his skin. Somehow he managed to keep his feet, the familiar pain in his back returning tenfold. Leah shrank from him, shaking her head, her hands up and waving as if she could push away everything that was happening to her.

It was all too much for her to bear. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Whatever strange energy that had possessed her was gone now, and Cain managed to pick her up and put her over his shoulder. He returned to the front room and found his staff and rucksack in the thickening smoke, the weight of Leah’s body making him stumble and nearly fall as he picked them up. Relief washed over him after he had his books and artifacts, but it was short-lived.

The flames were growing quickly, the heat getting fierce. Orange fire began to run up the walls to the ceiling. Cain could not seem to find the way out. Things appeared to fall away from him, the room growing impossibly long, and he thought of a bird’s gaze darting back and forth as it looked for a worm: a black crow the size of the city, spreading its wings to block out the sun.

As Cain stumbled again, nearly overcome, the door to the house crashed open, breaking the spell and letting in cool, fresh air. The black, flapping wings faded away as a giant bearded man with his arm covering his nose and mouth fumbled through the smoke toward them.

He grabbed Cain and half-dragged him and the still-unconscious Leah toward the open door and into the night.

8 One for the Madhouse

Outside the small home, a crowd had gathered. Men were passing buckets of water down a line, trying to douse the flames that had begun to spread through the windows to the roof before they could jump to other houses next door. Other people simply stood and watched, shuffling from foot to foot, muttering to each other and pointing.

The man who had pulled them to safety introduced himself as James, a blacksmith who lived a few doors down. Cain thanked him for his help. “Smelled the smoke,” he said. “Lucky for you, I don’t sleep much.” He gestured toward Leah. “You mind if I take her off your hands and have a look?”

“I’d be grateful.”

James took Leah from Cain’s shoulder as if she weighed nothing at all, putting her gently on the ground. He opened her eyelids, listened to her breathing, and stepped back. “She’s not burned; nothing else seems wrong with her.”

“It wasn’t the fire,” Cain said. “I’m afraid she suffers from hysteria. The stress was too much for her.”

James nodded. “I’ve got a daughter about her age,” he said. “Lives with her mother across town. We don’t see each other much.” He shook his head. “Her mum and me, we weren’t good for each other, and that’s the truth. Now, this one,” he said, pointing at Leah, “I never took to what people said about her or her mother. Sometimes people who stick to themselves get accused of being things they aren’t, and that’s a shame.”

Gillian. In the madness of the fire, Cain had nearly forgotten about her. He looked at the small house, where the townspeople continued to work frantically with buckets of water and seemed to have gotten the blaze under control. But the windows were black with soot, and smoke still drifted from the roof. She could not possibly have survived it.

He was nearly overcome with a sudden weariness, and desperately wanted to find a place to sit down and rest his aching bones. But he knew better. More of the townspeople were staring at them and whispering. It would not be long before the rumors spread. He was a stranger, and they already seemed suspicious of him. That, combined with his recent arrival at Gillian’s home, would make them wonder what had really happened tonight.

For some reason he thought again of that winged creature searching the wastelands and beyond, looking for him even among the blackened and smoking bones of the house, and he wondered if the presence he had felt as the fire had closed in had been real, or only imagined.

A commotion came from somewhere behind the building. Cain heard a woman’s voice, ragged and shouting. He asked James to stay with Leah for a moment, and hobbled toward the sound with his staff, his heart in his throat.

As he reached the corner of the house, a small crowd of people met him there, two large guards holding a struggling woman by the arms. Cain stopped short. It was Gillian, her nightdress torn and black with soot, her graying hair loose and tangled around her shoulders. She looked like she had lost her mind, he thought, and that was probably not far from the truth.

“Caught her down the street, trying to run,” one of the guards said to those who had formed a circle around the new group. “Crawled out the window in back, says she started the fire—”

“Burn in Hell!” Gillian shrieked, spittle flying from crusted lips. “I did it; yes, I did. To burn away the sin, rid us of the evil here. Blind fools, all of you! The end of the world is coming! The skies will turn black, and the earth will vomit up abominations!” She fought the guards holding her, twisting in their grip and trying to claw at them like a howling cat. The guards held on with both hands, but even at nearly twice her size they were nearly yanked to the ground.

