The Order

9 The Cavern in the Hills

He watched the two figures walking in the dust, one tall and thin, the other smaller and ten steps behind. They did not appear to be on friendly terms, although they were clearly traveling together. From this distance their features were impossible to make out, but he knew that the tall one was an old man and the smaller one a little girl.

A thrill ran through the young monk’s body. He had found them. It had taken him months of fighting through false leads and misdirection; even now, across the vast plain just beyond the city’s edge, their figures were indistinct, wavering as if viewed through a wall of water. It was not simply the heat that rose as the sun baked the ground through the swirling dust. There was magic surrounding them, and only Mikulov’s intense focus and signs from the gods allowed him to see them at all.

He crouched down behind a large boulder and wiped a thin trickle of sweat from his eye. His breathing remained calm and even, his heart rate steady, but he was not satisfied with his state of being. Although he had waited for this moment, his reaction was unsettling, and thrills of excitement and beads of sweat were signs that his body was not in perfect harmony with his mind. His masters would have been disappointed. The Ivgorod monks held a legendary control over themselves created from years of study, and in moments of stress their minds often left the physical realm and ascended to a higher state of being, becoming one with all things, as the Patriarchs had intended.

Mikulov slipped silently away from his hiding place, working his way back into the hills. He moved like a ghost among the statues of dusty rock and withered trees; even the small, lightning-quick lizards that sunned themselves in the baking heat never moved at his approach. He would wait until the man and the child were away from the city before he revealed himself to them. The gods would provide the time and place.

The Patriarchs had taught him that he was a weapon, a living, breathing instrument. Through him, the Patriarchs would destroy the foul influences that corrupted this world. He must be willing to accept that destiny, and act upon it.

Mikulov had entered the Floating Sky Monastery as a young boy, as countless others had before him. He was quickly singled out from his peers because of his natural abilities of speed, agility, and a sharp mind, and his masters spent the next fifteen years with him, teaching him the ways of the gods, the tactics of battle, and the path to salvation. The gods were in all things, his masters said. They taught him to meditate for hours on end, to seek the quiet center of being, where self-consciousness dissolved and the human mind became one with all things, built to serve the Patriarchs.

But Mikulov had always been restless. He was not well suited to endless contemplation, and it was against his nature to be patient, although in his masters’ minds, patience was everything. He struggled mightily with this, until one day his studies led him to an ancient book of prophecies, and everything changed.

Through the book, Mikulov became familiar with the Horadric order of mages who had battled and conquered the enemies of this world so many years ago. Ivgorod’s own prophecies seemed to predict the Horadrim’s role in a coming battle, one that would eclipse all others in scope and horror: a battle that would usurp the will of the gods. It wasn’t long before he began to dream about this war between the gods. Although vague at first, his dreams were unsettling, and left him each morning with a feeling of unease and loss he could not overcome.

Over the following months, the dreams became worse, and far more specific: visions of the dead walking the earth, commanded by a terrible man with a shrouded face.

The Dark One. This man was consumed by a hatred that burned as hot as the sun, and he would lead Sanctuary into oblivion. But beneath the surface was something else, something far more ancient and deadly, that commanded the Dark One to act. If he were not stopped, the ancient entity would rise up and consume everything in its path.

Mikulov continued his studies with an increased sense of urgency, convinced that the war was coming sooner than anyone understood. The signs were everywhere, and the prophecies he uncovered foretold an event that would occur on the first day of Ratham, the month of the dead, when the stars would align in a moment of terrible power and destruction.

A lost city would rise, and with it, Hell would come to all of them. The gods had foreseen it.

Eventually his masters began to see the signs as well, and interpret them. The world’s delicate balance had been disrupted; a secret plague was descending over Sanctuary; evil was bleeding into the world, its minions becoming ever bolder, darkness spreading across the land. But in spite of his pleadings, the Patriarchs’ instruction was clear: it was not yet time to engage the enemy, and he was not ready.

Ivgorod monks simply did not defy their masters, and Mikulov spent many nights struggling to know what path he must take. He looked for signs from the gods. The dreams continued, growing in intensity, but the Patriarchs still would not act. Finally, in spite of his own turmoil and terrible sense of loss, Mikulov decided to leave the monastery and search out the Horadrim on his own to offer his assistance.

It was a life-changing decision, one that he knew might very well lead to his death. The monastery was the only true home he had ever known, and his masters would never welcome him back again. The Patriarchs might even order his execution. But he was haunted by what he saw when he closed his eyes at night, and he knew that he must act or his life would no longer have meaning. Either way, he would cease to exist.

If this was his path, he must take it. The gods would not rest until he did.

He set out on his journey with a heavy heart. Finding any trace of the Horadric order turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated. The order had vanished from Sanctuary, the last of their kind apparently having died out long ago. But eventually he found that the demonic uprising that had spread to Kurast and Mount Arreat several years before had begun in the former Horadric monastery in Tristram. From there it did not take him long to find Deckard Cain.

This was his only link to the Horadrim, and Mikulov would not miss his chance. He followed the old man in secret for months, losing his trail in one place only to pick it up again somewhere else. More than once he was close enough to see Cain, but the time was not right to make contact.

He listened to the gods as they spoke to him through the wind, the rain, the rivers, and wildlife. He would engage with Cain when they chose for it to happen.

Perhaps soon, in the hills above Caldeum, he would get his chance.

There was evil here.

Mikulov sensed it, hovering somewhere out of sight. The wind whispered it to him as the sun’s rays gave a momentary pulse of heat. The lizards scurried to safety, puffs of dust marking their passage.

With a breath of air, the gods instructed him to look up. Far above his head, carried by the hot winds rising from the desert, black birds were circling.

A sense of great danger overwhelmed him. The ground ahead offered him shelter. He slipped between two large slabs of rock and into a dark, shadowed crevice, away from prying eyes.

The air was even warmer in here, and the crevice ran deeper into the hill than he had thought. Mikulov advanced slowly as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. His sense of menace had not subsided once he had entered the narrow cave. In fact, it had gotten worse, and as he moved ahead, he felt his consciousness expand, a dreamlike haze falling over his heightened senses.

Before him he found a set of ancient, rough-hewn steps descending into the darkness, and he began to walk down, his hands out before him, feeling the moist air. Thick, rope-like cobwebs brushed his face. There was some light coming from below, enough for him to see, and the walls fell away from him as he continued, so that he had the sense of entering a vast, open cavern far below the surface. There were both great wonders and terrible dangers down here, an entire world underground, and he thought of giant spiders spinning webs across piles of rotting corpses, lurking in the shadows of dusty alcoves with a thousand glittering eyes and fangs bared and dripping, waiting for fresh blood.

The stairs seemed to continue forever. Mikulov lost track of how long he had been descending, and stopped wondering where the walls and ceiling of the cavern had gone. He had the feeling that far above him stretched a night sky littered with stars—not the sky of his own world, but that of another dimension or time. The gods would speak to him through this canopy of stars and show him the way to salvation. Somewhere below he would find the answers to all that he had been searching for, but he knew those answers could destroy Sanctuary.

He looked below and saw a wagon wheel of old, leaning buildings, the ground littered with fallen stones, silent and still, with dusty, broken streets running like spokes in all directions, and sensed that among the shadowy corners and forgotten rooms lay moldering corpses, their bony, empty sockets staring lifelessly ahead for time without end.

The lost city.

Mikulov slipped on silent feet through a crumbling stone arch. The city stretched before him, as if frozen for eternity as it had fallen, centuries before. A temple loomed to his left, its doorway open and pitch-black. Beyond it was a wide boulevard that had cracked in two, and the crevasse that yawned like a toothless mouth was glowing, as if the fires of Hell were beneath it.

Something moved in the shadows of the temple.

Mikulov glanced at the open doorway. For a moment, nothing happened, and then, moving with strange, jerking steps like a toddler just learning to walk, a creature emerged from the darkness.

It was human, or had been once. What little clothing remained hung like ribbons from the creature’s shoulders. Shards of gleaming white bone thrust through strings of leathery flesh. Its face was little more than a skull with wisps of hair and skin and grinning teeth, but it stared forward and then turned back and forth as if searching blindly for something.

It paused, its empty eye sockets focused on Mikulov.

As it stood outside the temple, another emerged from the dark, this one with more shriveled meat on its bones, then another and another. Mikulov turned to see other corpses gathering all around him, lurching forward with bony hands up and grasping. He turned back, but more had gathered behind him, cutting off the stairs to safety, and as he stood there in shock, he could hear the thunderous sound of thousands of skeletal feet marching through the streets, just out of sight.

Mikulov darted through the closest of the risen dead, feeling their cold bone-fingers kissing his shoulders before he slipped beyond them and ran ahead. As he approached the wide boulevard, he heard a shout and saw a group of people surrounded by horrible, ghoulish creatures that scampered upon all fours like dogs, their flesh pale and withered, their balding skulls gleaming. The people were cornered, their backs against the stone wall of a building. There were about six of them, one taller and thinner than the rest, his long, white hair wild around his face.

Deckard Cain.

Mikulov stood helplessly as the creatures closed in on the small circle. More of them approached on all sides, too many to count. Just beyond them stood a shadowy figure in a black robe, his features hooded. The Dark One.

The creatures fell upon the group. A thin, high scream cut through the noise of marching feet, the sound of a little girl in terror.

Mikulov ran forward as the ground began to shake, and stopped short as the crevasse before him suddenly widened. Something gigantic began to climb out of it, monstrous, armor-plated claws rising up and bracing it on both sides and a three-horned head emerging with yellow eyes burning like pools of fire. The creature rose up and towered before him, impossibly huge, more eyes opening like glowing orbs, shining like the fires of Hell itself, and its gaping maw opened, showing bone-teeth in a glistening jaw.

There was no use in fighting such a thing. He averted his eyes. The sound of deep, jarring laughter brought him to his knees as he waited for it to descend upon him.

The feeling of rough stone beneath him brought him back with a sudden jerk, and Mikulov found himself staring at a blank wall. For a long moment, he kneeled, motionless; the heat of the narrow cave he had entered was oppressive, making it difficult to breathe.

He gathered himself, got to his feet and glanced around. The cave was no more than ten feet long, and ended abruptly. There were no stairs, no cavern beneath him. Nothing he had seen was real.

Mikulov closed his eyes, seeking peace. As the images faded, he began to feel the gods once again: the whisper of sand across rock, the cry of a small animal in the distance, the heat on his skin. He allowed his pulse to return to normal.

The vision had been stronger than any that had come before it. He pondered its purpose. The gods had shown him this for a reason, but he did not know whether what he had seen would come to pass, or whether it had a different meaning that they required him to understand. Surely such a cursed place did not actually exist, and the creature that had loomed over him was so terrible it could not be flesh and blood. The thing’s laughter, the evil in its burning eyes remained with him even now, and he could not shake them.

Finally he opened his eyes. The narrow cave was still there, the walls still solid and eternal. Mikulov ducked back through the opening and into the scorching sun, looking up at the cloudless sky. Through the rippling heat, he could see that the birds had gone. His sense of immediate danger had passed. But a fresh feeling of urgency drove him forward.

His back itched where the tattoo that marked all Ivgorod monks extended from his neck halfway down his body. When he died, this tattoo would tell his life story through the eyes of the gods. He prayed it would reveal a victory against the plague that would soon descend upon Sanctuary, and that he would live long enough to see its completion.

But he would need help in the battle, from those who had fought such a plague before. If there were any Horadrim left, Deckard Cain would know how to find them. The little girl would play a central role as well; the prophecies had foretold it, but they spoke only of her strange power, and did not say how it would be wielded.

One thing was clear: he had little time left now. Ratham was nearly upon them, and the Dark One was preparing to strike.

Mikulov slipped through the baking heat, back toward the road to Kurast and his ultimate destiny.

10 Out of Caldeum

The road was empty, abandoned, the rutted tracks overgrown with a nearly colorless grass that looked like the hair on a stray dog’s back. It had been a main thoroughfare at some point but had long since fallen into disrepair. The road led through the dusty, windswept plains that surrounded Caldeum, past huge slabs of rock like sleeping giants and the monstrous skeleton of some ancient creature, its bones bleached white from the sun, then rose with the land as Cain and Leah began to ascend the slope of a hill.

Leah stopped on the top of an outcropping and looked back at the city. The sun was now higher in the sky, and the light sparkled off the waterfalls and copper domes like a tumble of jewels in the desert. Tears glimmering in her eyes mirrored the prisms of light.

My home.

She mouthed the words silently to get a feel for them, although they meant little to her. A sense of hopelessness fell over her like a smothering blanket. The truth was, although she knew the web of streets and buildings and sewers by heart, she had never felt much at home anywhere, other than in the tunnels beneath the streets. She was an outcast, even among the people of Caldeum, where she had lived her entire life. The city might have looked pretty from up here, but she knew the dark and dirty underbelly, the cruelty of the people, the filth that gathered in forgotten corners and swelled and changed until it grew into a ravenous beast, waiting to swallow you whole.

At least, that was what Gillian used to say. When Leah thought of her mother, an even more complicated set of conflicting emotions washed over her, a terrible, gut-wrenching loneliness mixed with terror that was so strong it threatened to overwhelm her. Her mother was not well: that much she understood. She remembered the paralyzing fear of two nights before, Gillian rambling about demons bathing in blood, and later dragging Leah from her bed, whatever terrible thing that might have happened avoided only by the arrival of the old man; and last night, the smoke and the flames and confusion, and the dim knowledge that somehow her mother had been responsible for the events that had led to the burning.

Leah had other memories that chronicled Gillian’s descent into madness. But she was the only family Leah had ever known. She had been there when nobody else had cared, and there had been good times too. Enough of them to matter.

She is my mother.

And that, the little girl realized, was everything. The simple fact that she was gone was enough to hurt like the deep slice of a knife. She felt shattered inside, completely lost and alone.

What would happen to her now? What would happen to Gillian? Where had they taken her?

Panic flooded to the surface, and Leah swallowed against the lump in her chest. Where was her mother? She turned to ask the old man—Uncle Deckard, she had been told to call him, although she had never received any explanation of how they might be related—but stopped before the words had left her throat. He was walking slowly up the track, leaning on his staff, his back to her. A good distance away now and growing smaller as he went.

She kept her mouth shut, cutting off the words and watching him go. He was strange, stiff and formal, and intimidating in the way a strict teacher might be in school. But Leah seemed to make him nervous. She could not understand why, but he acted as if he was afraid she might do something unpredictable at any moment, like burst into song or stand on her head or start running around screaming at the top of her lungs. Gillian had seemed to trust him, but what if he meant to sell her into slavery, or worse? She knew enough about wizardry to recognize a spell when she heard one, but she did not know what kind of spell he had uttered shortly after they had set off on their journey. And nothing had happened anyway. If he was a sorcerer of some kind, he must not be a very powerful one.

What if he practices dark magic? What if I am to be a sacrifice to the demons my mother always said were coming for me?

The thought sent chills down her spine. She had tried to forget what her mother had said, but the words kept forcing their way back into her mind.

“They want you, Leah, and if they find you, you’re never coming back from that. Never.”

Standing there on the rock, she felt as if the entire world was gone, and what remained around her was nothing but dust. She remembered the circle of boys who had teased the old beggar in the city before turning on her. I’m like that old beggar, she thought, with nobody to care about me and no place to go. She wiped at the tears that trickled down her dirty cheeks, smearing the soot that still clung to her skin, and fought against the sudden urge to go running after the old man and throw herself at his feet, even if he was almost as scary as anything else on this terrible, deserted road.

A flapping sound roused her from her trance. A huge crow had taken flight and was circling overhead, its wings as wide as her own outstretched arms. She shivered, the memory of the crow from the street coming back to her, the way its sharp beak had pulled at the dead flesh, how it had cocked its head and stared at her with beady eyes, strings of gray meat still dangling from its maw. That led to the idea of something else watching her, a being much more powerful and deadly.

Something terrible is coming . . .

It seemed as if the sky had darkened, a shadow falling over the land. Leah clutched James’s cloak and ran off the rock and along the deserted road, chasing the old man up the hill until she was close enough to feel a bit better. For better or worse, he was the only one who could protect her now. She did not know whether he cared enough for that to matter.

They camped for the night on the hard ground under the stars, Leah shivering under the cloak, and were up again at dawn. The old man gave her a few bites of bread and sips of water from a small canteen. Hours later, the sun was falling in the western sky, and still he walked on at a steady pace, speeding up slightly on downward slopes, and slowing down when the track climbed more steeply.

They had passed no one since the fork in the road, and had said little to each other for most of the day. The silence had grown into its own separate presence, like another person walking with them. Leah’s throat felt like dry stone. She had long since gone numb. Her stomach rumbled, and hunger pains bit deeply. She had had nothing but the bread and water, and her companion seemed to be oblivious to the very idea of food.

Eventually they came to a river carved into the dusty ground, its banks steep and covered with reeds. The road led to a wooden bridge that looked treacherous to cross. Underneath it the water ran black and silent. Beyond the bridge the ground rose more steeply through a rock-strewn hillside, and larger, more menacing mountains loomed in the distance.

