Diablo III: Storm of Light (41 page)

There was no music here, no bright lights and glittering crystal. Tyrael and Cullen were in the belly of the Fist, the underground prison of the High Heavens created to keep the condemned for all eternity. Room after room of carved and dripping stone, cells built to hold creatures that could not be contained anywhere else. Demonic torture chambers with blades built to slice thick flesh, flay skin from bone. Other chambers specially shielded to keep angels
pinned to the walls. Bottomless wells filled with brackish, ice-cold water, where demons were submerged to their necks and forced to swim until they could no longer move, when they were dragged out and forced to go through it all again. The rooms led from one passage to another in a maze that confused anyone unlucky enough to break free; the lower depths were said to still hold the mummified remains of those who had wandered there and perished in the dark.

“Cullen,” Tyrael whispered. His throat felt as if it were on fire, his lips cracked and dry. He pulled gently against the chains that bound him, then harder. They held firm; these were no ordinary chains forged of simple iron. They were built to hold the strongest angels housed in the Fist and could not be broken by a mortal.

Cullen shifted slightly and moaned. Tyrael could not see any obvious wounds. Perhaps the blood was not his own.
Thomas
. The thought brought back everything that had happened in the gardens, the Sicarai brutally disemboweling the Horadrim as he knelt, defenseless and wounded. Blood seeping out onto the crystal dust.

Anger coursed through him, and he yanked the chains harder. Someone had locked him up here and taken El’druin. Panic ran through Tyrael as he realized Chalad’ar was also missing.

A low, grating sound brought him back from the edge. Light came around cracks in the door to the cell; a moment later, the door swung open, and the Sicarai entered the room.

“Release me,” Tyrael said, his voice hoarse and far too weak to be commanding.

The Sicarai didn’t answer. He only waited. It wasn’t long before someone else joined them.

Balzael walked through the door and took up a position next to the Sicarai. He carried something, but Tyrael could not see what
it was in the shadows. “A clipped bird in a cage,” Balzael said. “I promised you that not so long ago, did I not? I had hoped you would return here voluntarily. I must admit, I still had my doubts. I imagined you to be too much of a coward to do it. But you came even earlier than I had expected, and you brought friends.”

“Release these bonds,” Tyrael said quietly, “and see how much of a coward I am.”

Balzael chuckled. “I think not. Although I would enjoy making you bleed, mortal. You disgust me. Do you know the Council discussed your archangel status at their last meeting? They do not know what to call you. Traitor, perhaps. You will stand trial, if you live that long. Your crimes are punishable by death. I may take it upon myself to carry out justice a bit early and save us all the time.”

“Death comes to all of us sooner or later.”

“All mortals, yes. I can smell your stench from here. You chose to stand with the filth of Sanctuary, and now you will suffer their fate.”

“Imperius does not know what the stone is doing to him,” Tyrael said. He was growing tired of the lieutenant’s games. “To all of you! Can you not see the corruption, the darkness that has crept into your midst? Soon the High Heavens will fall, and the Burning Hells will rise to take their place.”

“He cares not for your theories.”

“Get him in here. Whatever he has to say, he can say it to my face.”

“Imperius? Why would he want to see you? He is far too busy with the Ascension, and I would not bother him with such drivel.” Balzael chuckled again. “You have no idea what is really going on. You are not very smart, are you, little bird? Perhaps your mortal status has affected your mind.”

A chill ran through Tyrael at Balzael’s words. “Imperius does
not know I am here,” he said. “If not my brother, who else is a part of this, other than the destroyer? Those creatures that have been chasing us?”

“That is none of your concern,” Balzael said. “You have played an important role, finding the nephalem stronghold and opening the door, and now it is time for your friends to finish the job they came to do. You, however, will not be joining them.”

He held what he had been carrying up to the light, then tossed it at Tyrael’s feet. The Chalice of Wisdom clinked and rolled across the stone, coming to rest just inches away. In spite of himself, Tyrael felt the hunger for it rise up within his breast. He shuddered.

“We have kept a close watch on you,” Balzael said. “Now you are a slave to the chalice and will do whatever it takes to bathe in the pools again. But do not worry. I do not think you will live much longer. Regrettably, I believe that you will be killed attempting to escape along with your friend here.”

Tyrael was more immediately concerned with the other things Balzael had said. The chill deepened. As much as he did not want to hear it, they made some kind of sense.
You have played an important role . . . now it is time for your friends to finish the job they came to do
. All that time spent searching for the catacombs and knowing the phantoms were lurking somewhere close by,
feeling them
 . . . that night in New Tristram, when they had killed the bar patron and marked Jacob. They could have swarmed the Horadrim then, but they did not. And the battle on the mountain, when they had flitted among the trees and above the cliff face, never attacking. Why?

Tyrael managed a grim smile. “What do you mean, finish the job?”

“Imperius and the rest of the Council will be informed that you and your friend, along with the other man the Sicarai killed, are the only ones who came here to steal the stone. I will make
sure to explain your foiled plan to them. You are the perfect distraction.”

Understanding dawned. “You want the stone for yourself,” Tyrael said. “And you are going to use us to steal it.”

