Diablo III: Storm of Light (13 page)

Tyrael’s chill deepened, settling into his bones. Something changed; he sensed another strand of light that was powerful and ran deep, but unlike the others, this one’s identity was strangely hidden to him. He tried to turn to seek it out, but it was elusive; it seemed to sense his own presence and move away, almost as if it were watching him
.

Suddenly, that no longer mattered. The emotions he had formerly held in check began to overflow, and the strange light strand was lost. Chalad’ar was acting on him in ways he could not fully grasp, but his thoughts started to change as he saw where all these strands would lead. Death was the inevitable result of everything—the slow crumbling, the decay that must come. The end of all things. He understood the connections between all creatures, the threads that joined everything together. With this knowledge, what did life mean? Why value any single life in the pursuit of peace and balance, when death would come to all?

The people of Sanctuary were screaming
.

Tyrael came to his senses covered in sweat. He found he had not moved from his position before the Fount, and he was clutching Chalad’ar in
both hands as if it had fused to his flesh, his fingers turning white with strain
.

His head pounded, the ache reaching through his neck and shoulders and down his spine. A dizzying wave crashed over him as the feelings he had experienced hit him again and again. His mortal flesh had never felt like such a prison, such a burden to overcome
.

He had sensed things at the end, terrible things. He had sensed the coming deaths of countless souls, all of them burning in agony. He had sensed the darkness rising up among them, extinguishing all light. But that darkness had not come from the Hells
.

As in his dreams, it had come from the angels
.

Tyrael tucked the chalice into his robes. A feeling of utter hopelessness descended upon him as he turned his back on the Fount and walked the path out of Wisdom’s realm. Using the chalice had bled energy from him to such an extent that he felt like a hollow shell; mortals were never meant to experience such a thing, and the effects of its use could not be predicted, he knew. Tyrael could become lost, floating forever in the void between this world and the next, unable to find his way back through the strands as his physical form wasted away. The prospect of his own death cast a pall over everything, and he was strangely drawn to it in a way he could not quite understand. There was peace in endless sleep, an acceptance in giving up and letting go
.

The thought was hypnotic
.

You must not listen.

The archangel of Wisdom made his way back to more familiar surroundings, feeling lost and alone
.

As he went, he did not notice the figure slipping from the shadows to follow him
.

As the others gathered in their rooms at the Slaughtered Calf, the necromancer slipped quietly into the night through the back entrance to survey their surroundings. Zayl was not a social person—he preferred the company of the dead, if he were to be honest—and he knew that there was plenty of distrust of him among the group. It was easier to be alone.

But that wasn’t the only reason for his vigilance. He remained unsettled after the appearance of the demons at the graveyard.

Zayl did not rattle easily, but he had continued to feel a disruption in the Balance. It was not Tyrael’s presence that was causing it; something else was at work.

A very dangerous force was behind the recent attack; he was sure of it. And it reminded him of something he would rather forget.

“If you mean to loiter out in the cold, you could have at least wrapped me in a blanket,” Humbart said. He sat in the palm of Zayl’s left hand, his empty sockets staring out into the darkness. They had found a quiet space between the inn and the neighboring building where they would not be disturbed. Zayl crouched in the dust, his back to the wall.

“You’re far beyond feeling a chill,” Zayl said. He flexed his gloved right hand, feeling the bones move beneath the leather. It ached in cold like this, with the flesh long gone. The glove was padded to conceal the fact that the hand was nothing but skeletal remains connected by a few strands of mummified sinew. There was an unfortunate incident with a group of damned souls at the lost city of Ureh several years before, but he had managed to reattach what was left using a particularly powerful spell. It would never be the same, but it was functional, and that was enough.

“Be on guard, Humbart,” Zayl said quietly. “Bring me back if anything should go wrong.”

“Aye,” Humbart said. “Just be quick about it. You know how it gives me the shakes, watching you do this. It’s dangerous. There was the time in Salene’s quarters when you lost control of your limbs to that damned black-hearted necromancer and nearly stabbed yourself with your own blade . . .”

Humbart went on, but the necromancer was no longer listening. Zayl closed his eyes, and the side of the building he faced receded, a gray mist descending over him. Once they had been schooled in the dark arts, the priests of Rathma needed to put up protective walls around their psyches or risk being constantly distracted by the spirits of the dead.

Carefully, Zayl began to unravel those layers of protection, opening himself up to the world beyond.

Almost immediately, he sensed the souls of the departed that lingered in New Tristram, victims of violence who could not let go of the past; for many of them, death had come so suddenly they did not know they were dead. Others had unfinished business and were calling out for loved ones, pleading helplessly to be heard.

Still, the number of souls here was dwarfed by others he sensed nearby. Tristram was the site of unspeakable violence
and death, and the taint of Diablo’s corruption, King Leoric’s possession, and the betrayal of Archbishop Lazarus remained. Many had died there. He had felt them in the graveyard earlier, but in this meditative state, he sensed their presence more strongly, their voices far more insistent.