“We’ll find a place to camp here,” the old man said. He turned to look at her, leaning on his staff, and she saw the exhaustion etched in his features, deep lines around his mouth and along his brow. He did not seem so scary now, his tall, skeletal frame more fragile than imposing.

Who was he, and where was he taking her? She wanted to ask these questions, but her fear of him kept her mouth shut. They left the road and walked a short distance along the riverbank, looking for a flat place. Dry grasses hissed across the bottom of James’s cloak as Leah followed Cain to a copse of trees that grew near the bank. They were thin and spidery, their limbs nearly bare, but the ground underneath them was dry and soft, and they provided some privacy from any prying eyes.

The heat on the dry, open path had been overwhelming, but under the trees it was shaded, and a bit cooler. The old man set his rucksack down near a flat rock. Leah approached him cautiously, ducking under a low-hanging branch. It was darker in here, and she allowed herself a brief moment to relax as her eyes adjusted to the shadows. He sat down on the rock with a heavy sigh, crossed one leg over the other, and rubbed gently at his foot. She noticed it was wrapped with cloth underneath the worn sandal. The cloth was spotted with blood.

“I noticed there were burris reeds growing at the water’s edge,” he said. “They’re tall, with gray fuzzy tops. The root makes a good salve. Would you mind fetching some?”

Leah left the cover of trees and ran to a place on the river where the reeds grew thick. She made her way down the slope, avoiding the muck at the bottom as best she could, and thrust her hands into the water, bringing it to her mouth and sucking greedily. It tasted slightly gritty and metallic, but delicious. She drank her fill until her belly rumbled and grew heavy, then plucked several reeds from the soft ground. They came up easily, their wormlike, puffy-white roots dangling from her grasp as she climbed back up the bank and returned to the trees.

Cain laid the roots on the rock, pulled another round rock the size of a fist from the ground, and rolled it across them a few times until they had been crushed into a milky paste. Then he sat down, carefully removed his sandals and the cloth wrapping his feet, and spread the white salve of the root across his raw patches of flesh, hissing slightly as if it burned him. After a long moment, he sighed and closed his eyes. “I believe there’s an element in this particular plant that numbs the pain, and the salve protects and dries out the damaged flesh so it can heal properly. Pepin helped heal many wounds like this in Tristram, after the . . .” He glanced at Leah. “I suppose you’re hungry. We need to eat to keep up our strength. Look in my rucksack; I think there’s some bread left.”

Leah needed no further invitation. She searched his sack and found a small end of a loaf under a bewildering number of books; small, mysterious boxes; and scrolls. Cain watched her devour it, and shook his head. “We should find you something more than that,” he said.

Leah followed him back down along the banks of the river to a place where a bend harbored a slow, calm pool. A tree growing on the bank spread its roots across the pool’s edge, creating a warren of shadows and a tangle of black tentacles within the muck. He filled a small water pouch from his sack, then took out a scroll and kneeled on the riverbank under the tree and read the runes inscribed upon it. Then he took the end of his staff and dipped it into the water.

A crackling, blue light shot off into the depths, and a fat, silver fish began to emerge from the murky gloom beneath the tangled roots, floating to the surface, motionless.

“Take it, quickly now,” Cain said softly. Leah reached down and scooped it up. Its body was soft and slippery. Another emerged, this one small and sleek, then another, the largest of the three. She pulled them out, one at a time. Cain stood up slowly, wincing as if his body pained him. “The words give the wood a charge, which transfers to the water. It relaxes muscles and paralyzes the fish for a time. The charge is not very powerful. But it’s far easier than baiting a hook, and it’s gotten us our supper. Now gather those up, and let’s make a fire.”

They returned to the area under the trees as the last of the light faded from the sky. She put the fish next to the large rock, and Cain built a fire pit from smaller rocks and piled dry grasses and sticks inside. The air quickly grew colder, and she found James’s cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders once again, grateful for its warmth and now-familiar smell.

The old man was clearly some sort of wizard. There were mages in Caldeum, but she had rarely seen any kind of magic other than simple street tricks, and his abilities intrigued her, despite her distrust of him. He dug into his pack again, sprinkled some sort of powder on the fire pit and struck a flint. Sparks flew and ignited the grasses, and the powder crackled and popped, smoke rising from the pit as tongues of flame began to lick hungrily at the wood.

Cain laid a flat rock across the top of the circle as the fire rose higher, and set the fish on it. Leah sat a few feet away from him as the delicious scent of them filled the night air. Her stomach rumbled again, even more loudly, and the heat from the flames warmed her hands and face. She began to relax, and that led to an unexpected trembling, and then great, shuddering sobs tore through her, a torrent of tears streaming down her cheeks.

The old man sat for a long time in silence, as if he hadn’t noticed. “I’d expected this earlier,” he said finally, without looking at her. “I know it’s difficult, for a young one, but you must remain in control. You’re having a physical reaction to trauma, now that the immediate danger has passed. It’s perfectly natural, nothing to be afraid of, Leah.”

“My—my mother, she’s—dead?”

“No, Gillian is not dead,” Cain said. Now he looked at her, and there was something in his eyes she could not read. “And she’s not your mother.”

That made her sit up, the shock of what he had said stopping her tears abruptly. She waited, heart pounding, mouth dry.

“I’ve been debating how much to tell you about this, but I see no reason to wait. Regardless of your age, you should know the truth.” The old man was watching her intently. His eyes sparkled in the firelight. She imagined two burning coals buried in the depths of black wood. “Your real mother was a woman named Adria from Tristram. A woman with very unique gifts.”

“I—I don’t believe you.”

“Adria and Gillian came to Caldeum together, to escape Tristram, where we all lived. Adria gave birth to you here, but she was never one to remain still for long. She was not the type to care for a young child. Gillian had become better settled in Caldeum; she was safe enough, and she seemed to be the best option to care for you, since Adria could not, and I . . . well, I was quite ill equipped for the job, even after I had been freed from my bonds.”

“You’re lying!”

“No,” Cain said, his voice growing firm. “I’m afraid not.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Leah, you must remain calm—”

“I—I hate you! Leave me alone!” Leah burst into fresh tears as the fire abruptly flared up with a crackling hiss. She stood and stumbled away from him and the now-nauseating smell of cooked fish, her hands outstretched in the darkness, remembering the look on Cain’s face, the way his eyes shone in the firelight.

She felt branches brushing her skin, and she thrust herself through the trees and into the cold night air, running blindly through the grass, her body threatening to bring up the hunk of bread that now sat like a stone in her belly as her mind went over the words again and again in her head: She’s not your mother . . . she’s not your mother . . .

A rage built inside her. How could he say such a thing? Everything she had been feeling, all the hopelessness and terror and loneliness, crashed over her once again. Of course Gillian was her mother; it was impossible to imagine anything different. Yet . . . hadn’t she always felt alone in a way that she could never understand? Hadn’t the boys always teased her about being an outcast, a girl with no ties to anything and no place to belong?

She remembered a violent storm that had come up over Caldeum when she was a very little girl, the wind whipping through the valley, picking up the tents and throwing them against the city walls. Gillian had hurried home, clutching Leah’s hand tightly as drops of rain as fat as grapes had begun to fall, exploding all around them, and then hail, hammering copper rooftops like drums and shattering glass. Gillian had lifted her up and run with her, and Leah had clung on for dear life until they reached the house, where Gillian had sung to her and stroked her hair, promising that the storm would pass soon and everything would be fine. A mother’s promise.

Your real mother was a woman named Adria . . .

No. Leah clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms as fear, frustration, and anger ripped up through her and exploded. She was just a little girl; there was no real way for her mind to process such a thing. A scream tore itself from her throat, expanding into the night, building ever larger until it seemed to overwhelm everything else, and her vision was filled with floating spots of light as she tripped and fell headlong to the ground.

The scream echoed back to her as something huge cracked and groaned nearby, and a great, thundering crash shook the earth. Leah clutched her hands to her head and curled herself into a tight ball, but the world seemed to be imploding around her as her entire body tingled and the pain made her scream again.

Dimly, she heard someone calling her name, then more words spoken aloud in a commanding voice, and the noise and the shuddering thunder ceased all at once.

11 Dreams of Tristram

Cain awoke with a jerk, stifling a cry. The fire he had built had died down to embers, casting shadows that seemed to move among the low-hanging branches of the trees.

Cain’s fingers crept toward a hidden pocket in his tunic, where a single sheet of brittle parchment lay nestled apart from his nest of other treasures, close to his heart. He caught himself, his heart thudding in his chest. No, he thought, remembering the boy’s face in shocking detail for a moment before pushing it away from his mind. Not that. I cannot bear to go back there again.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was the incident with the girl that had brought on his dream, almost certainly. He should never have told her about her mother in that way. He had handled the entire thing terribly. He did not know how to deal with children: how much did you share with them, and how were you to bring up such difficult subjects? Thank the archangels it hadn’t been worse.

After Leah had run off, he had chased her out of the trees, and had felt the crackling energy of whatever strange power she held inside building toward a horrible end. If she hadn’t tripped and fallen, who knew what might have happened? He had found her lying motionless and unresponsive on the ground near the river, and carried her back to the fire, where she sat slumped forward in shock.

He was finally able to get her to eat a bite of the fish, and she tore into the rest with her fingers like a starving animal. After she had eaten, she had started asking him questions, quietly at first, then with more conviction and urgency.

She had wanted to know everything. Cain had done the best he could, while trying to be sensitive to her situation. Adria had arrived in Tristram shortly after the troubles began, and had quickly become well known among those who had remained for her abilities with potions and enchanted objects, and her gift for foreseeing future events. In fact, it was that gift which saved her life when Tristram fell. But the last thing Cain had heard was a report of her death many months ago, somewhere in the Dreadlands. That had brought more tears from Leah, and one last question:

“Did she . . . look like me?”

Cain stood up, shuffling around the fire to where Leah lay on her side under James’s cloak, her eyes closed now, her face peaceful and smooth. She looked so small and helpless. How could he have treated her this way? What was wrong with him? Was it really so hard to take care of children, to be sensitive to their particular needs? Or anyone else’s needs, for that matter—his focus on his studies was a form of selfishness he could no longer afford.

For the first time, he considered turning back, finding shelter somewhere in Caldeum or beyond, as far away from Kurast as he could get.

You need to continue your search, Deckard.

His mother’s voice was so clear and strong within his own head that he looked around in the dim firelight, as if he might see her standing there. Of course he did not, yet he had the feeling that Aderes Cain was somewhere just beyond his senses, her passion for the Horadric cause keeping her bound to the mortal realm forever. Whatever its source, he knew that the voice in his head was right: they were no longer welcome in Caldeum, and to run from his destiny would only serve to prolong the inevitable. He had to keep going, tracking down the slim lead on the possible mage group in Kurast, searching for the answers to the questions raised by the books he had found at the Vizjerei ruins.

The tomb of Al Cut.

Who was Al Cut? The mystery nagged at him like an aching tooth. He wanted to find people with the right information, and shake them until it all came out. Hell was coming to Sanctuary. It was simply a matter of when.

Cain looked down at Leah. The mage group in Kurast might be able to help her control whatever strange power she had building within her, and for that reason too he must continue. He sighed, feeling that the burden of all he carried might be too heavy to bear.

Help me make the right choices for her, and for all of us.

James’s cloak had fallen away from Leah in her sleep. He pulled it back up over her shoulders, and she stirred briefly, and was still.

Something moved outside the ring of trees. The sound of panting came faintly from somewhere in the direction of the river, as though from a large dog or wolf, then a scratching, like nails on wood. Cain returned to the glowing embers, stirring them with a stick until flames sprang up, and piling on more wood until the fire began crackling and the camp grew bright enough for him to see more clearly. He went to his rucksack, looking for some kind of protective artifact or scroll, but he could think of nothing suitable. If whatever creature was out there wanted them, he was helpless to stop it.

Somewhere in the distance, an unearthly howl rose up, melancholy and haunting, before drifting away to silence. Nothing else happened. After standing quietly for some time, listening, Cain took his seat. Lulled by the warmth of the fire, he was eventually taken over by sleep once more, and thankfully he did not dream again.

12 The Walled Town

The next morning dawned bright and cold. A thin layer of frost covered the ground outside the trees. Leah’s skin was pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Cain gave her the last of the fish for breakfast, keeping only a few small bites of skin for himself.

They did not speak of what had happened the night before as they gathered their few belongings and left the camp. But a greater shock awaited them just outside. A tualang tree at least a hundred feet high had fallen directly across the bridge. Its branches lay splayed in all directions like some kind of monstrous squid, and the wooden planks had cracked at the bridge’s center and collapsed into the river. The water boiled and rushed all around it, partially flooding the banks.

It had been too dark to see last night. But Cain had heard the thundering sound of the tree falling. He had felt the pulse of energy from her. If this was her doing, what sort of immense power does she wield?

“Just some bad luck,” he said aloud. “The tree is old, the trunk rotted. You can see the damage there, by the root.” He stepped around broken branches that littered the ground, feeling the muck under his sandals, studying the problem more carefully. The river was too deep and too strong to swim, and there was no sign of any other bridges or shallow areas within shouting distance. They might be able to walk the trunk to the other side, if they could avoid the branches and keep their balance.

He warned Leah to stay away from the sap, which was irritating to the skin, and used his staff to keep his feet steady as he climbed up onto the tree and began to navigate through, pushing branches aside and squeezing through others, one step at a time. He was reminded of the narrow, rocky passage in the Vizjerei ruins, and that made him think of poor Akarat, and his terrible fate; for a moment he almost imagined the paladin just ahead of him, urging him forward. But of course nothing was really there, and when he glanced back, he saw Leah close behind, her small face somber and determined.

The bridge groaned ominously, pieces of its structure tumbling into the raging rapids. Finally Cain reached the end, where the shattered trunk sent thick splinters of wood like spikes in all directions, and as he climbed over the trunk, a large splinter caught at his tunic, scratching deeply into the skin of his side. A burning pain raced through him before he pulled himself free and limped to the ground. Cain touched the spot and found traces of blood.

Leah jumped down lightly a moment later. All at once, with a shriek and a great, earth-shaking crash, the entire structure collapsed into the river. Plumes of water shot thirty feet into the air, the surface churning and boiling as the two travelers were instantly soaked through by the spray. Cain stumbled backward, his heart in his throat. A few moments earlier and they would have been killed.

One thing was certain: there was no turning back now.

They kept to a steady pace as the sun rose in the sky and banished the last of the night’s chill. Cain used his staff to bear as much of his weight as he could, but his feet were growing worse, and his knees and back were threatening to give out. And now he had a new wound, which had begun to throb dully. He felt unbearably old.

As the morning stretched into afternoon, the road began to climb slowly into the hills. It had not taken a direct route to Kurast, instead going east to the river before taking a turn to run south. Rising above them in the distance, the mountains ran down the length of the land as though across the back of some giant sea monster.

Cain found the going even tougher here as the heat swelled, the ground rockier and more rutted than before. It was well past noon now; they had finished the last of the water from the small pouch, but there was nothing on the horizon to indicate a place where they might stop for more. They hadn’t seen a single soul since they had left Caldeum.

Three hours later, they passed a well-worn footpath that branched out to the right and disappeared into the hillside. Just beyond it they came to a steeper pass cut into the hills that had been overrun with boulders. The two cliff faces on either side were nearly sheer, and the rockslide was almost thirty feet high between them.

The two travelers stood at the foot of the rock-strewn track. The road was completely blocked.

He consulted a map from his rucksack. The path they had just seen should lead them around this pass. They could rejoin the road a few miles farther on, as it looped back. “We’ll take the long way around,” he said. “Come on.”

Leah didn’t move. She stared at the slide, her little face screwed up in concentration. “There’s someone here,” she said.

Cain leaned on his staff and studied her. “Why would you say that?”

She shrugged and looked around at the hills that seemed to loom over them in the sunshine. “It’s scary out here. I feel like there’s someone watching us.”

Cain stopped to catch his breath and look around. He had had the nagging feeling for some time now that they were being watched as well. He scanned back down in the direction they had come, and gazed at the hills above them, looking for some kind of hiding place where a man might take cover. At first he found nothing—no movement, no sense of a presence lurking anywhere. But then he thought he heard a very slight sound, like the scraping of something against rock.

A stream of pebbles trickled down the embankment.

The people there will take what they can from you and leave you to die on the road, Kulloom had said. And there are other things . . . Things that are not so kind.

Cain glanced at Leah, who was continuing to stare up at the pile of rock, her face ashen. It would not do to spook her. Even if they were not alone, whatever might be watching could be some kind of animal, or it might be someone perfectly harmless, who simply preferred to remain hidden.

No reason to think it might be something . . . unnatural.

“I’m quite sure we’re alone, Leah.”

The little girl did not seem convinced. She crossed her arms and hugged herself. “Why haven’t we seen more people? And where are we going, anyway?”

“A city called Kurast.”

Leah’s eyes grew wide. “That’s a bad place.”

“Now, Leah—”

“My moth—Gillian told me it was haunted. Why would you want to take me there?” She took a step away from him. “You—you want to sacrifice me to some dark magic, don’t you?! You don’t want to help me at all. You’re . . . you’re a sorcerer who summons demons! Mother told me about people like you!”

