Diablo III: Storm of Light (5 page)

The once-proud structure had been devastated by the archangel’s plunge like a fallen star from the Heavens. The gods had shown it to the monk in a vision—a streaking river of light through the sky. The spire and walls mostly remained, but a hole in the ground gaped open like a ragged mouth, exposing the top levels of the secret catacombs that lay far beneath the foundation. Broken arch supports stuck up through the rubble, crumbling piles of wood and stone everywhere. Fire had ravaged some of the interior, but under the faint moonlight, Mikulov could see several rows of wooden pews intact, as if waiting for a congregation to fill them again.

He had dreamed of all this many times. But to see it in the
flesh, to smell the charred remains on the wind and feel the rot at its core, was something else entirely.

The gods were silent now. He did not blame them for leaving this forsaken place.

The two men who had traveled with Mikulov waited for his signal that all was clear and then labored to the top of the hill. Their training had kept them in better shape than most, but none could match the legendary physical conditioning of an Ivgorod monk, and the journey from Gea Kul in Kehjistan had been long and exhausting. The heavy satchels slung across their shoulders added to the burden, but neither of them would think of giving them up. They were Horadrim, and the texts they carried were as essential as the blood that ran through their veins.

Cullen reached the top first and gazed out at the ruins. The short man pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. He had studied Cain’s texts for years and had always wanted to see the Tristram Cathedral, but only one who knew him well would have sensed the excitement that lay beneath his seemingly calm demeanor.

Thomas slung his pack to the ground and touched Cullen’s arm. The taller man’s eyes sparkled in the twilight.

“The history that lies here,” he said. “If we were to gain access to the lower levels—”

“That would be unwise.” Mikulov turned to his companions. “They are unstable. And I have yet to scout the surroundings. Sanctuary may have been purged of the Prime Evil, but lesser demons still wander these lands. We must be very careful.”

“Then we search for the pyre,” Thomas said. “We must build a shrine, even a humble one, if none stands. He deserves nothing less.”

Mikulov studied the faces of his friends. Cullen, the scholar, still had the familiar boyish features below a bald crown, but his cheeks had hollowed some during the long, hard journey. Thomas was a foot taller than his companion and much thinner, but his eyes held the confident stare of a warrior. The men had changed much since Mikulov had left them in Gea Kul after the defeat of the Dark One and the fall of the Black Tower. The monk wondered how they viewed him.

“Stay here,” he said. “The gods are silent. I must find out why.”

The two Horadrim watched the monk slip away down the hill, darting between the remains of trees and disappearing into the gloom. As always, Cullen thought, he moved like a ghost; even the moon refused to reveal him. Cullen remembered feeling a mixture of unease and awe when he’d first met Mikulov more than ten years ago.

Those feelings hadn’t changed upon the monk’s return to Gea Kul and the new Horadric temple some months ago. Mikulov had seemed surprised to find a thriving center for scholarly study in Gea Kul, established with a growing group of Horadrim led by Thomas and Cullen. He should not have been; Deckard Cain had become a legend among the group after the fall of the Black Tower, and they had pledged to do what he asked of them when he left. They followed his teachings and writings closely.

Mikulov had joined with the others studying the ancient texts, but he remained restless. The gods had shown him many things during his travels these past ten years, he had said, but he had yet to learn his true destiny. Then a new vision had come to him one evening as he explored the ruins of the tower where the final battle with the Dark One had been fought, where Mikulov had nearly become one with all things. He had been confronted by a
holy stranger shrouded in light, he said, the embodiment of the gods themselves, who told him he must travel to Tristram and seek out the cathedral’s ruins.

It was not like the gods to appear in such a form, he had said. But he would not speak more on the vision. Whatever he had seen disturbed him enough to keep him silent. But he was determined to seek out the old cathedral, and when he had asked Thomas and Cullen to accompany him—told them that the fate of Sanctuary itself depended on it—they had readily agreed.

Our friend spent years wandering Sanctuary in search of truth and avoided a good many Ivgorod assassins along the way. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt. If his gods have called him to the cathedral, that’s good enough for me
.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason they had come.

“I’d always imagined the cathedral to be . . . larger,” Thomas said. “More impressive.”

“We’ve spent years studying what happened here. It’s of seminal importance to our entire purpose. And it’s been touched by fire.”

Thomas stared past the ruins. He was silent for a long moment, his eyes wandering across the scorched hills. Cullen knew what he was searching for. “Deckard lies near the burying ground, where his body was brought to ash in a great pyre of holy smoke and fire,” he said. “The archangel Tyrael himself witnessed it. That’s what was written to us by Leah, before she . . . before her loss, and I have no reason to doubt it.” He slung his satchel to the ground and dug into the bottom for a map, one of the faithful reproductions of Tristram that they had made themselves at the temple. Cullen was in charge of old and new texts, cataloging the Horadrim’s extensive library and overseeing the lettering and binding of copies of those that were threatening to crumble to dust, and this was one of his best.