Perhaps at first, Balzael had hoped the stone’s influence on the Council would compel them to destroy Sanctuary. But the Council would not act quickly enough. So Balzael had to improvise.

“The archangels will put you to death when they find out what you have done!”

“Perhaps,” Balzael said. “If they can find me. Of course, by then, if all goes well, I will be beyond their reach. But if I die, so be it. That would be a small price to pay for the end of the human race. Our scouts you call phantoms have been well trained. They will do the dirty work.”

Tyrael’s mind was reeling. Could he really have been manipulated in this way? Had he been so blind? Chalad’ar was supposed to help him see the truth, not hide it away.

He looked at the chalice lying at his feet. In spite of all that had happened, his thirst for it was nearly overpowering. He still longed to disappear within its depths, to lose himself among the threads and find peace in oblivion.

“You do not know where the rest of the Horadrim are,” he said. “You do not know how many we have or whether they are still alive.”

“But I know where they are going,” Balzael said. “You have sent them after the stone. I have ordered all guards away from the chamber, and the rest of the Luminarei are attending the Ascension. All we have to do is wait for them to bring the stone back to Sanctuary, and then we will take it. Do you really think any of them can get away from us, once we choose to come after them?”

“You cannot enter the catacombs,” Tyrael said. “They are shielded from you—”

“Enough of this,” Balzael said. “Do not concern yourself with such trifles when there are so many more important things to accomplish.” He strolled over to where Cullen lay against the wall. “You still do not understand,” he said softly. “The stone holds great power. It may be forged from darkness, but its true purpose is too special to waste.”

A faint rumble made the walls and ceiling tremble slightly. Balzael looked at the Sicarai. “What was that?”

“I do not know, my lord,” the destroyer said. “I will find out—”

“No,” Balzael said. “It does not matter. Imperius has been sequestered in his chambers, but it is time to fill him in. On our terms, of course. You know what to do. Go.”

The destroyer nodded once and disappeared. Balzael reached down and took Cullen by the throat, half lifting him off the floor. He turned back to Tyrael. “This one shall be an example. So that you will truly feel the power we wield over you.”

Tyrael struggled against the chains as the monstrosities in the corners of the room moaned eagerly, red eyes glowing, mouths snapping open and shut. “Do not kill him,” he said. “He is an innocent.”

“Oh, he is far from that,” Balzael said from the shadows. “But I will not kill him. You will.”

The necromancer slipped through shadows and light. Rays streamed through the arched openings from the gardens and fell across the corridor, but they could not cut completely through the darkness.

Or perhaps that existed only in his mind.

He had watched Thomas get cut down and had seen Tyrael and Cullen taken by the Sicarai, dragged away toward the Courts of Justice. He had felt the dull
whump
of the explosion and could only assume it had been Mikulov; whether he had survived it was a mystery. And he had not seen Jacob, Shanar, or Gynvir.

For all Zayl knew, they were dead, and he and Humbart were alone.

Alone against an army.

The necromancer had circled the Halls of Valor, slipping through the guards stationed at the entrance and working his way past the main auditorium. The sight chilled his blood: a vast hall full of Luminarei, all of them restless and murmuring together, waiting for the new angel to arrive. It was only a matter of time until what he had done was discovered. By then, he
hoped to be far away from them and inside the Angiris Council room.

When the explosion had occurred, the guards seemed to be thrown into disarray, and some of them had gone streaming out the doors toward the gardens, while others had remained in place, searching for their leaders. But Zayl had kept hidden and crept away, and soon enough, he was once again alone. The corridors and halls seemed to go on forever. It was darker here, enough so that flames were held in troughs that ran along the ceiling far above him. There were heads mounted on the walls, demons of all shapes and sizes, and weaponry, huge swords and spears and chains with spikes and metal rods. He passed through an atrium with some kind of tapestry made of light strands, the moving pictures depicting the great battles fought over the millennia between the Heavens and the Hells. Zayl saw demons disemboweled, the skies darkening with a scourge of angels in flight, the ground torn open and giving birth to monstrosities. He saw the Prime Evils launching at the archangels in a clash within the bowels of the Hells themselves. And he saw the dragon, lit up like a constellation in the night sky.

As he passed through each chamber, he felt larger than before, nearly invincible, and the darkness that had fallen over him began to fade. Perhaps he was the only Horadrim left, but did it matter? He could still get to the Council room and steal the stone out from under the Luminarei, accomplish the mission he had vowed to complete. And if they discovered him, he would fight to the death and take as many of them with him as possible. He had already killed the guards and Gealith, so why not more?

Perhaps he should forget the stone, Zayl thought. Perhaps the fight itself was more important. The destroyer who had come after them was Luminarei, after all, and it was quite possible Imperius himself had sent him to hunt them down. And the destroyer had seemed to work in tandem with the phantoms.

The phantoms that had killed Salene.

It was clear that the archangels were responsible for everything that had happened to him. They deserved to die for their sins.

“Put it away,” Humbart muttered. “Do you want them to see us?”

Zayl realized he had drawn his dagger. “Be quiet, Humbart,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You think you can cut them all down? This place plays tricks with the mind, lad! Don’t do anything stupid. Remember the Balance. That is what you’ve come for, to restore it, not for revenge, Zayl! That’s not who you are.”