Leah’s gaze went from side to side. Cain tried to offer reassurances, but he was at a loss for words; speaking more plainly or offering a logical solution, the way he might when dealing with an adult, did not seem to work with her.

He took a step forward and immediately knew he had made yet another mistake, but it was too late. Leah bolted back down the road for the path like a frightened rabbit, running as fast as her little legs would carry her.

“Wait!” Cain hobbled off the road after her, but the path was steep, and his knees began to protest more loudly. He thought about the long road he had ahead of him, the dangers he would face, and the problems a little girl could cause if she would not obey him. He watched her growing smaller as she continued up the hill, and kept on as quickly as he could, leaning on his staff for support, calling out to her again as she crested the top and disappeared.

Fresh panic washed over him, along with the memory of those lost and never found. The path seemed to widen and change before him, and for a moment he saw, with horrible clarity, an overturned wagon, one wheel still spinning, bright red blood splashed across its spokes as it flicked lazily around in the sunlight.

Cain blinked, wiping away the vision. He swallowed back a shriek of terror; his hand was in his sack again, fingers touching the folded paper in the hidden pocket. He withdrew his hand as if it had been scalded.

The path was empty, a desolate stretch of parched ground. The breath wheezed harshly in his lungs, and his throat grew tight. Why did children never listen, even when it was for their own good?

The day had turned darker by the time he neared the crest. Cain spotted her in the growing gloom. She was sitting on a rock a few feet off the path, head in her hands. At first he thought she was crying, but when she looked up, her face was dry.

“It’s no use,” she said. “I’ve nowhere to go, and nobody to help me.”

Cain stopped, leaning over on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His heart was like a runaway horse galloping through his chest. A wind came up, ruffling Leah’s cloak and bringing a chill deep into Cain’s bones.

Finally he straightened. “I’m trying to help you, Leah,” he said, as he got his wind back. “But you can’t . . . run off like that. You must understand that there are things . . . the road to Kurast is a dangerous one. A child could disappear in an instant, with nobody to witness what happened!”

“Are you trying to frighten me even more?”

Cain gathered himself for a moment, regaining control. “I am simply telling you the truth. It is my way, to speak plainly. There is evil in this world, things you cannot imagine. There are goatmen and demons and creatures even worse than that. It’s best to be cautious and prepared.”

Fresh shock whitened Leah’s face. For a moment he thought she might cry again, but she simply stood up off the rock, and when she looked at him again, her face was full of a child’s righteous anger. “Gillian used to talk like that too,” she said. “You’re strange. I don’t think I like you much.” She pointed down the other side of the hill. “I want to go there. Maybe they could help us.”

A small town seemed to squat in the valley below, ringed with a high stone wall and jungle, heavily fortified and partially hidden by a mist that had arisen suddenly and had begun creeping up the hillside. The town appeared dark and lifeless at first, but then a single light flickered like a beacon through the mist and seemed to dance, as if someone with a lantern was moving through the streets.

In his panic, Cain hadn’t even noticed it. He should have been relieved, but the bouncing light only served to deepen the sense of isolation, and after another moment it flickered again and went out.

He consulted his map again, but the little town did not appear on it. He peered through the gloom at the path they were on, which led down the other side of the hill and through the trees. It wouldn’t take them long to reach the gates. If they hurried, they could be there before the stars became visible.

Something about the entire scene worried him; there was a weight to the air, a sense of foreboding that he had learned over the years not to ignore. But they had little choice, he thought. Without food or water, they would not get much farther.

“Come on then,” Cain said, starting down the hill. “No sense in waiting here any longer. Let’s see if they’re hospitable.”

Another gust of wind swept over them, stronger this time. The wind brought the foul smell of rot along with it, like a stagnant bog, as the mist swallowed the ground below. When he glanced back, Leah was following him, clutching the cloak tightly to her throat.

The muscles of Cain’s thighs trembled with fatigue as he descended the steep path. He had not eaten since the few morsels of fish skin that morning, and although his body had been trained over his many months of wandering to expect this kind of treatment, he knew that it was only a matter of time before he would not be able to take another step.

You are an old man, he thought, as he had dozens of times already during the past few weeks. You should be dozing on a farmer’s porch somewhere with a cup of tea, not out in the wilds searching for demons. As he walked, the boy from his dream the night before stayed with him, but of course it had not really happened that way. The boy had been gone for decades.

By the time they neared the town, night was close. They walked down a wide, gravel road flanked by tall, spindly trees nearly bare of leaves. The iron gates to the town remained shut, but two large men materialized from a well-concealed door in the stone wall. The guards were as tall as Cain and nearly twice as wide. They wore leather-trimmed breastplates and held double-bladed battle-axes.

The deepening gloom bled the color from the air. The mist was thicker here. It clung to the ground and swirled around the guards’ legs, making them appear to be floating apparitions cut off at the knees.

The two guards stepped closer together, blocking the way to the gates. They said nothing, their faces impassive, vaguely threatening.

“We have come many miles, and seek lodging,” Cain said. “We are unarmed and will pay for food and a bed to sleep in. We’ll be on our way in the morning.”

Cain went to his rucksack for a piece of gold, but the guards swung their axes into fighting position and stepped forward, ready to attack.

A shout came from behind the gates, and several figures materialized from the thickening mist. Two more guards released the locks and swung the gates open with a loud, squealing scream of metal as the guards stepped aside, standing at attention.

The man who walked through the gates was tall and cadaverously thin, with long, black hair swept away from his forehead. He wore expensive silk robes and gold jewelry on his fingers, and his smile was wide and friendly. He spread his long arms, as if welcoming home a favorite family member.

“I do apologize for these two,” he said, and waved a hand in the direction of the guards. “We are not normally so suspicious, but the times demand it, I am sorry to say. I am Lord Brand. You are on your way to Kurast?”

“We are,” Cain said, introducing himself. “And in need of your hospitality.”

“And you shall have it.” Lord Brand’s gaze swept over Leah, his glittering eyes seeming to linger upon her face for a little too long as his smile widened further. “Who might this be?”

“My niece,” Cain said. “Forgive me, but she is hungry. We’ve come a long way, and have not eaten since this morning.”

A howl went up from somewhere beyond them, the sound echoing through the valley, bringing chills to Cain’s spine. Brand looked to the trees, his smile fading, and he stepped aside, motioning them forward. “You’ll stay at my manor,” he said. “We should get behind the walls. These days it is not safe to remain outside after dark.”

The guards fell in behind as the small party walked through the gates and into the town. A dozen townspeople waited there with their lanterns held high. They all wore the same shapeless, gray clothing, and all of them stood with slack faces, their skin the color of their clothes. They had the skeletal look of the terminally ill, with sunken features and filmy eyes. Several of them muttered under their breath as if to themselves, and their gaze did not meet Cain’s as he passed. He wondered what strange illness might be sweeping the little town, and considered turning back with Leah and taking their chances in the jungle.

But the strange procession had its own momentum. He was swept along as Brand took the lead, and the sound of the gates clanging shut behind them rang through the empty streets like a harbinger of doom.

13 Lord Brand’s Manor

A few lights flickered in the windows of houses as they proceeded toward the center of town, but Leah did not see anyone else, and after a few minutes she dropped her gaze to her own feet and simply followed along behind Deckard Cain.

She had begun to regret asking him to come here. Something about this place made her terribly afraid, but she did not know why. Lord Brand acted friendly enough, but he looked strangely tall and misshapen, with his arms and legs so long and thin, and his smile made him look hungry.

The streets reminded her of home, with their looming stone houses and storefronts and narrow alleyways that seemed to lead nowhere. But Caldeum had been full of noise and activity during the early evening hours. There was no life here, nobody out shopping or headed to the local tavern for a drink and a meal. The townspeople walking with them muttered to themselves like madmen, their faces looking as though they hadn’t slept well in months. She was only eight years old, but she was perceptive for her age; Gillian had always told her that she could read people better than most adults. And what Leah felt about this place made her stomach churn.

She risked a glance at Cain, who was just ahead of her. He was favoring his right leg more heavily now, leaning on his staff with each step. When they had first met, he had seemed impossibly old to her, with his wrinkled face, white hair, bushy eyebrows, and long, stringy beard, and now he appeared to be about to collapse.

What if he falls down dead here, in the middle of the road? What will become of me?

At the thought of that, Leah’s fear became a near full-blown panic. She had run from him earlier because she had thought he was dangerous, but as odd as he was, he had done nothing other than try to protect her so far. Without him, Leah would be entirely alone. Now they were surrounded by people she trusted even less, and the old man was the only thing between her and starvation, or far worse.

She had had terrible dreams last night, of monsters that attacked her. She stared at the dark alleys on either side, imagining things watching them. Goatmen with glowing eyes and bloody mouths. Demons, looking for blood. They want you, Leah, and if they find you, you’re never coming back from that. Never. A sewer grate beckoned, its iron bars like teeth; she imagined claws wriggling up through it, grasping at her feet.

Another howl rose up from somewhere in the distance. The small procession stopped abruptly, and Leah stared at what appeared to be a small castle. It had its own stone walls and gate, a smaller ring inside the town’s larger one, and was built on the highest point of land, so that it appeared to loom over them. There were so many angles, turrets, and roofs it was impossible to make sense of its shape, and Leah became dizzy and looked away.

Lord Brand turned to face them with another broad smile. “My home,” he said, as two of the guards opened the gates and stepped aside, standing at attention. “The Brand manor. You are most welcome here, for as long as you like.”

Something about his voice brought deeper chills to Leah’s spine. She glanced around at the houses that huddled against the night, and for a moment she was sure she saw movement in the shadows, something that slithered like tentacles, but when she focused on the spot, there was nothing there at all.

Cain and Leah followed Brand and the guards through the gates and up the huge, sweeping front steps, leaving the other townspeople behind. The double doors of the manor opened with a slow screech, revealing a cavernous entry hall with an enormous fireplace at the far end and a fire roaring in the hearth. Torches blazed on the walls, illuminating a series of elaborate tapestries hanging by iron hooks. A breath of air guttered the torches and set the tapestries fluttering, their shadows moving across the stone floor like black wings.

The fire seemed to do little for the cold, which made Leah shiver and draw her cloak more tightly around her thin frame. There was a strange smell in the air. She looked up, but the ceiling arched so far above her head that she could barely make it out. She clutched her arms to her chest and tried to think of warm summer days, but the darkness closed in again, making her want to scream.

Brand’s footsteps echoed as he led them through the hall. They seemed to walk far longer than they should, but when Leah glanced back, she was surprised to find that they had barely moved; the entry doors were just a few steps away.

Eventually they reached another large room, with an enormous wooden table set for a meal. A gray-haired woman who might have been about Gillian’s age stood muttering to herself. Brand clapped his hands, and she immediately scurried off.

“We were about to sit down for supper,” Brand said. “Fill your bellies, and then I would be pleased to hear more about your travels.”

Leah sat down with Cain at one end of the table. A few moments later the servants returned with heaping platters full of steaming food: whole chickens skewered on blackened sticks; thick, juicy slices of red meat; asparagus; potatoes; and loaves of warm bread. In spite of herself, Leah’s stomach rumbled, and she and Cain sat down at one end of the long table and dug in as Brand settled across from them and watched intently with his fingers steepled before his nose, the ghost of a smile still on his face.

The food was strangely tasteless, but Leah didn’t care; it was hot, and there seemed to be an endless supply. She tore into a leg of chicken, juices running down her chin, and ripped off a chunk of bread to mop up the pool of salty broth on her plate. The potatoes burned her fingers, but she ate them anyway, and washed them down with a mug of wine.

Next to her, Cain ate in silence. Brand never took a single bite and simply watched them without comment, occasionally gesturing to the servants to bring more of one thing or another as supplies ran low.

Leah ate until she could not eat another mouthful. The remaining strings of meat on her plate were too rare and oozing pink fluid; she swallowed against the gorge that suddenly swelled in her throat, and as she looked around, the room filled with shadows that pooled in the corners and crept like black mist.

“So tell me,” Brand said, breaking the silence. “What is your business in Kurast?”

Cain looked up from his plate. His eyes looked glassy in the firelight. “I’d rather not say,” he said. “But I can offer you payment for your hospitality.” He took out a gold nugget and placed it on the table.

“Fair enough. But I won’t take your gold. We don’t get many visitors here, but those who come tend to stay for longer than they expect.”

“We’ll be gone in the morning.”

“Perhaps.” Brand shook his arms to free them from the cuffs of his robe, and the fabric fluttered. A deck of cards appeared in his hand. “You look like you’re searching for something, my friends. Let me offer you a reading. The cards can suggest a possible future and can help you find the right way forward.”

He let the cards drift through his long fingers like water flowing over a drop, deftly flicking one out to the table, then another, and another. They were oversized and thick, painted with bright red and black figures; the first showed a scroll, the next a sorcerer with a serpent around his waist, the third a man on a wheeled chariot being pulled by two mules, one black, one white. “Taratcha is a misunderstood art,” Brand said. He stopped the soft rain of cards from one hand to another and placed the remaining deck on the table. “The word comes from turaq, which means ‘pathways.’ There are always multiple paths open to you. There is nothing inherently wrong with the cards themselves. But there are those who shy away from the truth, finding it too difficult to bear.” He tapped an upturned card with a shiny fingernail. “The Scroll of Fate. Changes are coming, your destiny awaits you. Forces are gathering on the horizon, something momentous.” He tapped another. “You see here, the Sorcerer. I can tell you are under great stress, and time is a heavy weight upon your necks. There are heavy choices to make, but you are resourceful. This quest consumes you, yet you are uncertain about its outcome. The answers may come from within, or from another who can bring about a transformation.” He tapped a third card. “Here, the Wheeled Chariot. It moves between spiritual planes. This can represent a great battle that can be won, if you have the strength to see it through. But it requires control over forces that may consume you and opposing needs that may pull you apart. You must overcome these opposites and bring them together in order to triumph. The Wheeled Chariot suggests a great conviction to overcome, but also an inner focus that may destroy others around you.”

Brand swept up the cards, then picked up the deck again. This time when he let the cards flow, flicking out one after another, he kept his hypnotic gaze on Cain’s face, and the cards seemed to float in slow motion before settling before them, face up. Leah saw a hooded man with wings of light, a warrior swinging a giant sword, and a tall, dark tower struck by lightning. The last one disturbed her; she could see figures falling from the tower, looks of terror on their faces.

“Justice,” Brand said. “This is paired with the second card, Judgment. There is a great tragedy in your past that must be overcome, balance restored. You are preoccupied with that tragedy, even as you try to ignore it. But it will be resurrected whether you like it or not. You must face a moment of reckoning for what you have done.”

He tapped the last card with the tall building rising up from a jagged, broken plain, its black surface cutting through storm clouds and looming over what appeared to be a city far below. Leah looked more closely at what appeared to be creatures below it, reaching up for the falling men. There was something terrifying about the card, a darkness that spread through the room. The card’s contents seemed to change as she watched, growing more detailed, the creatures writhing upon its surface.

“The Black Tower,” Brand said, his eyes focused upon Cain’s face, a slight smile on his lips. “An ill omen, I’m afraid. Chaos and destruction may come to you. Something long lost will rise again. Along with it, an epiphany and, again, transformation, as with the Sorcerer. This may be brought about by you or another, but it will come, and you will never be the same.”

Leah’s stomach churned. The card’s contents swirled and shifted, and she looked away. For a moment, what she saw did not register to her shocked senses; the food on her plate had changed. Instead of the remnants of a fine meal, the plate held strings of raw, glistening gristle and matted fur, along with a long, hairless tail curled across its edge that twitched once, and was still.

Leah shoved the plate away from her in terror and disgust as Brand appeared to grow in size, looming over the table like some kind of giant. As the room started to spin and it became harder to breathe, Leah began to see him as a monstrous, beady-eyed crow, head to one side, studying them as a bird might study a carcass on the road before pecking at the meat.

A woman came to clear her plate. The woman did not look at her or speak at all, and Leah noticed bruises on her neck, as if she’d been choked. She wanted to scream, but something was wrong with her throat. The room still spun lazily around her, but she could not make herself move. Her body clenched down hard, threatening to throw up all the food she had eaten.

“I don’t feel so well,” she said thickly. “I don’t—I don’t think—”

Lord Brand stood up so quickly the chair nearly tipped over. “You must be exhausted from your long journey,” he said. “Let me show you to your rooms. We can talk more tomorrow.”

Cain tried to stand as well. The old man’s eyes were drooping, his body sagging as if he could barely hold himself upright. Leah couldn’t seem to focus. She could not move her legs.

More of the gray, lifeless townspeople materialized from nowhere and helped them from their seats, holding their arms as they followed Brand like dull sheep through the huge manor.

The rooms seemed to go on forever, with many archways and doors leading off in different directions. Most of the doors were closed, and Leah heard thumps and low moans coming from behind them. The ceiling lowered itself above their heads, until it seemed they were walking through a narrow tunnel, cobwebs hanging in the corners, the walls dripping with moisture and covered in a strange green moss. She thought she might be dreaming, but the hands holding her up felt real; she looked at them and saw curved, yellow talons, and she tried again to scream but managed only a whisper.