“Hold her, damn it,” one of the other men said. He was clearly in charge, a petty nobleman of some kind, still in his sleeping robes and far from home. His face was puffy, and he looked cross. Cain wondered if he had been pulled out of bed himself. Pardon the interruption. The man walked over to Cain and poked him in the chest. “Who are you?”

“Only a simple wanderer,” Cain said. “I knew this woman many years ago, in a town called Tristram. I sought her out for shelter when I reached Caldeum.”

“You’re no wanderer,” the man said, glancing at Cain’s staff and rucksack, his eyes narrowing. “Tristram? That’s the place that was abandoned a few years back after Leoric went mad. Lots of stories there—none of them made any sense. But I don’t trust a soul from that place. Beggars and thieves, all of you.”

“He’s a demon from the depths of Hell,” Gillian hissed. “Don’t be fooled.” She gave a strong yank of her arms that nearly freed her before the guards gripped her again. She stopped and looked into the distance, as if listening, and then smiled, exposing her teeth once again like a predator about to pounce. “We are all tainted. We are born from demons; our souls are black from their stink. I can smell them. And they will return to claim us.”

The nobleman ignored Gillian’s words, although the rest of the smaller crowd shuffled uneasily on their feet and murmured. “What’s wrong with her?” someone shouted. The nobleman put up his hand to quiet them.

“This woman here,” he said, jerking a thumb at her, “she’s been trouble for this city. Her daughter too. Started a fire once before, at a pub. They’re strange ones; people don’t like to be around them. This blaze is under control now, but the next time we may not be so lucky. We can’t leave her and her daughter here alone.”

“She faced a terrible tragedy in our hometown,” Cain said. “Many lives were lost there, and her spirit and mind were broken. I ask you to have pity on her.”

“She could have burned down the whole neighborhood,” a woman said, clutching her shawl around her bony shoulders. She was older, her face sunken, dark circles around her eyes. Her voice was frail and trembling. “And the girl’s a witch. Everyone says so.”

Cain looked around at the faces staring at him. The commotion and Gillian’s raving had attracted an even larger crowd; more had gathered quickly from the street, and he began to be concerned that they’d get violent. They were frightened, and Gillian’s lunatic actions were making things worse.

“Ask him about his own secrets,” Gillian said quietly, her voice now filled with a soft cunning. The predatory smile had not left her face. “Ask him why those closest to him left him alone. Why they disappeared.”

“Gillian,” Cain began, stepping forward, “you must stop this nonsense—”

She lunged at him so quickly the guards holding her nearly lost control. “Horadrim. It means nothing, not anymore. Evil sorcerer! I trusted you, but you are a vessel for him just like the rest. You know what’s coming for us, don’t you? Fire and blood and the dead clawing their way from the ground, the way they did in Tristram. The earth will split, and hell will spew forth! You know it to be true! You have seen it, as I have!”

More mutters mixed with uneasy laughter rose from the crowd, cries about Gillian’s madness growing as the villagers condemned her state of mind. Clearly, she had lost control, people said. It was time to put her away for good. Gillian’s head whipped from side to side, and the rest of those near her shrank back, as if the power of her gaze would contaminate them.

“I hear them whispering; they tell me things, terrible things, about Adria and her daughter. She is cursed!”

Cain took another step, close enough to touch her. When he reached out to her shoulder, she froze, trembling. Her skin felt hot enough to scald him.

Abruptly her eyes filled with tears as she sagged between the arms of the guards, and the Gillian he had known so long ago seemed to surface for a moment. “I’m . . . sorry,” she whispered. “I am lost and confused. They . . . they told me the child must die. I had to do it. I could not stop them anymore. Help me, Deckard, please. Make them stop.”

“Hush now,” he said quietly, squeezing Gillian’s shoulder and releasing it. Then he turned back to the nobleman. “What would you have me do?”

“There’s a madhouse in the north end of the city,” the nobleman said. “It may be appropriate, in this case. We cannot have her among the public. Many people are worried enough about their own lives, and her screaming about the end of the world only makes things worse.”