He spread the map across a thick root that protruded like a
black serpent from the rocky soil, muttering a few words of power under his breath. The markings began to glow softly, revealing crude drawings of the cathedral and its surroundings.

Crude but carefully marked
. This was a copy from an authentic Horadric scroll, and he had updated it himself from more recent information. From this angle, the graveyard would be located beyond the ruins. Cullen tucked it away as the markings faded and peered through the faint moonlight. His heart thudded heavily in his chest. “Perhaps we could take just a short walk—”

“Don’t move.”

Cullen felt the edge of a blade against his neck.

Thomas had half drawn his sword but held it motionless. He was watching someone just behind Cullen’s right shoulder, and his eyes made a single flick down and to Cullen’s left. Cullen knew what he wanted. His assailant was left-handed, and the proper twisting move could free Cullen enough for Thomas to strike.

But the blade was held tightly against Cullen’s flesh and made such a move extremely dangerous.

Cullen made a small sound low in his throat, and the man behind him shifted slightly. The blade bit down before the moon brightened the ground for a moment.

“A necromancer,” Thomas said. He slid the sword slowly back into place and showed his hands. “Release my friend. We’ve no quarrel with you. We’re Horadrim, come from Kehjistan. What business do you have here?”

The blade remained in place, and Cullen closed his eyes, waiting for the pulse of his own hot blood rolling down his throat. But eventually, the knife withdrew.

“Beggars and thieves, more likely,” a voice said, different from the first. “I’d sleep with one eye open, ‘twas up to me. ‘Course, I’ve no choice in the matter. I go where you carry me.”

Cullen turned, expecting to find two men, but he found only
one. His assailant was slim and pale as death, black bangs slashed above a bearded, solemn face. He wore a cloak with silver runes stitched along its edge; a black glove was on his right hand, bone dagger clutched in his left. The blade glowed with an eerie blue light. But his strangest features were his eyes, which were a pale gray and luminescent like tiny twin moons.

This was a man filled with a quiet but dangerous power. His leather boots did not make a sound on the gravel-packed soil.

Cullen had met one or two necromancers in his time, and their practice of the dark arts always put people on edge. They rarely showed emotion and tended to keep to themselves. But this one was even more unsettling, for reasons that he couldn’t quite understand. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d just had a knife at Cullen’s throat.

And, of course, there was the matter of the second voice.

“Your companion,” Cullen said. “Where did he go?”

The necromancer slid his gloved hand toward a fat pouch on his belt the size of a melon. “There’s no one else.”

“A fine hello, that is,” the slightly muffled voice said indignantly. “I can’t very well shake their hands myself. Ashamed, are you? I’m like the hunchbacked aunt the family keeps locked in the root cellar so as not to scare the neighbors.”

“Hush,” the necromancer said. He patted the pouch.

“I’ve been quiet too long,” the voice continued. “It’s dark in here and none too roomy. Smells like the ass end of a mule, if you don’t mind me saying.”

The necromancer seemed to hesitate slightly and then unbuckled the pouch to remove a human skull missing its lower jaw. Cullen stumbled backward, and Thomas let out a cry, drawing his sword as if to ward it off.

Empty eye sockets gleamed white in the moonlight. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the skull said.

The two men had identified themselves as Horadrim, and the sign of the order was stitched on their satchels. They certainly appeared to be humble scholars of some kind, based on their simple dress: pale brown robes over gray tunics belted at the waist, sandals on their feet. There had been rumors of a new clan attempting to establish itself somewhere in Kehjistan, and the necromancer had recently seen a good-quality reproduction of a Horadric text in Westmarch that the bookshop proprietor claimed had been shipped from Gea Kul. But the true order had supposedly died out long ago.

The shorter one had nearly lost his spectacles as he scrambled away from the skull, and he set them back up on his nose with a finger, blinking rapidly. “Who—
what
—are you?”

“I had an unfortunate turn of fate while robbing a lost city,” the skull said. “The pleasant fellow here who threatened you at knifepoint—Zayl, his name is—raised my spirit to help guide him to the proper location—”

“Enough, Humbart,” the necromancer said. He was uneasy in these surroundings, although he would never show it. Tristram was forever bound to the darkness in ways he would rather not
confront quite yet.
Chaos and ruin live in this place
, he thought,
and these men are searching for answers, too
.

Zayl thought back on the past year with regret. He did not often judge his life based on his past or on fate alone. His time to depart this world would come when it was ready and not a moment sooner. But lately, it seemed that chaos had been given free rein. The absence of the Worldstone continued to affect the mortal realm; the demon hordes had come farther east than ever before and threatened his birthplace in the eastern jungles. He and his brethren had fought them off, but once again, Zayl had found himself drawn far from his home in search of the disruption in the Balance. He had sensed that the source for the uprising lay to the west, and that the Lesser Evils Belial and Azmodan would come from the Burning Hells to invade Sanctuary.