Finally they ascended a stone staircase. The manor seemed to go on forever, the upper hallway receding to a pinpoint beyond these chambers, so that Leah got the feeling she was in some kind of magical structure that might house thousands. When she glanced behind them, she did not see the staircase they had ascended, even though it should have been right there.

The others were carrying her entire weight now, and when she looked at the old man, his head was slumped, his feet dragging along the floor. Darker shadows lurked, and flickering candles were set at far intervals in small recesses in the walls, leading to a set of adjoining rooms.

“Here we are,” Brand said, his long arms outstretched, directing them into a sleeping chamber with a four-poster bed in the middle that was large enough for five people. The thought of his touching her made Leah want to scream. “This should suffice. The young lady may sleep here, if she prefers.” He motioned to a second, smaller room, connected by an open door.

Cain stumbled, and Brand was at his side in an instant, saying something in his ear in a voice too low for Leah to hear. He led Cain to the bed and sat him down on it. “Sleep as long as you like. We hope you’ll be comfortable here.”

Leah tried to protest, to say something that would break the silence and make Cain wake up from his trance; but she found herself growing ever sleepier, her limbs being drawn down toward the floor and becoming impossibly heavy, and her eyes closing of their own accord, and she shuffled forward to the other room, nodding. She thought she saw Gillian standing there, waiting with open arms, but it was the Gillian she remembered from years ago, and not the one who had lost her mind and tried to kill them all. This Gillian was kind and gentle, and sang to her at night, and tucked her in as a real mother should.

Come to bed, Gillian said, and as Leah climbed onto the soft covers and closed her eyes, she thought for just a moment that Gillian’s arms had begun to grow longer and darken, shriveling into something else that slithered up the sides of the bed to wrap her in a black, soundless cocoon, before sleep took her and she drifted dreamlessly through an endless ocean.

14 A Stranger Comes

Deckard Cain dreamed of fire and blood. He was caged like an animal, hanging from a pole twelve feet off the ground as grotesque, gibbering demons laid waste to the last remains of his beloved Tristram.

They had returned shortly after Aidan had left the town in the dark of night. The siege on Tristram had not been over, after all, and the creatures that had descended upon it were far worse than ever before. They fed on human flesh, tearing the corpses on the ground limb from limb, chasing after those few townspeople who remained alive. The entire world had fallen into anarchy, and he, last of the Horadrim, the one remaining hope of a long and proud line of heroes, crouched impotently in his own filth, waiting to die.

In his dream, a new man appeared; his face was hooded by a dark robe, his back hunched, and he pointed a long, bony finger in Cain’s direction. The finger grew into a blackened, twisting sliver of wood, curling toward the cage, wrapping around it, weaving through the bars until they had been almost completely covered. Then the tendril of wood began to squeeze. Metal groaned and popped, and Cain huddled in the center of the cage as everything collapsed around him, pushing in on all sides until he could no longer breathe.

He was consumed, lost, abandoned, and forsaken. He was no Horadrim, and no hero. He would die here, alone, while Diablo’s two brothers, Mephisto and Baal, destroyed Sanctuary, once and for all.

Cain awoke gasping into shadows, his body flushed and covered in sweat, the covers of the bed wrapped so tightly around his body he couldn’t move. At first he remembered little about how he had gotten there, but slowly the memories began to return, and he recalled entering the strange little town, the residents all walking silently with their heads down, led by the mysterious Lord Brand, and the meal at his table, with its seemingly endless supply of food. After that, all memory was gone.

Cain cursed himself for being so careless. There was evil here, although Brand’s purpose remained unclear. What had he done to them? And who was really behind this?

Cain tried to sit up, but could not. His arms were pinned to his sides, his legs immobile.

These were no bedsheets.

The room was lit by the remains of a single candle in an alcove in the wall, sputtering down to the last half inch of wax. The flickering flame sent shadows dancing across the walls. The bed was covered with a mass of rough and tangled roots, pulsing and slithering and tightening like black snakes around him. They had grown right up out of the floor, encasing his body. As he watched in horror, more of them wriggled through cracks in the wood, growing longer and thicker as they slid up the side of the bed and whipped around it to hold him fast, their hairy sides sticking and pulling at his skin.

His staff and rucksack were sitting in the corner, out of reach.

Leah. Cain struggled, but the roots only tightened even more until it became difficult to breathe. Where was she? Was she safe?

More shadows fell across the bed. Lord Brand loomed over him, his servants behind him in gray, hooded robes. The people were chanting in low voices, and they held lanterns so that the room filled with an orange glow.

Brand held up a hand, and they stopped at once, standing like statues behind him. Brand was smiling again in that predatory way, and his eyes were bright, searching Cain’s features for something that was not clear. “Did you think you would be allowed to go to Kurast alone? To find the answers you seek?”

“Release us—”

“You will remain here, for now. Our master commands it.”

“Who is your master?”

Brand looked away, the smile fading from his face. “We are born from darkness, into light, and He shall lead us back to the fires from which this world was forged—”

“Enough!” Cain said. He tried to shout a warning to Leah, but his voice came out as a hoarse cry. The hairy roots slithered again, tightening painfully across his chest. He groaned.

Brand’s gaze fixed on his. “You are weak, Deckard Cain. You search for others to do your dirty work for you, yet you call yourself Horadrim. Those who put their trust in you have known only pain. The cards speak the truth: chaos and destruction is coming for you, and you will face a final judgment for what you have done.”

Cain reeled, as if from a blow. Brand knew exactly where to strike: Cain’s deep fear of cowardice, selfishness, and regret. I have failed. Foul demons were at work; he must not let them see his weakness. Yet he had no access to a spellbook, nothing to use that might free him from their clutches.

“How do you know who I am?”

“I know you are an old fool,” Brand hissed suddenly, thrusting his head forward like a cobra about to strike. “The plagues of Hell are coming. And they will destroy this world and all it has been, and the gates of the High Heavens will fall. We cannot stop them, but we can avoid the eternal hellfires if we do what must be done, if you are sacrificed, and the girl is given up—”

A high scream came from the adjoining room. Cain jerked his head to the right, trying to see into Leah’s room. One of the cultists was standing in the open doorway, his back to them; he stumbled and fell, as if shoved by a powerful hand.

The temperature in the room dropped, and a now-familiar charge tightened the air around them. Lord Brand stepped away from Cain’s bed, his hawk-like features registering shock, and then fear, as a great tearing sound came from Leah’s room.

Brand’s skin rippled. For a moment, his brow flattened, his nose protruded grotesquely, and eyes shrank to beady specks.

Cain sensed movement from the doorway.

Leah stood there among the shattered remains of the roots that had imprisoned her, her head up, eyes blazing. Yet it was not Leah, not exactly; something else seemed to carry her as she strode confidently through the room to Cain’s bedside, ignoring Brand, who fell away from her, arms up as if to protect himself. Leah raised her own arms, and something huge and powerful exploded out of her, blue fire licking her fingertips as the roots holding Cain’s bed tore to pieces and the cultists were thrown backward against the walls, tumbling like straw thrown by the wind.

Abruptly, Cain could breathe freely again, and he took in great gasps of air, his lungs burning, nostrils filled with a smell that was half copper, half foul bog, a sulfurous stench that made his stomach churn. He climbed from the bed and gathered his rucksack and staff. When he turned back, Leah was still standing there, motionless, and when he grabbed her arm, she turned docilely toward him, her face slack and lifeless. He snapped his fingers before her, but she did not seem to react. Some kind of trance again, similar to the one he had seen back in Caldeum. But there was no time to explore it further. Already the people on the floor were stirring.

Where the roots had been was a scattering of black seeds. Cain scooped some up and dropped them in his sack, then led Leah to the door and down the hall to the stairs. The entire house seemed to have shifted in the night; the hallway turned a corner, and the stairway appeared farther away than he remembered and curved back upon itself. He fought back the disorientation, and they descended as quickly as possible. On the bottom floor, the layout had changed, and he led them through more hallways than he remembered and past rooms they had not seen.

Finally he found the front doors, and he pulled them open and they ran out, into the frigid night.

The fog was thick, swirling across the ground and shrouding the nearby houses. More townspeople crowded the front walk, chanting, all of them in the same gray robes. As Cain led Leah through their midst, they reached out with grasping hands to clutch at his tunic. But they were slow and clumsy, and he was able to swing with his staff and tear free before he heard a shout. He turned and stared in shock; there was powerful magic here indeed.

Lord Brand had emerged after them, but the manor was no longer there. In its place stood a modest, one-story house, its straw roof sagging inward.

“Run, Leah,” Cain said.

The gates were hanging open. He and Leah raced through them, Leah leading the way now. They turned up an unfamiliar street and ducked into a dark alley, Leah running through it to another, wider street, the distance between them lengthening quickly. Cain increased his pace to a hobbling run until his lungs burned with the effort, but Leah was faster, and after another turn he lost her completely in the dark and the fog, and stood panting on a corner, close to panic. Where had she gone?

The town was silent, all windows dark. It appeared abandoned, and Cain had the same feeling he’d gotten back in Caldeum, as if everyone in Sanctuary had disappeared all at once, and he was utterly alone.

A shout came from behind him, and he was about to start running again when he heard a voice raised in an urgent whisper: “This way. Hurry!”

Someone beckoned to him from the shadows of the alley across the street. Cain could make out nothing else but the glint of eyes in the dark. He hesitated as the sound of pursuit grew louder; they would be upon him at any moment.

“The girl is here,” the voice said. “She is safe. Please! Come!”

May the archangels protect us, Cain thought. He crossed the street as fast as his aching legs would allow and slipped into the alley, ready to face whatever waited for him there.

15 The Graveyard

It took a few moments for Cain’s eyes to adjust as he followed the stranger through the gloom. The person who had spoken to him was a man with his head shaved smooth; he wore some kind of cloth wrapped around his waist, and he moved with a quiet grace, slipping through the night without a sound.

The man led him through the alley to the other side, which opened to a small space between the last row of homes and the stone wall that ringed the town. Leah was waiting for them. She seemed to be in the same trance that he had seen earlier, and did not react to his presence or move in any way.

A light appeared from somewhere beyond the alley. Someone called out, and Cain heard the sound of running feet. “This way,” the man said from a trench at the foot of the stone wall. “We must go now.”

Cain took Leah by the arm and led her to the trench, which held the end of a clay pipe and a trickle of water, wastewater from the town, most likely; it ran under the wall, through a space covered by iron bars. A portion of the bars had given way, and there was just enough room to squeeze through.

The man disappeared through the hole. Cain helped Leah down and climbed after her. Brown, foul-smelling water seeped through his tunic and chilled his knees and arms; at the end he had to go onto his stomach and wriggle, pushing his things ahead of him, and the cold ran all the way down his body. There was a moment of claustrophobic terror as Cain’s clothes caught on the bars and he didn’t have the strength to pull free, but the man grabbed his arms and pulled him the rest of the way.

The scratch Cain had gotten when he had crossed the bridge throbbed dully as he got to his feet and gathered his staff and rucksack. The area where they had emerged was treed and silent, but flat and free of underbrush, and they were able to move quickly.

The icy air made his wet tunic cling to his chest and legs, and he shivered, his teeth chattering, hands shaking. Shadows seemed to flutter all around them, giving the illusion of movement; he heard things slithering, soft thuds and the rustle of dead leaves, the faint crack of a branch, and once, a fluttering of wings overhead.

As they reached an open space among the withered trees, the fog dissipated, and gravestones thrust up from the ground like huge, jagged teeth. The stones, which leaned in different directions, had been placed in a circular pattern that led to a round plot in the center with a crypt.

Cain felt a gathering of dark magic that prickled the hairs on his neck. The door to the crypt hung open. Blackness lurked within it.

The man had stopped inside the first ring of stones, holding Leah’s hand. Cain studied him in the moonlight that trickled down through the opening in the trees. He was some kind of monk. He had a thick black beard. Heavy wooden beads hung around his neck, armor was bound to his forearms, and he wore boots laced up to his knees. His upper chest was bare, and muscles stood out like cords across his shoulders and arms.

Friendly or not, Cain realized, they had little choice but to trust him. He had given them no reason so far to doubt his intentions, and if Cain’s instincts were correct, they were going to need all the help they could get.

As if in answer, a group of shadowy forms burst through the cover of trees all around them. Their pursuers from the town had arrived. Hands grabbed Cain from behind, and others converged on the monk and Leah.

The monk moved with blinding speed, seemingly without effort. It was as if he disappeared and reappeared in another location, slipping through space faster than Cain’s eyes could track him, his fists like flat iron anvils as they pummeled those townspeople who dared come within reach. Those who had been holding Cain let him go, and he fell to his knees in the soft ground, looking up in time to see the monk crack two skulls together with a mighty crunch, then drive his foot into the midsection of yet another robed figure, sending it flying at least ten feet backward.

As several more cultists converged on him like mindless puppets, the monk spun and released a thunderbolt of energy that cracked the darkness with a white-hot burst, searing Cain’s eyes and making him throw his arm up over his face. When he looked back, blinking away the dots of light that danced before him, the cultists were nothing more than a circular pile of grotesquely seared arms, legs, and torsos. Leah, however, remained unharmed, just a few feet away, still standing immobile as if rooted to the spot, her gaze blank and unblinking.

A scream of anger came from halfway across the graveyard, and Lord Brand emerged from the trees. Brand raised his arms, and Cain felt the ground shift beneath him. Horrified, he scrambled to his feet as something pushed upward through the sod.

A hand and half an arm of decayed flesh emerged, its bony, white fingers wriggling like worms.

Gillian’s voice came back to him, from the night of the fire . . . the dead clawing their way from the ground, the way they did in Tristram. The earth will split, and hell will spew forth . . .

“We must go, now!” Cain shouted, as the ground began to heave and ripple across the graveyard. The monk picked Leah up and threw her over his shoulder. Cain pulled a scroll from his rucksack and spoke as quickly as he dared, the runes glowing green across the parchment before it began to smoke and crumble in his hands. A distraction for their escape: a spell of elemental magic, easy to conjure, difficult to control.

Crackles of lightning split the night sky, illuminating a nightmare landscape of rotted flesh and blindly grasping hands. Cain did not wait any longer, skirting the edge of the graveyard and avoiding the things that seemed to search him out. The lightning struck the ground in two places, searing flesh and sending explosions of dirt and grass into the air. Another struck at Brand’s feet, and he was thrown backward against the remains of his followers.

Cain didn’t stay to see the rest. The monk was already gone through the trees, and the old man went after them, leaving the graveyard behind as lightning crashed and shook the earth.

They ran headlong through the jungle, pushing through brush and splashing through another trickling brook, branches scratching Cain’s face as he stumbled in the dark. His mind went over and over the scene in the graveyard, trying to make sense of it. How had Brand and his followers arrived there so quickly? Who was he, exactly, and what was his purpose?

Our master commands it, Brand had said. He had known about Cain and his Horadric studies, had seemed to know about the impending demon invasion. But he had not answered Cain’s question: who was their master?

The monk slowed his pace after a few minutes and proceeded more cautiously and quietly, holding the noise to a minimum. There did not seem to be any pursuit. Sometime later they broke from the jungle. The monk had led them to a hill overlooking the road to Kurast, on the other side of Lord Brand’s town. The night sky had cleared, and it stretched overhead like a black carpet peppered with stars. There was just enough light for them to make out the road, a ribbon winding through the valley below.

Cain caught his breath, his sides aching, lungs burning, knees ready to give out. Leah was clinging to the monk with both hands around his neck, and when he set her down gently in a grassy spot, she slumped forward, her eyes glassy and staring at nothing. She must remain strong in the face of danger. But as he watched Leah sit like a lifeless statue, his heart broke for her. She was no warrior. She was just a little girl.

“They have not followed us here,” the monk said. “We are safe, for now.” He put his hands together and gave a slight bow. “I am Mikulov,” he said. “From Ivgorod. And you are Deckard Cain, of the Horadric order. I have been following you since Caldeum. It is time we talked of the dangers that are facing us all. We have much to learn from each other, and not much time left.”

16 The Hidden Room

The Dark One walked the dusty earth. He strode freely among fiends who gibbered and cavorted under a blood-tinged moon, the souls of the damned under their cloven feet. They were the only companions he wanted. This wasteland was his, an area devoid of all green and lush life that grew under the sun—free of all humans, too, at least within this space he had claimed as his own.

Not so far off, sleeping like the dead among the broken and abandoned buildings of the city, were the still-living, breathing husks of men, drained of their will. They were emaciated to the point of collapse, and lived only to serve him, and he took what he needed with the help of his ghoulish soldiers, ruling over them with an iron fist. Their life essence would provide a key element for his grand plans, built upon the extensive research he had done into the ancient writings of the most powerful sorcerers of dark magic. What he was attempting had never been done, not at this scope, and it would require the souls of many thousands of people. It would also require the command of a master of the dark arts, someone with the abilities few had ever possessed.

Someone like him.

As a boy, he had always felt something deep within him that was above the poverty and squalor of his surroundings. He knew that his proper station was above the other boys in the orphanages he passed through, whether they recognized it or not.