The nobleman had folded his arms across his chest and seemed ready to march them both off to the gallows as an alternative. The crowd murmured, many heads nodding in agreement. Cain looked around again at the faces surrounding them, all of them openly hostile and suspicious. A great sadness filled him, a sense of the loss of one of the few people who remained from his life many years before. Gillian needed more care than he alone could give. Her encounters with demons had corrupted her mind and soul, perhaps forever; she may well still be possessed by them. She had seen things that nobody else here in the crowd could have possibly understood, had faced down her own demons and lived to tell about it. People had been ripped limb from limb in front of her, babies eaten by the ravenous undead, heads impaled upon stakes by gibbering imps who had bathed in the townspeople’s blood. Yet the strength within her, the nobility of her inner battle, would remain lost on the people around her now. Only Cain knew the truth: she was more of a hero than any of them could ever dream of becoming. The great tragedy that followed her like a black, looming cloud would finally be her undoing.

Cain wiped a tear from his eye. There was nothing more he could do for her. He still sensed the anger and fear in the crowd, and the danger of real violence was growing. But he had promised Adria years ago that Leah would remain safe. He could not abandon that promise now.

He gave the nobleman a short nod. “I will keep the girl,” he said. “I know of relatives who will take her in.”

“You will leave the city immediately?”

“At first light.”

The nobleman seemed to consider this for a moment. If he doubted Cain’s story, it was too much trouble for him to admit it. Finally he nodded. “Be gone with you both, then,” he said. “The fire is out, and these fine citizens need to return to their beds.” He turned to the crowd. “Go home, everyone.”

“No.” Gillian began to writhe and kick again, and her shouting filled the night air. “How could you? Deckard!” The two men dragged her away from the rest of them as she began to fight harder. “You will see!” she screamed. “You have been blind, but you will all see soon enough! Caldeum will be filled with Hell itself, and you will wish I had burned it to the ground!”

As they reached the street corner, Cain heard one of them grunt and curse as Gillian landed a blow, and suddenly she was free. Bedlam washed over the crowd as she rushed back toward Cain, her hands raised above her head and her fingers curled like claws, face blackened with soot, her eyes wild. She looked like a true madwoman, and men and women shrank away as she appeared to be ready to murder them all.

But as she reached him, time seemed to stop as she sank against his body and clutched him close, her breath hot against his ear. “Go to Kurast,” she whispered. “They are waiting for you there, Deckard. Your brothers. Take Leah and go, please, and search for Al Cut! It is our only chance.”

Before he had the chance to react or say a word, the guards were upon her. They yanked her brutally to the ground, turning her on her face and pulling her arms behind her until she shrieked in pain. “Wait!” Cain shouted, but they ignored him, pulling Gillian to her feet again and dragging her away. He stepped forward to follow, but the nobleman grabbed his arm, and the crowd closed in again, their voices raised in anger and fear.

The guards turned the corner, disappearing from sight. Then he heard a muffled thud, and the screaming ceased. Cain ached for Gillian to the very core. The Caldeum madhouse awaited her, full of the worst cases of the insane and the damned, those who were locked up and harnessed, chained to the walls, their voices ragged from shouting. They were drugged and beaten, and he had heard that some doctors there still practiced the barbaric rituals of years before, drilling holes in skulls to release pressure and dull the spirits of those who could not rest.

His heart breaking, the old man almost went after them again, but he knew he could not. There were far larger things at stake, and no matter how he felt about Gillian, he could not allow her situation to distract him.

What had her last words meant? They are waiting for you there, Deckard. Your brothers. And what about the rest of it? She had mentioned Al Cut. Had he said something to her about that name when he had arrived? Or did she know something more than she had told him?

The crowd had remained for a few moments, waiting to see if anything else would happen. But now that Gillian was out of sight, the energy quickly dissipated, and people began to drift away in small groups.

The nobleman released Cain’s arm, and took one more look at him. “If I return here in the morning and find any trace of you,” he said, “I will have you thrown in jail, and the girl can go beg on the streets.”

“Your generosity is overwhelming,” Cain said.

“Watch your tongue!”