Zayl probed deeper still, drifting higher above his physical body, leaving Humbart and the dark alley behind. New Tristram played out below him as he soared above the thatched roofs and people slumbering in their beds. Beyond the hills, he sensed the pack of hellions that had come upon them earlier, heading away from Tristram, their numbers depleted. Their energy was foul, to be sure, and he was glad to see that they had not followed the group to the inn.

But the hellions were not the source of the disruption in the Balance, either.

Zayl was uncertain which direction to turn. A chill worked its way through him. Something was nearby, but its exact location remained hidden to him. He felt certain this presence was aware of him, and it was not friendly.

The necromancer probed gently, hesitating for the first time that night. There was more than one of them. He sensed others hovering beyond the ring of light cast by the town. The creatures avoided his probing mind, but not because they were afraid. They wanted something else, and they were biding their time until they were ready.

These creatures held a strange power indeed. They did not appear to come from the Heavens or the Hells. He sensed that any wrong move could mean his death. Meeting his own end now would be unnatural, and his cycle of being would be disrupted, leaving him in a state of lingering agony that he would much prefer to avoid—

He sensed movement, like a wraith darting just beyond his sight. One of them had come closer. The chill deepened around
him. The thing stank of the grave, a stench that permeated the air nearby and made Zayl nearly turn away.

But he would not. For he had recognized the essence of this foul, black thing, even if he had no name for it and had only felt it once before.

It was the same kind as the creatures that had taken Salene.

Shanar sat on the small bed, bare legs curled up underneath her. Cullen stole glances when he imagined himself unobserved and thought that she looked like a young woman in such a pose. He had gotten a hint of her true age when she and the barbarian Gynvir had reminisced earlier that evening about past battles that had occurred twenty years ago; she must be forty years old, and yet she looked barely free from her twenties. She was beautiful indeed, but until now, he had not thought of her as vulnerable in any way. Rather, her skills and presence were formidable in spite of her slender frame.

If he were to be honest, Cullen found her intimidating. Yet that feeling was softened by her appearance now, her straight black hair free from its ponytail, her wizard’s staff set aside, her face freshly washed with water from the basin.

Unable to sleep, Shanar and Gynvir had joined Cullen, Thomas, and Mikulov in one of the two rooms. Tyrael had gone downstairs, and Zayl had disappeared somewhere. Cullen knew enough not to question the activities of a necromancer, and apparently, the others did, too, for thus far, they had avoided the subject entirely.

“It’s suicide,” Shanar said. “There are eight of us and one talking skull against an army of angels. I’m as game for an adventure as anyone, but I’m telling you, those are some bad odds, even for a gambler.”

As they continued to discuss the task that had been set before
them, the small group’s mood had grown increasingly bleak. Although Gynvir seemed more reluctant to question Tyrael’s call to duty, Shanar felt betrayed to discover that the song she had been following had been engineered to draw her to Tristram. She had even begun to wonder about the resonance that had called her to El’druin so many years ago. Had she been manipulated then, too?

Cullen had tried (somewhat weakly, he admitted, tongue-tied by her beauty) to convince her that the simple fact that they had an archangel among them was astonishing enough and should be celebrated. But Shanar wasn’t about to listen.

“He’s a rogue,” she said, looking around the group. “If we do this, we’re acting against the will of the Heavens. How do we know this is the right choice? What if he’s . . .” She made a gesture of frustration. “If he’s wrong, we’re the ones who are going to suffer for it.”

Cullen sensed there was more to her doubt than that. Wizards were headstrong and independent as a rule, but history showed they could be persuaded to put aside their own needs for a common goal. Under other circumstances, none of them would have dared challenge an archangel’s authority. But Tyrael was a mortal now, no matter how imposing he was in physical form. Cullen had never personally seen an angel before, but from what he had read in many ancient texts, they were impressive enough to bring a man to his knees. The unfurling of wings made of pure energy . . . it was impossible to imagine.

“He has done this before,” Cullen said. “Many centuries ago, in the Hunt for the Three, for the Prime Evils—Diablo, Baal, and Mephisto—Tyrael assembled the first Horadrim to assist him. It was without the knowledge of the Angiris Council, which strictly forbids angels interfering with the world of men.”

The quest given to the original Horadrim, mages of great power and wisdom, was to imprison the three leaders of the
Burning Hells within soulstones fashioned from shards of the Worldstone, burying them deep in the ground: one under the Zakarum Temple of Light, one under the sands of Aranoch, and the last under the Tristram Cathedral. Thomas and Mikulov had heard the story before, and even Gynvir had some knowledge of it, although it had been more of a legend than truth. But now they all listened carefully, seeming to give it more weight.