He had never known his mother or his father; they had disappeared long before his memories began, and all he had of them was a family name and crest on a scrap of tattered parchment he kept in his pocket. In his daydreams he imagined they were respected, powerful people who had been driven into hiding or killed in a political uprising, forced to give him up as an infant or risk his death. In the string of orphanages he endured beatings, starvation, and nights of sleeping on cold, louse-infested straw; fifteen-hour days of washing laundry in the stream, cutting wheat in the fields, or cleaning out the horse stalls; and teasing from his peers, which often ended in a bloody nose or split lip. He remained silent during these moments, refusing to give in to the urge to run and hide, and the boys eventually found something else to occupy their boredom. When they left him alone, he spent the few precious moments he had learning how to read, and devoured every text he could find.

He learned something about human nature during that time: far too many people, when alone and left to their own devices, were not who they seemed to be. Children were told stories of demons and monsters to keep them in line, but it seemed to him that the real monsters wore human skins.

Eventually, someone else took notice of him. He was older then, and living mostly by himself on the streets. The sorcerer who took him in had an eye for natural talent, and a taste for pain. This sorcerer was not a good man, but a powerful one, and the Dark One learned much under his tutelage. He learned even more through the secret texts he discovered in the man’s library and, later, in moldering tombs and forgotten ritual rooms hidden among ancient ruins outside the city, where the sorcerer sent him to gather artifacts from the days when mages ruled Sanctuary.

In one such hidden chamber, he discovered a text that spoke to him more than any other: a genealogy that traced a pattern of births from one of the most powerful mages in history. On the cover of that text, branded into the cracked leather binding, was the same crest from the scrap of paper in his pocket.

The Dark One listened to his footsteps crunching through the broken shells that had washed up onto the shore. His back was hunched, his head thrust forward. He peered out from under his hood. Beyond him lay the water, the smell of sulfur thick in his nostrils. There were things in the shallows, red-skinned beasts that dissipated like smoke, bloody apparitions that screamed soundlessly into the night sky. They had gathered for him, and before long they would be completely under his control. Soon, the Dark One thought, he would rule all of Sanctuary. In the coming End of Days, as the moon turned black and its pull leached the seas from shore, he would transform fully and take his rightful place at the side of the Lord of Lies. And then he would wipe the scourge of humanity off the face of the world, ridding it of the true monsters and paving the way for others to rebuild what was left. This was his destiny.

Find the girl.

The words were whispered in his ear, bringing his thoughts into sharp focus. The wind brought him the sound of wings. His scouts were returning, with news. They would not dare come here empty-handed.

The Dark One waited while a giant bird swooped down toward him through the night and settled to the ground with a flapping of feathers that sent wind rippling across the water. As the bird extended its talons, its legs lengthened and grew thicker, wings rolling up like tubes into human flesh, feathers transforming, blending together into a black cloak, beak morphing into a hawkish nose.

The man who now stood before him was skeletal, pale-skinned, and tall, and he held his hands with fingers intertwined at his waist like battling spiders. His cloak was similar to the Dark One’s own, and his back was slightly hunched. But there the similarities ended.

“My lord,” he said. “I have news. I have seen the girl you seek.”

The Dark One smiled. This was what he had been waiting for; the girl and her traveling companion would soon be in his possession. “You have her, then?”

Lord Brand’s thin smile faltered, and he broke eye contact. “She has escaped from us, along with the old man. There was someone else who assisted them. In spite of the prophecies, we did not foresee it.”

Rage blackened the Dark One’s heart, and he took a step forward, his hands clenched into fists. “How could you let that happen?”

“We bound her with black magic, as you instructed, but it was not strong enough. She broke free. Still, we might have had them in the graveyard, were it not for this monk, and the old man. He is . . . resourceful.”

“He is nothing. Weak and useless, and gravely delusional.”

“He raised a powerful storm, my lord. And the spell that had concealed them is still active.”

“You have failed me.”

“I . . . I am sorry, my lord.”

“Let me show you something,” he said. He turned away from the pack of ravenous demons and entered the tower with Lord Brand behind him, descending through the hidden panel to the rooms below. This time he passed the chambers where men hung by hooks, going lower, then lower still. Moans and the shaking of chains followed him to a larger room where no torches guttered upon the dripping, moss-covered walls.

The things that gathered there did not like fire, but the Dark One did not mind the darkness; his eyes had also grown accustomed to it, and the moss that encased the walls glowed a faint green, giving off enough light for him to see.

A gigantic, circular stone structure dominated the room, leaving only a ten-foot-wide passageway around it. The structure was like the bulb at the end of a tendril of stone, growing up through the center of the Black Tower.

Archways every few feet allowed access to the passage around the stone bulb. From each of these archways creatures emerged, their pale skin luminous in the faint light.

They watched in silence. “What are they?” Lord Brand whispered finally. His face was drained, his mouth slack as he stared in astonishment. “Feeders? I have heard stories, but I have not seen . . .”

“They were men once,” the Dark One said. “The easiest to corrupt, through greed or fear or rage. Now they exist to gather what others possess and bring it here to me, where I keep it safe. This is a weapon, a very rare and dangerous one. And it will ensure our own victory in the coming war.”

The creatures crept forward on all fours, their backs twisted and hunched grotesquely upward, their bellies swollen like ticks. One of the creatures passed them, turning a blind, moon face upward, and he put his hand upon its hot, slippery scalp as it hissed with pleasure at his touch.

The creatures approached the bulb, placing their mouths upon a series of small tubes that projected from the stone opposite each archway. Faint, unearthly cries and sobs drifted through the cave, a thousand people in agony. Each of them sighed, quivering, as they released their burden and their swollen torsos withered away to bone and skin.

Lord Brand recoiled as the shrunken, wraith-like husks returned through the archways, making way for more creatures to come forward. They watched in silence as the cycle was repeated and more of them appeared, always more, regurgitating the contents of their bellies into the stone gourd, the cries of the damned drifting through the dark.

“They are loyal servants, and they do not fail me,” the Dark One said. “Do you understand?”

Lord Brand nodded. “I do, my lord.”

“Good.” The Dark One’s rage was boiling now, and he could not contain it for much longer. The power churned within him, begging to be released. He gritted his teeth as they returned to the surface and he thought of all who had wronged him over the years. They must pay for their sins. For a brief, terrifying moment he imagined his own failure, and a slow death followed by oblivion, his family name and crest once again buried in the bowels of history while Deckard Cain and his legacy lived on.

There were more demons in the surf. The waves moved like oil against the rocky shore as the Dark One turned to Lord Brand. His anger exploded with a white-hot flash as he raised his hands and spoke words of power from the ancient Vizjerei book of spells, summoning the power of Bartuc himself: the Warlord of Blood, master of demonic magic, who had harnessed the power of the Burning Hells to do his bidding.

A bolt of pure energy hit the tall, thin birdman in the chest, opening a smoking, dripping hole in his flesh and throwing him backward to the ground, where he writhed in pain, screaming, as the Dark One strode forward, the power building once again, a delicious wave of euphoria washing over him as he prepared to release it and shatter every bone in the man’s body. The demonic specters cavorting about the hissing surf screeched in ecstasy, ready to bathe in the gore, their grotesque bodies pulsating with excitement at the carnage.

“Wait!” The groaning man on the ground held up a hand, the other hand clutching at the wound in his chest. Blood poured over his fingers and onto the sand. “Please. All is . . . not lost!”

The Dark One stopped, holding in the energy like a ball of hot lava in his belly. “Speak quickly,” he said, through gritted teeth, his mouth twisted into a grimace of pain and pleasure. He leaned down, pulling the birdman’s hands aside and sticking a finger into the wound. “You have only moments to live.”

“The old man and the girl are headed for Kurast!” the man screamed. The Dark One removed his finger, and the birdman coughed up a spray of blood. “I am sure of it. We—we can find them again.”

“That may be so,” the Dark One said. “We may indeed be able to find them again, after all. But I’m afraid you won’t be part of the search.”

He stood up again, closed his eyes, and released the full fury of his power. Blue fire crackled from his fingertips and laced down toward the birdman, enveloping him. He arched upward, screaming soundlessly as his skin started to bubble and his hair crackled and burst into flame.

The Dark One turned away as the smell of burning flesh wafted across the desolate beach. The demons converged upon the smoldering form, howling with delight, tearing blackened skin from the birdman’s limbs with their hands and teeth.

Lord Brand. He shook his head. Such a pretentious name for such a useless creature. Birdman was much better. He would return to the Burning Hells to face his master’s wrath.

There were others, the Dark One thought, many others who would do his work for him. He thought of the road to Kurast, long, empty, and winding, a very dangerous place. It was not such a wide swath of land to search, and not so far away. Anything could happen there, and a traveling party could be detained and brought to him. He smiled, a sense of calm falling over him as he considered the possibilities. He would have the girl very soon. Perhaps a different approach was needed, he thought, a subtler one of lies and deceit, a manipulation that would use his servants to bring those he was seeking right to his front door. The Lord of Lies would approve; it was time for another meeting to discuss their plans. Time was growing short, and there was much still to do.

The old man would do his lord’s bidding, whether he liked it or not. Then the fool would die quite painfully, as his ancestor should have many years ago, and anyone else who stood in the way would die too.

The End of Days was almost upon them all.

17 The Road to Kurast

Mikulov stood on an outcropping of rock, looking out over the landscape that spread below him in the early morning light. The road ran through the valley, and as it grew smaller in the distance, the trees withered, the land growing dull and lifeless before the city of Kurast.

City of the damned. They were less than two days’ travel away, and what they would find in Kurast and beyond would change his life’s path: Mikulov felt certain of that. It had been foretold in the prophecies written many centuries ago, and in his own dreams. He thought of his masters at the monastery, and a pang of sadness touched him; he could never return again. But this was his destiny, and he intended to follow it to the end.

Mikulov brought his hands up and over his head, stretched, standing up on the tips of his toes, and bowed his head. He held this pose for five full minutes, his face serene, his body absolutely still. Anyone watching him might have thought him a statue: they would not have guessed at his inner battle against the impatience that urged him forward. But he knew the importance of peace. It was better to remain calm before leaping to action, even when time was short.

And time was short now, indeed.

The gods would be pleased with his efforts to free Deckard Cain and young Leah. After his vision in the small cave in the hills, he had followed them away from Caldeum, scouting for danger. Once, he had dislodged a group of small rocks, and he had felt sure that Cain would discover his presence as they tumbled down the slope. But the old man had not, and they had ended up in the strange, haunted town. It was then that Mikulov knew he must act quickly. This was the moment the gods had chosen.

His mind cleared of the clutter of sleep, Mikulov relaxed his pose and flexed the muscles of his feet, calves, and thighs, letting the energy he generated move up his torso. The tattoo of the patron god Ytar, the god of fire, seemed to move across his back of its own accord as he stretched his arms forward and down, his skin sliding over sinew and bone. He dipped to touch his forehead to the ground, then looked back up to the gray sky. Storm clouds had gathered on the horizon.

The others would be stirring now. It was time. He took a few moments to gather a welcome bounty he had found growing near the cliff, then climbed down from the rock and padded soundlessly through the clearing, returning to camp to begin the next stage of their journey.

Deckard Cain blinked himself awake, suppressing a groan as he looked up into Mikulov’s face. He had barely been able to sleep, consumed with his thoughts of the town and the graveyard, and his dreams were haunted by memories that were even worse. Every single inch of his body ached, and he was in desperate need of a bath. In contrast, the monk appeared as refreshed as if he had spent the night in the emperor’s palace.

Mikulov held out a cloth filled with bright red berries. “The gods have provided for us,” he said. “They are good, and have healing properties. The ground here has not yet felt the full taint of sickness that has taken Kurast.”

Cain glanced at Leah. He had thought she was still asleep, but her eyes were open. The girl hadn’t spoken since the graveyard, nor eaten. The berries were safe; he recognized them from his studies on this region, although he had never tasted them before. He took a few from the cloth. Sweet juice flooded his mouth, and he had eaten half the pile before he knew it.

Mikulov’s smile grew even wider. “Good, good,” he said. He nodded at Leah. “There are enough for two.”

His aching knees screaming at him, Cain got to his feet slowly, taking the berries to her. He wasn’t sure what they had actually eaten the night before at Lord Brand’s home, but the berries seemed to do wonders for his uneasy stomach. “Regain your strength,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “We will leave this place when you’re ready.” Leah took the cloth from him, and for a moment the pain in her eyes was so clear and sharp it nearly took his breath away.

“May I speak with you?” Mikulov asked. He stood a few feet away, hands clasped at his waist. Even motionless, his balance and inner strength were apparent. From their brief conversation last night, before they had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Cain knew the monk had read prophecies written by the Patriarchs and other Ivgorod scholars that were remarkably similar to Cain’s Horadric scrolls, and that also warned of the demon invasion of Sanctuary. He was aware of an imbalance in the world that must be corrected. His gods had become restless, he had said.

The Ivgorod monks’ combination of religious fervor and calm, centered focus was unique. They were ferocious warriors against the evil that plagued this land. It was good to have one on your side.

Cain thought back to what the demon had said in the Vizjerei ruins: Your savior is so close, hidden among thousands in plain sight not three days’ journey from here. Demons could be notoriously clever and could not be trusted. But they hid their lies within the truth.

He and Mikulov retreated to a quiet area out of Leah’s earshot, and the monk sat cross-legged on the ground next to him. “I don’t want to frighten the girl,” he said. “But we can’t wait any longer. We must go to Kurast.”

Cain watched Leah get up and walk away, toward a rocky ledge that broke the cover of dying trees and overlooked the valley below. She climbed the ledge and sat at the top, staring out at something beyond his line of sight. “I cannot take her there,” he said quietly. “It’s no place for a child, and the events of the past few days have made that clear. I should never have brought her on the road with me. She needs someone who can care for her, and a place she can feel safe.”

“You must not turn back now—”

“It is only a detour, my friend. Once I find a home for her, I will return.”

“But there is no time,” the monk said, putting a hand on Cain’s arm. “The month of Ratham is only days away!”

“What do you mean by this?” Cain asked. The month of Ratham was named after the necromancer who had founded the priests of Rathma; he had been a disciple of the celestial dragon Trag’Oul, and a guardian of Sanctuary.

Necromancers had the power to raise the dead.

Mikulov took several narrow, tightly rolled scrolls from a pocket under his belt. “I have seen visions of hidden chambers underground,” he said. “They are filled with the dead. And a man, or one who looks like a man, shrouded in darkness. He calls himself the Dark One. In these visions, the man calls the dead to life.” The monk unrolled the scroll and spread it gently on the ground. “This scroll is a reproduction of one found in the jungle ruins of Torajan.” He unrolled a second one. “This is a Zakarum prophecy from the caves of Westmarch.” He unrolled a third. “And this, from the bowels of Bastion’s Keep, before Mount Arreat was destroyed. All of them speak of a coming war between darkness and light, and the rising of the dead, an event that will occur on the first day of Ratham.”

Cain took the scrolls and scanned their contents. His heart beat faster. Although written in different languages, they all contained references to an army of the dead that would rise as Ratham began. They were important pieces of a huge, complex puzzle that he had been trying to put together ever since Mount Arreat had fallen, and this young man had found them. He felt a slight twinge of jealousy for not having found them himself, but quickly dismissed it as his apprehension grew stronger.

“I have discovered similar writings,” he said. “But not with a clear date for such an occurrence. Are you sure these are accurate?”

Mikulov nodded. “They have been verified by our Ivgorod Patriarchs, who are highly trained in such things.”

Cain shook his head slowly, once again reading the spidery script scrawled across the brittle pages. If these scrolls were indeed true, then the beginning of the demon invasion was far closer than he had assumed—just seven days away. Even now, the forces of evil were gathering somewhere near Kurast, and their fury could mean the fall of Sanctuary to the Burning Hells, the collapse of the High Heavens, and the end of life as he knew it.

. . . clawing their way from the ground . . .

Cain was not normally given to hysterics, and his greatest strength, he had always felt, was his measured, calm approach to crises. Study the problem, evaluate the solutions, and choose the best path. But the events with Lord Brand had disturbed him more than he had thought possible. He kept seeing the hands of rotted flesh and wriggling bones that had punched up through the graveyard sod.

Seven days.

The monk was waiting patiently for him to speak. “This Dark One,” Cain said. “Lord Brand, in the walled town, mentioned something like this, a master who commands him . . . perhaps it is the same person.”

“I have no doubt of it. This man is consumed by hatred and jealousy, and it fuels him. But he is commanded by another, something far more evil. I have seen them both, in my visions of the secret place, hidden underground. A creature so huge and terrible, it is difficult to describe . . . it had armored claws and three horns, and yellow eyes like lamps.”

Belial. Cain sat back, thunderstruck. He had suspected as much for some time, but this drove it home: the Lord of Lies was at work in Sanctuary.