Cain took a single step forward until no more than a foot separated them. In spite of the man’s bulk, he was very short and squat, and Cain towered over him. “I believe I have, thank you. But there are other judges of character who may not be so forgiving. You should ask yourself what’s coming for you, in this life or the next.”

The nobleman blinked, a bit of color draining from his face. For a moment it seemed he might grab Cain with his own bare hands, but he had been spoiled by years of soft living. He shook his fist in Cain’s face. “Tomorrow,” he said. Then he turned and walked away.

Leah. Cain rubbed his face with his hand, trying to return some feeling to his suddenly numb flesh. His bones ached with exhaustion, and his mind worried at this new problem. Gillian had clearly entrusted her to him. But what on earth would he do with the child? His thoughts returned to that moment inside the burning house when Leah’s eyes had squeezed shut and her hands had clenched, the energy surging from her, shattering the lantern and rattling the walls. This was no ordinary little girl. And he was not equipped to deal with her.

Along with that thought came the memory of the presence that had seemed to sense the disturbance and seek it out, the black, flapping wings, and he wondered if they had barely escaped something far worse.

Deckard Cain made his way back around the corner of the house to the front, where a handful of people remained, watching the last wisps of smoke drift up from the dark interior. The door was still open, but he could not tell whether it was inviting him in or letting something out. Several men with empty buckets emerged, their faces grim and black with soot. They stomped down the steps and past him without a word or a second glance. They were protecting their own homes and families, and were interested in nothing else.

Leah was awake. She stood huddled next to James, impossibly small next to such a giant. He had taken off his cloak and draped it around her thin shoulders. Cain felt a burst of warmth for the man who had quite possibly saved their lives. Whatever else had happened here tonight, James had shown them that there was still some kindness left in the world.

The big man spotted him and turned. “She woke up just a moment ago,” he said. “Seems perfectly fine to me. I had her wait here, avoid that commotion.” He jerked a thumb toward the area where Gillian had been dragged away. His eyes showed Cain that he had heard more than he would say. Cain nodded.

He went and stood before Leah, looking down at her. The girl said nothing, clutching the cloak with both hands. Her face was streaked with soot and the remains of what might have been tears, but she retained a bit of stubborn grace as she stared back at him in silence.

“You will come with me,” he said stiffly. “Your . . . mother is no longer able to care for you due to her illness. We will find a safe place for you soon enough, and arrange for funds that will help support you until you reach an age where you can provide for yourself.” Then he added, awkwardly: “I’m . . . sorry.”

If Leah heard or understood him, she did not acknowledge it, her wide, dark eyes unblinking. In that moment Cain felt the ghosts from a day long past crowding in, among them a child who had stood before him much like this.

“You can stay with us tonight,” James said, breaking the spell. “Things will seem clearer in the morning.”

Cain realized he had been holding his breath, and he let it out in a slow hiss. He shook his head. “It’s better to leave Caldeum now,” he said.

James frowned. “It’s still dark, and she’s got nothing but the clothes on her back. The house is full of soot—”

“Thank you,” Cain said, “but I will get her what she needs.” He put a hand on James’s shoulder. “You have done more for us than we have the right to ask. But we have been ordered to leave this place or face a jail cell, and I have urgent business in another town that cannot wait.”

For a moment the big man seemed about to protest, but then he shrugged. “If you insist,” he said. He looked at Leah. When the girl tried to hand him his cloak, he waved it away. “Keep that until you find one that fits you better. It’s a lucky one, you know. Saved my life once. Maybe it’ll do the same for you.”

Leah pulled the cloak back around her shoulders. It fell well below her knees, long enough to be a dress on her. Cain shook James’s hand, then turned to Leah. “It’s time,” he said. “No sense in waiting any longer.”

Leah followed him obediently enough. If leaving her childhood home gave her any pause, raised any depth of emotion, she did not show it. As they made their way toward the city gates, Cain looked back only once and found James staring after them, still in the same spot where they had left him. He raised a hand in the man’s direction, but received nothing in return.

Outside the gates, a breeze picked up grains of sand and sent them skittering across the nearly empty road with a sound like fingernails across a board. The trade tents, empty now, flapped in the wind like the wings of gray birds disturbed in their sleep.