He searched for the right words. “You describe one of the rulers of what we call the Burning Hells. There are others, but he and his brother Azmodan rose to power after the Prime Evils were banished to our lands. I saw the great mountain fall when the Worldstone was destroyed, and I knew that although Baal and his army had been defeated, it was merely the beginning. Evil overran our lands. The signs of Sanctuary’s corruption are everywhere now: the blight that has begun to overrun our oceans and forests, the tales of hellish creatures spotted in the Dreadlands and among the jungles of Torajan. People vanishing without a trace or, worse, the wasting sickness that seems to spread within certain cities. But I am afraid that the greatest threat to mankind is yet to come.”

Cain described his journey to the Vizjerei ruins in the Borderlands, and what he had found there: evidence of some form of the Horadric order still alive in Sanctuary, evidence that had been strengthened by his visit with Kulloom in Caldeum.

Mikulov nodded. “We must find these men who say they are Horadrim,” he said. “Yet . . . you are conflicted.” He glanced across the clearing at the spot where Leah sat upon the rock.

“How can I ignore such signs, in service to a child? And yet, how can I continue to put Leah’s life at risk?” Cain had done such a thing before, through his own selfishness and neglect. He could not allow that to happen again.

“The girl reminds you of something terrible you suffered,” Mikulov said. “I can sense that well enough. It is natural that you would try to protect her. But she is a part of this, as much as you or I. The prophecies about the coming war speak of her role as well.”

“She is only a child—”

“You must embrace this, and welcome whatever will come. What we witnessed last night should stand as a warning. Dangerous magic is at work in these lands. Such power to raise the dead is not lightly wielded. Whoever is behind this is a very powerful sorcerer, and engaged in the most destructive kind of demonic spells. And his time is coming soon, if we do not do something to stop him.”

Cain found Leah still sitting cross-legged on the rock, staring at the valley below. He sat down next to her in silence and waited patiently for her to speak.

“There are no animals,” she said, after a time. “Where have they all gone? And the trees. Look at them.”

Cain followed her gaze out over the valley toward Kurast, huddled in the distance like a blight upon the world. In days past, the growth would have been a lush, vibrant green, but the trees grew ever more gray and stunted as they neared the city, as if a fire had run through them, turning their leaves to ash.

“I suspect the animals are in hiding, much like most of the people,” he said. “They sense that the world around us is not calm or welcoming. The trees are a part of that.”

“Why aren’t we hiding too?”

It was impossible to answer. In the old days, Cain might have begun a lecture about the history of evil and the rise of heroes who battled against it. In the absence of true heroes, others must answer the call. But something made him pause. “I was thinking,” he said simply, “that it might be time for that. To find a place where you would be safe.”

She looked at him sharply. “You would come with me?”

“I have my own journey still ahead of me, Leah. I must not shy away from my destiny. I will find a place for you, I promise. And I will return, when the time is right.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Cain thought of the long road back the way they had come. The bridge had fallen; they would have to search for a place to cross, and even if they could find it, there was no shelter for them in Caldeum. Where else could they go? All the way across the sea, to Westmarch? There was no shelter for a little girl there, either. The orphanages were little better than slave camps. He sighed, and rubbed his itchy beard. A journey like that would take weeks, and by then it would be too late for everyone.

“I miss my mother,” Leah said. A tear trickled down her cheek. “And I don’t remember what happened last night. Why don’t I remember?”

“Our minds do strange things sometimes. But everything is going to be all right.” Even as the words left his mouth, Cain felt the betrayal, the lie in them. “The truth is,” he said, “I don’t know why. I don’t have all the answers, although I wish I did.”

Leah seemed to shrink into herself, hunching her shoulders against the world. “Please don’t leave me alone,” she said. She looked up at him, her eyes glimmering in the morning light. “Please.”

“It would be best—”

“I want to go with you!” Leah suddenly leaned forward and hugged him violently, her little arms clutching at his tunic. Her tears wet his chest. “I don’t know anyone anymore, I don’t even know who my real mother is, and I don’t want to be alone. My mother—Gillian—she trusted you; you told her you would take care of me!”

Cain sat rigidly upright, every muscle in his body tensed as Leah continued to sob. A thousand different thoughts ran through his racing mind, many of them jumbled fragments of memory that had been forced so deep inside his subconscious they had shattered like stained glass. He caught a flash of color like a little boy’s laughter, and another like the sad moans of a woman in pain as a red-stained wagon wheel spun over and over in the bright, cruel sunlight.

I cannot bear it, he thought, not any longer, but instead of pushing her away he found himself gathering the little girl up in his arms and rocking her until her tears eased and the hitches in her chest began to slow.

“It’s all right, Leah,” he said. “I won’t leave you. I promise. We shall go to Kurast together.”

18 Tristram’s End

Cain awoke to a hand shaking his shoulder. Mikulov stood over him in the early, gray light, his face filled with concern. “You were screaming,” the monk said quietly, glancing at Leah, who lay still nearby, her back to them.

They had walked for another full day, and made camp in the hills with Kurast just over the next rise. Mikulov had proven an able companion so far, scouting the road ahead for thieves and keeping them going with stories of his life in Ivgorod; Leah had grown more fascinated with him as they went along. Cain had meant to question the monk further after they had made camp and Leah had dropped into sleep, but exhaustion had taken him quickly once again, only to bring these terrible dreams of his own imprisonment and near death at the hands of the demons that had overrun his town.

Cain rolled over and took several gasping breaths, wiping the sweat from his brow. He looked up into the leaden sky as dawn broke above the mountains. The dreams were growing more vivid and more disturbing, thrusting him back into days and events he would rather forget. Even now, he smelled the filth, felt the iron floor of his cage beneath his bare feet, the heat of the fires washing over him.

The horror of the loss and the guilt over his role in the slaughter felt like a fresh wound. He remembered the pain and despair of it all—the beloved son of the king, forced to kill his younger brother. Tears overcame him.

“I dreamed of the Dark Wanderer,” he said, his breath catching in his chest. “And the end of Tristram.”

Mikulov squatted next to him, balanced on the balls of his feet. Cain’s sense of sadness and loss made it almost impossible to speak. He lay quietly for some time, staring into the sky.

“Aidan was burdened, haunted by something terrible. I should have seen the signs right before my eyes. I had been his teacher! But I thought it was a result of what he had been forced to do to his own brother. I thought it was despair over what he had witnessed. I never thought . . . that he would shove that cursed soulstone into his own head. That he had taken on the essence of evil, and Diablo still lived inside him. That he would become . . . the Dark Wanderer.”

“You pursued him across Sanctuary.”

“Along with a group of brave adventurers, yes. He snuck away in the dead of night, and shortly after that, a new demon plague descended upon what was left of Tristram. I . . . I was imprisoned in a cage hung upon a pole and left for dead. Forced to watch as . . .” Cain’s voice quavered and failed him, and he wiped his wet face with his sleeve. “As . . . unspeakable things happened below me. Finally I was freed, and the demon horde pushed back, but Aidan was already far away, consumed by evil and intent on releasing Diablo’s two brothers from their soulstones. Aidan, our hero, my friend, was hopelessly lost.

“My heroes went after him, and I followed shortly thereafter, but we were always one step behind. We defeated Andariel beneath the chambers of a cursed monastery and fought the Lesser Evil Duriel in the tomb of Tal Rasha. We chased the Dark Wanderer through Kurast after that city had fallen, and we vanquished Mephisto, his brother, in Travincal. Finally we pursued Diablo into the Burning Hells and defeated him. Aidan was . . . killed.”

“I am sorry,” Mikulov said. “Our Patriarchs teach that death is simply a chance to be reborn.”

“I would like to think such a thing exists,” Cain said. “But the horrors I have seen . . .” He trembled with emotion, tears wetting his cheeks. “The Prime Evils are gone. But even the Lesser Evils of the Burning Hells can destroy worlds, should they choose. Some would say they are even more dangerous. If Belial or Azmodan come to Sanctuary, may the archangels help us all.”

After gathering their few things and taking only a moment to drink at a small stream nearby, they resumed their journey, the monk in the lead. They had camped a few hundred feet from the road and reached it quickly enough, setting out down the middle with grim determination.

The day was gray and cold, wind ruffling their clothes and bringing a stench to their nostrils. The smell of death, Cain thought. Perhaps Leah wouldn’t recognize it, but Mikulov, he realized immediately, certainly had; the monk glanced at him with a somber expression.

They crossed a branch of the river again, this bridge intact and strong, running over rushing water that cascaded through rocks. The sky darkened, and the wind picked up, until the first drops of an icy rain fell over them. The trees had become withered and bare, the ground gray and lifeless. Once, Cain thought he smelled smoke, and they passed the remains of a fire that appeared to have been hastily doused. But there were no signs of people.

They proceeded more cautiously, keeping Leah between them. The last of the trees gave way to small, deserted shacks; piles of trash and broken furniture; and, once, the rotting carcass of a horse.

And then, opening up before them like a boil on the face of Sanctuary, was the city of Kurast.

19 The Red Circle

The area they had entered appeared to be deserted. Crows flapped and cawed overhead as they walked down the wide road and through the open city gates. Parchment flipped across the street, carried by the breeze, and the scent of the mudflats near the docks permeated their clothes, along with smells even fouler and less identifiable.

The former center of power in Sanctuary, the height of learning and culture, reduced to this: a ghost city filled with beggars and thieves. The tragedy of it all nearly brought Deckard Cain to his knees. He was catapulted back in time to the day he had arrived here after his traveling party, pursuing the Dark Wanderer. The city had been under siege then, and the people had been running for their lives. They had met the last of these people at the docks, rushing away with their belongings tied into cloth sacks: men, women, and children with haunted faces, forever scarred by the things they had seen.

Kulloom’s warning about Kurast came back to him once again, like a whisper on the breeze: The people there will take what they can from you and leave you to die on the road. And there are other things . . . Things that are not so kind.

Larger drops of rain began to spatter down, and Leah shivered. It wouldn’t be long before nightfall. They had to find shelter soon.

In the streets of Lower Kurast, all was silent. The small, communal huts were abandoned and falling into ruin, their doorways dark and empty. This had been the poorest section of the city, meant for laborers, and a good place to hide, if hiding was what you desired. Above them rose the larger buildings of Upper Kurast, the forgotten temple and reliquary looming over all. The things that had lived beneath these places the last time Cain was here made his blood run cold: underground chambers and sewers full of lurching undead and beasts, both mortal and demonic. So many of the people had been blind to the horrors that were lurking just beneath their feet, as many more across Sanctuary still were. They did not believe in angels and demons, or worlds beyond this one.

Leah moved nearer to Cain and Mikulov, the three of them closing ranks as a rat the size of a small dog skittered across the street in front of them. “Stay close, little one,” Cain said. He glanced at Mikulov. “We must remember why we have come. Somewhere in this city is a man who may hold the answers to whether the Horadric order is still alive and well.”

Something else moved in the shadows between two huts, something large and raw and glistening, slipping out of sight quickly. Cain stepped closer; the corpse of a woman sat propped up against one wall, maggots squirming in her empty eye sockets, her neck half missing, as if something had been chewing at her. The wound was still wet.

A sickeningly sweet smell wafted over him, and he imagined her turning slowly toward him, her wound like a second mouth, eye sockets fixated on him as she raised her arms for an embrace.

A low, distant moan drifted beyond the buildings ahead. About twenty feet away, an emaciated male figure stumbled into the street, weaving drunkenly sideways before correcting himself and standing rather unsteadily before them. The man was hardly taller than Leah herself, wearing ragged clothing stained with dark blotches that might have been blood or feces, his hair long and hopelessly tangled, his wispy beard caked with filth. His nails were so long they curled back toward his palms, and there were raw patches where he had cut into his own flesh with them.

The man glanced around, muttering, his face contorting as he chewed at his own cheek. His glassy eyes rolled wildly before he suddenly fixated on the three travelers. He shambled forward, hands up in supplication. “Do you have any food for us? We are hungry. Please.”

“We seek lodging,” Mikulov said, stepping in front of Cain and Leah. “A place to stay for the night.”

The man stared at him, openmouthed. He began to chuckle, quietly at first, then louder, lips curling upward to reveal yellow, broken teeth. “You want to stay . . . here?” he said, wheezing with laughter, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. “Are you mad?”

“We’re looking for a man named Hyland,” Cain said. “If you take us to him, we can pay you well for it.”

“It’s too late for you now. It will be dark soon. Poor souls.” The man cackled again, glancing around as if afraid he might be overheard. “We’re all damned. We cannot escape. They take from us what they need and leave nothing.”

“Whom do you speak of?” Cain asked.

The man stared blankly at him. “They come from Gea Kul, traveling far in the night. You will see.” He nodded again, eyes fixed on a point of reference that was not in this world. “You will see.”

The man tilted his head, exposing his neck. It was covered in dark purple bruises, as if he had been gripped by giant hands.

Leah tugged on Cain’s tunic, pointing to the huts. Others had gathered in the shadows, all of them watching silently. They were all as thin as this man, and dressed like beggars, faces as white as parchment. He saw a girl about Leah’s age, standing by someone who might have been her mother, and another woman old enough to be the grandmother.

An old wound tugged at him, an emotion he refused to acknowledge.

Cain reached into his rucksack, removing some of the seeds he had collected back in Lord Brand’s manor. “There is black magic in these,” he said, extending his hand toward their visitor. “You may have them, if you help us find lodging. Plant them outside your door during the day, and at night they will grow up into a forest of roots. You must be careful, because they will grab and hold anyone within reach. But they may also protect you from what preys upon you. Black magic is not discriminating about that which it entraps.”

The man snatched the seeds away. He looked around furtively, as if expecting an attack at any moment.

“Come with me,” he said.

The man led them through the narrow streets without speaking, shuffling from side to side. The sky darkened as evening came on swiftly. The rain continued to patter down. They saw no others on the way, but as they left Lower Kurast and neared the docks, they began to hear music: a lyre, from the sound of it, plinking out a muffled tune, accompanied by raised voices. They followed the strange little man down a wider street, the buildings no longer quite as deserted. A light glowed from one window, and farther down was a row of abandoned shops, the windows of the largest of them filled with light.

“The Red Circle,” the man whispered. “They may have rooms, for a price. Good luck to you.” He melted into the shadows and disappeared, leaving them alone.

The smell of cooking meat came from the inn. They heard the sound of something shattering. As Mikulov opened the door, more smells and sounds assaulted them, a raucous mixture of food and human sweat, off-key strumming, hoarse singing, and lots of conversation. The inn was packed with people, some of them belting out songs accompanied by a lyre in one corner, others sitting at tables over mugs of ale.

Almost immediately, one of the drunken men spied them and waddled over, taking Cain by the arm with a grip of iron and pulling him inside.

“This is no place for a girl!” the man roared into Cain’s face, his beard dripping with sweat. The man gestured at Leah. “What do you mean, bringing her here?” Then he winked. He wasn’t as tall as Cain, but his body was solidly built. Mikulov tensed, but Cain made a calming gesture and let himself be led forward, into the fray.

At the bar, the man grabbed a mug of ale, handed it to Cain, and took another from the bartender. “Bottoms up!” he cried, clinked glasses, and downed the amber liquid in several large swallows, wiping his beard with the back of his sleeve. “Do you know,” he shouted above the din, “that a hundred years ago, this very spot was a gallows? They hung nearly fifty men where you’re standing right now—neck broken, if you’re lucky. If not, legs twitching, face turning purple while you choke to death. That’s a slow and miserable way to go. One man refused to die, they say—hung there for two days. They poked him with a stick every few hours, and he would open his bug eyes and stare at them, gurgling. They thought he was a demon. Finally they cut him down and let him go, and he went around for the rest of his life with a red circle around his neck.” The man grinned. “That’s how I named this place.” He stuck out his hand, and Cain shook it. “Name’s Cyrus,” he said. “I own the Red Circle. Welcome to the gates of Hell. Or, as some of us like to call it, Kurast.”

Cain pulled a gold nugget from his sack. “We’re looking for a place to stay for a night.”

Cyrus hooked a thumb toward Mikulov, who stood next to Leah with arms folded. “Tell him to stand down, Grandpa. If your gold’s real, I’ll give you a room. Not exactly full up in here, if you know what I’m saying.” He leaned forward, speaking in a lower tone. “I wouldn’t go flashing it around like that, though. Likely to get your arms cut off so as they can get at your pack, understand?”

Cain glanced at the other patrons. They were a ragged bunch, almost all men except for a few prostitutes, their dresses half open in front, vacant smiles on their faces. The air of celebration had a desperate edge that worked its way through the room and into the eyes of everyone there.

The lyre stopped for the moment, and someone slammed a mug down on the top of a table and shouted for more music. After a moment, the man began playing again, the notes coming faster and sounding more frantic.

“We’re full of pirates, thieves, and worse,” Cyrus said. “This is what’s left, after the decent folk are gone. The pirates take the waterway to the sea, then work their way over the plains to Caldeum, avoid the main road. Less of the Imperial Guard to watch for, you understand, and . . . other things that might get at them. A ship’s come in tonight, full of loot from Kingsport.” He waved at the room full of men. “There’s less of ’em these days, though. Even thievery is a dying profession around here.” Cyrus suddenly grew serious. “Gea Kul, that’s what it is, and what lives there. Have to pass that hellish place to get upriver, and nobody wants any part of that.”

“The port town,” Cain said.

“Aye.” Cyrus nodded. “It’s grown up over the years from what it was, deformed as a twisted back on a cripple. If Kurast is the gates of Hell, Gea Kul is right smack in the middle of the flames.”

Word had gotten around about Leah’s presence, and the room began to quiet, all eyes turning to them. A woman’s high, strained laughter drifted over the crowd, then the sound of a harsh slap of hand against flesh, and a muffled scream. “All right,” Cyrus bellowed, “go about your drinking and your whoring, all of you! Haven’t you seen a child before?”

“Tell her to step up, then,” a man shouted, and a flurry of activity erupted around him as another man threw a wild roundhouse punch at his jaw.

Leah shifted closer to Mikulov. “Excuse me a moment,” Cyrus said, and waded in, swinging with both elbows. The fighting intensified for a moment, and then someone gave a high, wavering cry, and the room quieted down again.

Cain and Mikulov looked at each other as Cyrus came back their way, his face even redder than before, his lower lip dripping blood. He grinned at them through stained teeth. “Told you this was no place for a girl,” Cyrus said. “That’s taken care of, and I don’t reckon he’ll be up and about for a while. Now, let me fix you a plate of food and show you to your rooms.”

Cyrus brought a large bowl full of meat stew and a loaf of bread. He took them through a door and up a flight of narrow stairs to a long, dimly lit hallway, the floors worn and scuffed, the walls bloodstained and carved with knives. Thuds, creaks, and moans came from behind several closed doors as they passed.

“People tend to disappear around here, intentional or not,” Cyrus said as he led the way. “Maybe you don’t want to be found. Either way, your gold’s as good as any other.”

“We’re looking for a man named Hyland,” Cain said.

Cyrus stopped short and turned to stare at him. “What do you want with that slippery bastard?” he said. “Thinks he runs this city. Nobody runs Kurast. It’s a den of thieves.”

“We were told that he would have some information for us.”

“Ah, well.” Cyrus waved his hand in dismissal. “Hyland has information, all right. Just can’t tell if it’s worth a damn. Most of what he says can’t be trusted. But I’ll let you find that out yourself. There’s some gathering tomorrow morning, at the docks. Hyland’ll be there, running the circus.” He walked a few steps down the hall and stopped in front of a battered door. “Here’s your room,” he said abruptly, the mirth gone from his voice. He handed Mikulov the bowl and bread. “I’d lock it, if I were you.”

Then he stalked past them and disappeared back down the stairs.

20 The Docks

The three of them shared the bowl of stew and stale bread, and slept fitfully side by side on a bed of straw. Bugs crawled into their clothes and bit at their skin. The shouting and music went into the early hours of the morning, but Cain found the silence in the aftermath to be worse: at least the noise meant they shared the night with others, but after it died away, they were alone.

The old building settled, creaking, into the dawn, and several times they heard moans and what sounded like the whispers of ghouls. Leah cried out from a nightmare once, and Cain touched her hand in the dark to reassure her. She was trembling, her skin hot as a furnace even as the temperature in the room dropped. He felt a rush of emotion for the poor girl; she had lost the only person in the world who meant anything to her, she had been taken from her home, and she was facing danger and darkness at every turn. Yet she had remained strong, even defiant, in the face of all of it.

She clutched his hand, and he hummed a lullaby he remembered from many years ago, a time long forgotten. Tears welled in his eyes. Eventually her trembling stopped, and her sleep grew peaceful, while Deckard Cain remained awake, his old bones aching and the wound in his side beginning to itch, until the gray, hopeless light of dawn began to slip through the tiny window.

Ratham was five days away.

The inn was quiet as they left for the docks. Mikulov found more bread in the small, filthy kitchen behind the tavern room, and they shared it as they walked down the empty street. The rain had fallen most of the night, but instead of washing everything clean, it had served only to carry trash out from the alleyways and form murky puddles.

Cain’s back ached terribly, his skin felt slick with a layer of filth, and his tunic had begun to smell decidedly foul. The bedbugs had given him an itchy rash. Mikulov and Leah didn’t look much better. They wouldn’t make the best first impression, although he doubted there would be many here to impress.

In that he was dead wrong, for even before they entered the docks, they encountered at least a dozen others going the same way, men and women and children. They all walked without speaking, their faces somber, clothes hanging on their thin frames. The crowd grew larger and more animated as they approached the water and entered a wooden walkway that spanned several large floating platforms. The platforms were lined with leaning huts made of wood and straw, most of them abandoned, some perhaps inhabited by squatters who had long since left the scene, their meager possessions rolled up and tucked into corners. The remains of cooking fires sent wisps of smoke into the air, and the smell of the mudflats combined with charred wood.

A man was speaking loudly to a group of twenty to thirty people on the largest platform. He was tall and well built, gray-haired, wearing the clothes of a nobleman, made of fine silk, although they looked slightly dirty and worn. He stood on a makeshift stage built of packing crates, the ruins of a larger receiving building behind him.

“We are not prisoners here,” the man was saying, looking around the crowd. “And we are not helpless. Kurast is our city, not theirs!”

Many of the people held makeshift weapons, hammers, iron bars, clubs with nails sticking out of the ends. A few voices murmured in agreement, while others shook their heads. “Forget the pirates,” a woman’s voice shouted. “What about the feeders?”

The crowd began to jostle each other as people pushed toward the front. The man made a calming gesture with his hands and waited for quiet. “They attack those in the jungles and swamps, picking off the weak and the sick,” he said. “As long as we remain here, we are perfectly safe.”

“Not true!” another man, closer to the front, shouted. “They are inside Lower Kurast now. They bring the dreams. And people have seen them. Last night, one was spotted just two streets from my home!”

More voices shouted in anger and fear. This time, when the man raised his hands, the people gathered did not quiet down to listen. Cain felt the atmosphere getting quickly out of hand.

“Get me to the front,” he said to Mikulov. The monk shouldered into the nearest group and opened up a pathway. The people seemed to part before him like magic, stepping aside as they turned and saw him coming. As they made their way forward, whispers went through the crowd. Even the man who had been speaking stopped to watch them come. When they spotted Cain, people seemed to shrink away from him, fear in their eyes.

“Are you Hyland?” Cain asked as they reached the stage.

The man nodded. “What’s the meaning of this interruption?” he said. “We have important business here.”

“My name is Deckard Cain, and I was told by a man named Kulloom that you could help me. But perhaps I may be of some help to all of you.” He turned to face the crowd, pulling the Horadric spellbook out of his sack and holding it up for them to see. “I am a scholar from Tristram, and have studied the ways of the Horadrim.”

The reaction was swift. At the word Horadrim, the people gasped and backed away from him, pushing each other to create more space. “A feeder, in disguise!” someone shouted.

“No, he’s the Dark One himself,” another cried out. A woman screamed, and suddenly there was bedlam as everyone began knocking over and trampling each other to get away. The man on the platform tried to ask them to remain calm, but his voice was lost in the din. Two of the largest men ran forward, murder in their eyes, fists raised; before Cain could move, Mikulov was there, stepping smoothly in front of him and Leah, taking one man’s legs out with a kick at the knee and putting another flat on his back with a blow to the jaw.

It was over in seconds. The two men lay moaning on the boards of the dock while the rest of the crowd had disappeared.

Cain looked up at Hyland. “Perhaps we should speak in private,” he said.

“Forgive my people,” Hyland said. He poured a glass one quarter full of grog from a shelf and handed it to Cain. “They are frightened. The days are dark indeed, and nightmares plague us all.”

The four of them had retreated to the receiving building, where Hyland had set up a makeshift office. It was dangerous there, he had said, but as self-declared mayor of Kurast, it was his duty to make a showing and not cower before the thieves who had overrun their city.

The two men who had tried to attack Cain were stationed outside the office as guards, still rubbing the bruises they had received from Mikulov’s blows. Cain suspected their injuries were more to their pride than anything else. If so, Mikulov had pulled his punches.

“Kulloom sent you to me, did he?” Hyland said. “An old trade partner of mine, although I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend. He didn’t like it when I took control of Kurast and chose other business opportunities over his own.”

Cain produced the Horadric book once again from his rucksack. “He spoke highly enough of you. He told me you might be able to help me find the people who made this.”

Hyland took the book and studied it for a moment, turning it over in his hands and opening its pages. “It was likely made by a man who used to reside here in Kurast,” he said. “A group of young scholars came here looking for someone who could reproduce some ancient literature, and found Garreth Rau, a scholar and litterateur, one of the finest bookmakers in all of the world. He was impressed with the great works these scholars had brought him, amazed by their potential. Eventually he joined this fledgling order and left Kurast.”

“Where can I find this man?”

Hyland handed the book back, wiping his hands on his robe as if he had touched something foul. “They say he was killed by the Dark One, a powerful sorcerer who has turned the very nature of magic against itself, twisted it into a path to evil.”

The Dark One. That name again. Cain took a taste of the grog. It did not sit well in his already-churning stomach. “The people called me that earlier. I can assure you, I am no dark sorcerer. Why did they run from me?”

Hyland swirled the drink in his own glass, then drained it and poured another one. “Because to them, you are the enemy.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Our city does not take kindly to the Horadrim,” Hyland said. “The citizens of Kurast fear them. Some say evil has corrupted man’s greatest assets, darkening even the Horadrim.”

“That’s not possible,” Cain said. “The order has always stood for justice and light. It was the most basic tenet of their way, a directive handed to them directly from the archangel Tyrael himself. If there are any true Horadrim left in Sanctuary, they wouldn’t be engaged in demonic magic. “

“So you say. But those young scholars who came to Rau brought Horadric texts with them and spoke of the order as if it were their own. The people believe that these texts, and the magic they contained, brought the Dark One here.”

A chill reached deep into Cain’s bones. He remembered Kulloom’s warning back in Caldeum about the group of Horadrim led by a dark sorcerer: You must do something. You must find these men and stop them . . .

Hyland sat down on one of several old chairs, and motioned for the others to do the same. Cain remained standing, Mikulov and Leah at his side. “You’re offended,” Hyland said. “I can’t help what my people believe. But perhaps they are right. What do you know of these matters? You’re just an old man. Things in the world have changed, and not for the better.”

The atmosphere in the room had grown tense. Cain felt the blood in his face, the clenched muscles in his hands. He took a half step forward, but Mikulov put a gentle hand on his arm.

“Uncle,” Leah said quietly, her voice trembling. Hyland just smiled up at them.

“Please, sit,” he said. “Let’s discuss this like civilized men.”

Mikulov glanced at Cain, who nodded, willing himself to relax. There was no reason to frighten the girl even further, and besides, Hyland had many more men at his disposal. Even with Mikulov’s physical talents, they were far outnumbered.

Something bothered him about Hyland; part of him wanted to walk out on the arrogant man, yet he could not. There was important information here, at his fingertips.

“Do you know who this Dark One is?” Mikulov asked, when they had sat down opposite Hyland. “We have heard things ourselves about a powerful sorcerer of demonic magic. But this connection to the Horadrim . . . it disturbs my friend. It is . . . his lifeblood. You understand?”

“Good,” Hyland said. “Anger is power here. It is the only real currency.” He glanced at Leah, who sat quietly next to Mikulov, hugging her arms to her chest. “Perhaps the girl would like something to eat? It would give us time to talk more freely.”

“I’ll tell you the rest of what I know,” Hyland said, after Mikulov had taken Leah in search of food, in the company of one of the guards. “But now it’s your turn. Who’s the girl? And that one with her? Ivgorod, eh? A monk? I have heard of their ilk.”

“Leah is the daughter of a good friend. I’m watching her now that her mother’s gone. And Mikulov saved our lives just a few nights ago. His own path here is complicated, but no less legitimate.”

“Hmmm. You said you could help us. I’m curious to hear how.”

“I am trying to find any remaining members of the Horadrim,” Cain said. “You’re right that things have changed in Sanctuary. There is a great war looming, a demon invasion, a war between Heaven and Hell. I was in Tristram when it fell to Diablo, and I can assure you that everything you may have heard about those days is true. But what is coming soon will make them pale in comparison. I have seen the signs, read the prophecies. It is close. I suspect that the troubles that plague Kurast are related to it.”

Hyland nodded. “There have been rumors of these things you describe,” he said. “There are even a few old men here who claim to have been here in Kurast when it was overrun by demons years ago. And there is evil at work now, sure enough. But you think you can stop the darkness from spreading? Many warriors have tried, only to disappear and never return. You are an old man, Mr. Cain. No offense.”

“If you tell me more about what is happening in Kurast, I can study my ancient texts and find a way to stop it. We don’t have much time. The first day of Ratham is only days away, and we have evidence that this will be the moment of truth for all of us.”

Hyland drained the last of his grog, staring at the glass as if he would discover the answer there. Then he sighed, stood up, and refilled his drink again before speaking.

“They’re called feeders,” he said finally, turning to face them. “They come in the night, terrorizing those in the fringe areas of Lower Kurast. Sometimes they steal children and even take able-bodied men and women, but more often they simply . . . feed on them. We don’t know exactly how they do it, but their victims begin to fade away, growing weaker, listless, and ill. They are very nearly walking corpses.” He took a long sip from the grog. “People say they come from Gea Kul. Nobody goes there anymore. Kurast is a lost city, but Gea Kul is a wasteland.”

It was the third time since they had reached Kurast that someone had mentioned Gea Kul. “Kulloom told a similar story, of a trade merchant who had witnessed something like these feeders.”

Hyland’s gaze grew distant, his face flushed in the light that filtered in through the window. “There are rumors all over. Many claim to have witnessed feeders creeping around in the dead of night, horrible ghouls that seem to float in the air and appear and disappear at will. They are like human insects, crawling upon all fours, up walls and across ceilings—bloated, misshapen things that are so horrible to behold, they turn people mad. They say these creatures are commanded by the Dark One I spoke of earlier.”

The shadows in the room seemed to grow, the air gaining a chill. “And you think these Horadric scholars brought these creatures to Sanctuary?”

“Many here do. But perhaps the group, along with Rau, left here to travel to Gea Kul and battle the evil that was already gathering there.” Hyland shrugged. “I knew some of these young men from their time in Kurast. They seemed well intentioned enough. I had no reason to think they were . . . corrupted.”

“Do you know the feeders’ purpose?”

“Perhaps they are simply here to drain the people’s will, to make them easier to overcome. Or perhaps it is all simply a rumor started by fools and drunkards.” Hyland stood up to pour himself another grog. “Perhaps I am one of them.”

“I would like to speak to someone who has seen one,” Cain said. “If they could tell me something of better use—”

Hyland waved a hand. “I don’t think you’ll find anyone willing to come within a hundred yards of you,” he said. “And let’s just say that most of those who have seen them are no longer interested in talking. But I’ve got something else.” He set the glass down and began rummaging through piles of books. “I know I put it here somewhere . . . ahhh.” He held up sheets of parchment. “Several weeks ago, a woman came to me in fear of her life. Her son, a talented artist of no more than twelve, was wasting away with the familiar sickness. I went to see him, and he gave me these.”

He handed the parchment to Cain. The first held a roughly scratched drawing of an unsettling figure, perhaps an animal of some kind, crouched in the corner of a room. The room was dark, the angles shaded with angry marks from the charcoal from which it had been drawn, and the shape was indistinct, as if emerging from a fog.

The second was more detailed, and the creature’s shape was clearer—a large, misshapen head, hunched back, distended belly, face like a black hole. But the third drawing was so strong and so terrible Cain drew in a sharp breath. It showed a humanlike creature hovering over a small child in bed, claw-like hands extended as if to caress its victim. The creature had advanced upon the viewer so that its presence appeared to fill the page, bringing with it a feeling of terrible, overwhelming dread. Its face was turned upward, wisps of hair hanging across a white, shiny scalp, and its eyes were blank holes, blindly staring with a hunger that could not be quenched.

Below the drawing, scratched so roughly the parchment had torn, were two words: Al Cut.

“I don’t know what it means,” Hyland said. “I don’t think the boy did either. The strange thing was, his mother did not beg me to save her son. She asked for him to be banished, to drive the feeders away from her home. I refused, and two days later, she disappeared. The boy remains, a shadow of himself, haunting the alleys of Kurast. I have seen him since, but he does not recognize me.”

Cain stared at the thing in the drawing. Even through the parchment, the evil in the creature was strong enough that it almost appeared to move, tilting its cursed, ravenous face, its long fingers slowly opening as if to reach out at him. But it was the thing’s mouth, open and puckered, searching blindly in hunger for something to feed upon, that left him deeply shaken and ice-cold.

“If you remain here,” Hyland said, “you may no longer need to worry about finding out more about the feeders.”

He drained his glass again and looked bleary-eyed at Cain from across the room. “You’ll dream of them. And I think you may see one in person soon enough.”

21 The Feeder

Deckard Cain found Mikulov and Leah near the water’s edge, where Mikulov was teaching the girl how to skip stones. They had found nothing to eat. Gulls screamed above their heads, also searching for food. By the time they returned to the Red Circle, it was late afternoon.