Cain led the way, Leah a few short steps behind. Now she dragged her feet, staring down at the dusty road, her head hanging like a convicted prisoner headed to the gallows. But she did not speak or utter a sound. Several guards looked the strange pair up and down but did not move to stop them. They were trained to keep the wrong people out of Caldeum, not prevent them from leaving.

The sun was beginning to lighten the sky, bringing a slight tinge of warmth above the mountains in the distance. They passed a small group of weary travelers in a mule-driven cart, the back piled high with colorful cloth. A small boy sat cross-legged on the top of the pile and stared somberly at them as the cart wobbled by.

A short distance farther on, they reached a fork in the road. Cain stopped, leaning heavily on his staff. To his right the road ran toward the sea, and held more travelers and was well worn; to his left, another road led toward Kurast, this one rutted and empty, weeds beginning to sprout through the dust.

Kurast. A dead city, full of rapists, murderers, and worse. What kind of place was that for a child? Yet they must go there, for the road to salvation led through it, if he was right; in Kurast, he would find an answer to the mystery of the book and the mages calling themselves Horadrim, who were there or somewhere just beyond. Cain hardly dared hope that they existed. But if so, they might be able to help with whatever was happening with Leah. And they might just hold the key to saving Sanctuary from eternal darkness.

As the two figures stood at the crossroads, it seemed as if the lightening sky turned black again, and a chill swept through the land, and Deckard Cain felt that same monstrous, unseen presence fill the night like a black cloud blotting out the stars. He thought of the protective spell that Adria had cast over her daughter’s whereabouts so many years ago, a spell that had remained intact until Cain appeared on Gillian’s doorstep. Even after that, it had held its magic. But the fire had changed something, had damaged the spell somehow, and now, whatever might have been looking for them had a window to peer through.

The voice of the demon in the Vizjerei ruins came back to him: Our master comes . . .

The chill crept into Cain’s bones and settled there, turning his aching knees to blocks of ice and sending a shiver through his body. Quickly he laid his staff down in the dirt and fumbled through his rucksack, the little girl just behind him all but forgotten in the urgency of need, his fingers like fat, dead things that would not obey his command. Finally he pulled a scroll free and cradled it in his hands as his heart raced in his chest and his blood thumped in his ears. An artifact left to him by Adria, saved for such a time as this.

They will find you before long, and if they do, this quest is over before it even begins . . .

His voice slowly gaining strength as he went, Cain uttered aloud the words of power from a scroll of misdirection and protection he had gotten from Adria long ago, casting an invisible cloak over them to hide them from sorcerers’ eyes, at least for a short time.

For so many years, he had denied the existence of Horadric power, banished the truth of his ancestry to the depths of dusty, forgotten trunks and musty, book-lined chambers, fought against his mother’s teachings, refusing to see behind the veil of what he perceived as madness. He had lived in denial, putting his trust in scholarly pursuits of a more mundane nature. But the world of magic, of demons and angels, had always been there, waiting for him to find it, the struggle of good against evil, playing out as it had for centuries, an eternal battle for control of Sanctuary and the souls of those men, women, and children who lived their lives in blissful ignorance. The power of evil was always present, and always close, like the hot breath of a beast upon his neck. Cain himself had tasted it long ago, and had spent the rest of his life trying to shut away the horrible memory, at least until the invasion of Tristram and the rise of Diablo had forced the truth upon him.

But darkness could not exist without light. Humankind was a study in contradictions, a mixture of the two, and the power to push back the darkness was there, as he knew well now; he had seen it in action many times, and had seen the things that battled against it.

As he spoke, the chill left the air, and the sky began to brighten again, until finally the words ended and Cain returned the book to his sack and picked up his staff. He was only an old man, but he had learned enough during his long years of study to keep them safe. For now. He could only pray that his search would lead them to others who were capable of far more than this. The battle that had begun in the hidden Vizjerei ruins had been fully joined, and who knew what hell might come, and how far they would all have to go before its end.

“Come, Leah,” Cain said. “It’s a long road ahead, and we must go as far as we can before night falls.”

The two travelers set off together as the sun came up over the mountains, making their way toward the dead city, and whatever else might be waiting there for them.