There was no sign of Cyrus. The inn still slumbered, those few who remained present sleeping like the dead, the smell of stale ale and sweat drifting through the downstairs rooms. Mikulov found more rancid stew in the kitchen, and they ate what they could stomach before the first few patrons began to stumble in, bleary-eyed and sour, and wet from the rain that had again begun to fall.

Out of earshot from Leah, Cain explained to Mikulov what Hyland had told him. The Horadric scholars were apparently real, and had been close to Kurast. Perhaps they were still in Gea Kul. It was as much as Cain could ask for, considering the circumstances. But their connection with the creature Hyland had called the Dark One and his feeders was troubling. Cain had little doubt that this Dark One was the false leader from the book of Horadric prophecies that he had found in the ruins and, most likely, the same man Mikulov had seen in his visions. He was probably also the “master” referred to by Lord Brand back in the village.

Had this sorcerer killed Rau and the Horadric scholars? Or were they plotting together against the people of Sanctuary?

“Al Cut,” Mikulov mused. “Do you suppose it’s a living man?”

“The text is quite old, and it referred to his tomb, so I’m assuming he’s dead unless it is a prophecy of coming events. But I have never heard of such a person in all my years of studying history. One would think he might be written of, were he this important.”

“Hmmm.” Mikulov shrugged. “Gea Kul is not far from here. Perhaps a day or two’s journey, if we make good time.” Darkness was falling outside as they set their dinner bowls on the table near the kitchen. They listened to the sound of the wind moaning against the eaves. “At the monastery,” Mikulov said, “the masters teach us to listen to the earth and sky and wind, that the gods are in all things if only you learn how to open your mind to them. They are speaking to us now.”

Cain nodded. There was something heavy in the air, a presence like the promise of violence and blood. Leah seemed to feel it too; the girl had been mostly silent since the docks, keeping close by Cain’s side, and once, as a group of large men came into the inn with voices raised, her small hand had snuck into his and squeezed it. Her skin was clammy, her bones as fragile as a bird’s wing.

They returned to their room, and Leah fell asleep on the bed of straw. “Forgive me,” Mikulov said, “but I sense something else is bothering you.”

“Everyone has a history they would like to forget.”

“Some more than others,” Mikulov said. “The Patriarchs say that if we do not face these things, we are not whole. And we are vulnerable to the darkness.”

“I’ve seen horrors that most other men would not recover from,” Cain said. “I have seen my friends murdered, my town destroyed. I’ve lived most of my life with guilt because I let these things happen, and did not fight back soon enough.”

And Leah, he thought, but did not say it: What was her role in all of this, and what did she mean to him? A chance to change things, a way to fight back against the darkness that had plagued him most of his adult life?

You cannot change the past.

Mikulov studied his face for a long time, as if looking for some kind of truth written there. “I sense there is more, much more. Whatever else may be inside you, it is your burden alone to carry. But should you need a friend—”

“Thank you, Mikulov.” Cain removed the Horadric book of prophecies from his rucksack. “Now I must search for more answers, before the morning comes. We have only five days before the prophecies say Hell will come to Sanctuary. There is no time for this. We must rest soon, and be on our way again.”

Mikulov opened his mouth as if to speak again, then shrugged and nodded. “As you wish.”

Cain pored over the text until late into the night, searching for anything that might help them, but he found nothing else of substance. An increased sense of urgency drove him on far longer than he might have thought possible; time was getting away from them, and they were no closer to a solution. It was maddening.

Finally he fell asleep sitting up, the book dropping into his lap, and he dreamed he was walking down a long, dusty road lit by fire on all sides, the heat prickling his skin and turning the hairs on his arms black and twisted. Somewhere nearby there was a presence so foul, so filled with evil, it made his stomach churn with sickness. He was searching for someone he had ignored for far too long. The evil presence had taken that person from him.

He became aware that feeders were following him, flitting like ghosts on the road’s edge, their pale, crab-like forms mirroring his pace. He went faster, but they grew closer, hundreds of them. As he walked down the road, he could make out two figures in the distance holding hands, one taller than the other. They walked away from him, and no matter how fast he went, they remained distant specks on the horizon.

He increased his pace until he was running, his staff banging the ground, rucksack flapping against his shoulder. But he could get no closer.

They are mine, a voice boomed inside his head, loud enough to make him cry out. Laughter echoed across the landscape, following him as he ran ever faster. I took them years ago, snatched on the road to Caldeum. Now they suffer for all eternity. The laughter raked him like claws as the fire roared up, and a tiny child’s voice began screaming.

You were blind, and now you see.

He awoke in a cold sweat, his mouth dry, legs numb. The room was dark and filled with the faint sounds of Mikulov’s and Leah’s breathing. The text had fallen to the floor. He gathered it up and slipped it back into his rucksack, trying not to think about the dream. It had been more vivid than any of the others, and the voice of the evil presence had sounded real.

Cain wiped tears from his face. That was many years ago, so many years. There was nothing he could do about it now, and no way he could change the past. He had to go on. That had become his mantra, recited so many times in his own head he had come to believe in its power to erase his history and to bring about his redemption: I must go on.

A low moaning sound drifted from somewhere down the corridor, beyond the closed bedroom door.

Cain froze, listening. He had heard similar noises the night before, but this one seemed to rattle him even more; it was a haunted, lonely sound, that of a dying man.

The moan came again, followed by a dull thud, like something heavy falling to the floor.

Cain took his staff and opened the door, peering out into the hallway. It was filled with shadows broken only with a dim light that filtered through a single window at the far end. The night outside was a gray-blue, the color of deep water. He paused, waiting, and heard something move from behind a door about ten feet down on the right. It sounded like a heavy object being dragged across the ground.

An icy draft wafted over him, bringing chills. There was something in that room. Every instinct told him to turn around, gather Leah and Mikulov, and take them far away from this place. But he also sensed that whatever was happening behind that door could not continue. Someone was in terrible danger.

Cain crept down the hallway as quietly as possible, keeping close to the wall. As he went, he imagined fires burning all around him from his dream, pushing him forward.

The door was open a crack. Darkness loomed inside.

Another soft moan broke the silence. Cain muttered words from the Horadric spellbook, his staff taking on the familiar blue glow. He pushed the door wide.

A pale, nearly translucent creature sat hunched over the prone body of Cyrus, the innkeeper, who lay upon the floor. A few strands of hair hung from a nearly bald skull, skeletal features covered with skin as thin as parchment. Blue veins traced patterns across dry, flaking flesh.

The creature’s claw-like hands were around Cyrus’s neck. Its bare shoulders moved as it leaned in again to the big man’s face and kissed his lips.

Cyrus’s fingers twitched.

The feeder attached itself like a parasite and breathed in. Its torso swelled, filling with something that Cyrus gave up with a slow, ghostly sigh. As the blue glow from Cain’s staff washed over the room, it turned to stare blindly over its shoulder at him, eye sockets black and empty, ghoulish mouth open in a glistening, toothless circle, saliva dripping from the hole.

Cyrus began to shudder, his bare heels drumming on the floor.

What hell is this?

Cain pulled the last of the black seeds from his rucksack and tossed them at the creature’s feet. They sprang to life, tendrils digging into the cracks and sprouting up with unbelievable speed. The feeder screamed, a high, ear-splitting noise like the screech of glass against metal as the black roots lashed across the room, grasping hold of anything within reach and creating a forest of waving limbs.

Cain slammed the door shut, shuddering. Mikulov had heard the noises and was already in the hall, Leah right behind him.

“There’s a feeder in Cyrus’s room,” he said.

From the sleeve that wrapped over his wrist Mikulov slipped a punch dagger into his hand so that it protruded from his fist. The blade glowed briefly with markings of power etched into the steel.

The noises from inside had ceased abruptly. “I’m scared, Uncle,” Leah said. Cain looked down at her pale face, which shone like a tiny moon in the darkness.

“I will not let anything happen to you,” he said. “I promise.”

Mikulov opened the innkeeper’s door to a thicket of black roots that had spread across the frame. He sliced at them with his blades. The cut roots fell, writhing like snakes before shrinking away again to seeds, which Cain scooped up. In a few moments, the monk had cleared a path, and he stepped into the room and disappeared from sight. Then Mikulov appeared at the door again, Cyrus over his shoulder.

“The thing is gone out the window,” he said. “We are safe, for now.”

He carried Cyrus back to their room and put him on the floor, and Cain crouched over him, looking for any obvious wounds. His neck was deeply bruised. A moment later the innkeeper opened his eyes, his gaze unfocused; his head fell to the side, his limbs unresponsive. Cain tried to get him to speak, with no luck. It was as if the man was in a trance of some kind or had been drugged.

The big man seemed smaller and thinner than before, his flesh sunken around his eyes and cheeks, bones protruding in more angles and sharp points. He appeared as drained as a piece of dry fruit, his skin cracking, a hollow husk of flesh made all the more horrifying by the way his eyes rolled loosely in their sockets and his mouth hung open, breath rasping in and out like the last gasps of a dying man.

But Cyrus did not die. Instead he remained in the same state, unresponsive, his breathing irregular, his pulse faint. Cain listened to Cyrus’s rattling breath and thought about the creature he had seen, its eyeless face staring blankly at him. The sound of flapping wings came faintly from outside their room, and Cain felt a momentary darkness cross their path with a rush and a sigh, then pass out of sight again. He shivered.

The moment of truth was getting closer. Soon he would know whether the Horadrim still lived on or whether they had faded away into legend, leaving him as the last bastion against oblivion. Soon Ratham would be upon them.

May the archangels save us all.

Tomorrow, they would go to Gea Kul.

22 The Blood of Al Cut

Underneath the tower of stone and sea, the Dark One drew a circle around a familiar symbol: a figure eight with two pointed dagger tips at its bottom, amber gemstone in the middle. A candle fluttered in its center, but the edges of the room were shrouded in shadows, deeper than the night outside. Yet he saw everything with perfect clarity; his eyes had developed a peculiar sensitivity to light, the way a cat’s eyes cut through the darkness to spy its prey. There were other changes as well that were more dramatic. It was all part of his transformation from human into deity.

His ghouls had continued to spread across the land, bringing the essence of life back to him and filling the containment chamber. He felt its power swelling beneath him, a ticking bomb ready to explode.

Only four days until his coronation. It was time to make the first contact.

Something splattered across the symbol’s center. The Dark One looked up at the chained man hanging from hooks through his shoulder blades as he kicked and writhed at his bonds. Blood ran down his legs, dripping to the stone. A rune, the mark of Belial, glowed upon his upper arm like the embers of a fire.

The Dark One smiled. His master would not be satisfied to remain within his human host much longer. But the flesh was simply a vessel, and now he would call a new visitor to occupy it, a visitor he had been waiting a very long time to meet.

He went to the book propped upon the stand near the circle and read a passage aloud. It was a delicate ceremony, and it strained his abilities to call through so many years and planes of existence. The past was like a complicated series of interlocking plates that constantly shifted and rearranged themselves, marking the path through a dangerous maze of illusions; one could easily get lost inside and never return.

The candle flared up in a roar of flame, then died down again. The circle and symbol glowed red. He slid a dagger from his sleeve, held his other palm up, and pricked it. Blood welled from the wound, pooled there, and began to thread its way slowly upward like a fleshy, liquid worm, reaching for the blade and then running over it. He watched, fascinated, as the blade soaked up the blood, binding it to him forever.

He knelt at the circle’s edge, reciting more words of power, and raised the dagger with both hands, plunging it directly into the floor where the man’s blood had dripped, at the center of the figure eight. The blade sank to the hilt, slicing as smoothly through stone as it would through soft flesh.

At once, he felt the tremendous pulse of energy below him. The floor shuddered beneath him. Blood erupted all around the blade, spraying upward like a fountain, an artery cut clean through, spattering the Dark One’s face and washing over the stones, soaking through his cloak. It arced upward, bathing the hanging man until he was barely recognizable as human. Still it continued, on and on, the blood of the dead and the damned, the blood of countless victims and warriors, slaughtered on the killing field and condemned to the depths of the Burning Hells for eternity.

The blood of Al Cut.

“Lɪft ðә vel frә hɪz ajz,” the Dark One said. “The thread is bound.”

His consciousness began to expand, stretching out in all directions as rivulets of blood ran like tiny rivers through cracks and seams. He was moving through space and time, linked to a thousand beasts across the land, hiding in sewers and basements and caverns, slinking through the night: wendigos, spider mages and flesh hunters, khazra and scavengers and fallen ones. He sensed the hundreds of thousands of slumbering dead, buried in the muck of seas and through the centuries, moldering away in catacombs and graves, entombed beneath the earth. All of them awaiting his command.

Not yours, his inner voice whispered, but the Dark One pushed it aside, refusing to let the doubt creep in. The power was his to control and wield, and his alone. The Worldstone destroyed, he was destined to bring about the destruction of humanity and the fall of all of Sanctuary, just as his bloodline had brought about its salvation centuries before. He would cut out the sickness of mankind. It was written in the prophecies, his true surname seared into history. He had seen it all himself.

Light and dark, forever bound.

“FIND THE GIRL.”

The voice brought him back with a jerk. It thundered inside his head, soundless yet so loud it made him wince. The Dark One began to feel a familiar rage. Why would his master depend upon a child? He was the one who would command Belial’s army; he would bring about the fall of Caldeum and the rule of the Burning Hells. The old man Deckard Cain was blind to his machinations. Cain’s power was weak; he was a pawn in a much larger game.

The Dark One stood on the floor of a vast chamber. The hellfires raged all around him, and the screams of the damned nearly brought him to his knees. The clanging of iron beaten into the shape of weaponry rang out. Blood flowed like a river against his shins—atrocities, torture, beheadings, those skinned and burned alive, all of it happening at once. He was occupying the same space across centuries of time, a world that had existed this way for even longer than the creature that stood in his way could remember.

Belial rose up before him. The demon’s yellow eyes locked with the Dark One’s and held them. “Your power is impressive,” the beast said. “You have conquered time. Yet you are nearly overcome. You have so much to learn, to become the master you would claim to be.”

“I can raise them alone,” the Dark One said. “You don’t need the girl. Let me try.”

“Try?” Belial seemed amused. “You show your weakness with such a word. And why should you turn away from her and her companions? Your chance at redemption is at hand. This man Cain has stained your family name with his own. Betrayal tastes worse than death, does it not? Don’t you want your revenge?”

The Dark One felt his pulse quicken. “I do, my lord.”

“I thought as much. Did you know there was demonic magic in his blood? How else do you think his ancestor overcame yours? Through charm and persistence? No, through trickery and the power of the Burning Hells. Even now, history has been revised. The world believes a lie, and the truth has been buried, just as Tal Rasha was buried beneath Lut Gholein.”

“I—”

“Lure the girl here, bring Al Cut to life, and take your revenge on the old man. It is the right way, and the only way.”

“I understand, my lord.” The Dark One was growing dizzy with the effort of maintaining his place in time; the plates were shifting with increasing speed, and he was in danger of becoming lost among them forever. He managed to steady himself long enough to focus on the great beast before him. “I must go now, and use this vessel . . . for other purposes.”

Belial laughed, the sound shaking the cavern like the screams of a thousand dying men. “Do not tell me what you must do. But very well. I shall exit gracefully. Play with your toys, but do not forget what I have told you.”

The temporal plates shifted, absorbing the blood and swallowing Belial and the cavern in an instant. The Dark One found himself in another cave, this one nearly as vast as the one before. An entire city stood all around him, and he saw every moment of every year at once. Its buildings and streets were dusty, broken, and teeming with life. A mage battle raged next to children at play, each oblivious to the other. Generations of people crossed by and through each other like ghosts.

He paused, focusing every effort of his will upon the present day and the spirit he had come here to contact. Slowly, the ghostly images faded away, until he was left with silence, dust, and decay. He could feel the blood of ages throbbing, the energy of Al Cut vast and untapped, a river dam waiting to give way.

“Lɪft ðә vel frә hɪz ajz,” he said.

The ground began to glow as the rune, the mark of Belial, traced a pattern through the dusty street. The ground shuddered and split with a rumble, and he caught his breath as a skeletal hand reached up and clutched the side of the abyss.

“I have awakened him,” the Dark One whispered. “He is here.”

Sometime later, he opened his eyes. He was back in the chamber below the Black Tower. The blood was gone, his cloak dry. The candle flickered, nearly burned to the floor. But the connections he had made remained, a thousand bloody threads reaching out in all directions.

His army shuddered with ecstasy, waiting for him to command them.

A noise from above made him look up. The man hanging from the chains was staring back at him. But his gaze was very different now. The Dark One released the chains, letting the wheel they turned upon lower the man to the ground.

The man stared at him, a new confidence and sense of power evident in his eyes. This was clearly not Belial, nor was it the spirit of the man who had owned his fleshy shell before. The Dark One felt a shiver run through him; he had done it. Until this moment, a part of him had wondered whether it was possible. He had raised a man from the dead, but not just any man. The one who would command his troops as they marched through Caldeum and lay waste to humankind.

And he, the Dark One, was this man’s master.

The Dark One smiled. “We have much to discuss,” he said.

Far beneath him, something immensely powerful shook the earth with a low moan like the sound of some giant awakening beast. The final sequence had begun: the End of Days, as it had been written.

The Lord of Lies would not wait much longer.