Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls

by Vandoren, Elias

  At dawn, Mikulov emerged from the sanctuary. Instinctively, he strode east, deeper into the mountains surrounding Ivgorod. He carried only the scroll and the folded paper, and at his hip, the punch dagger in its sheath. He had no food, for it was to be a week of fasting, and no water, for anyone who could not find the means to slake his thirst could never hope to achieve the wisdom required of monks of the Floating Sky Monastery.

  Should he prove unable to locate water in the first week of his trial, so it would be. He would have failed—and died—before so much as hearing the voices of the gods, let alone striving to do as they willed.

  The week began in calm and tranquility. Mikulov made water his first priority, and so he traveled toward a ridge of steep hills he had seen for years from his dormitory window, a range that ultimately met the Kohl Mountains to the south. He felt confident of finding a stream at the base, though he had no reason to be sure other than that water would always find its way downhill.

  He could hear the masters telling him that the gods often spoke thus, through the mix of knowledge, instinct, and intuition that was the adept's method of thought. His confidence was rewarded: at the base of the range lay a tarn, its water dark but clear, fed by a trickle descending through massive rocks. Showing obeisance in the direction of the gift, Mikulov drank deep to refresh after a long day's walking and to replenish for the week ahead. He was happy to have made the discovery so quickly, for he knew it was likely the most important of his trial; in the punishing summer heat, water was his essential need.

  He chose to look for shelter near the water, for staying close to the source of the gods' munificence seemed in keeping with a grateful heart.

  In the mountains, he knew darkness fell swiftly, and he soon found a stretch of ground less hard than others, beneath an overhanging rock. These, too, he recognized as gifts, and he gave thanks before he lay down.

  Waking, he established the routine he would observe for the next six days. He went to the tarn and washed away the previous day's trek. This was the year's hottest month, when even the nights remained harshly uncomfortable. He would be sweating with no exertion whatsoever, and Mikulov wanted to approach the gods each day clean and unstained. At the faintest hint of light, he stepped into the water and submerged. He held his breath for as long as he could, praying to the gods all the while that he might be worthy of them. He bathed and renewed the prayer with each successive dawn.

  He expected the days to pass in contemplative calm and silence. He felt utterly tranquil and completely at peace, having seen no obstacles to surmount, no predators he must vanquish. In the stillness of his time alone, he spoke not a word.

  Yet the week was far from quiet, for Gachev came to visit, and Gachev was, as he had always been, loud.

  On the fourth day, when the sun was at its zenith and the temperature brutally hot, his fellow orphan first spoke to him. Mikulov had made it his practice to stay close to his resting area, its overhang providing him with many hours of shade even at the sun's apex, near an abundant supply of water. He knew that the longer he spent in direct sunlight, the more he would deplete himself. He emerged from shadow only as needed and walked to the pool, restoring the water that had flowed out of him in the heat of both day and night. Despite his precautions, he was soon feeling the effects of slow dehydration.

  It was in Mikulov's first moment of apprehension, stretching toward doubt, that the taunting voice spoke to him.

  "What makes you think you can succeed where I failed?"

  Mikulov opened his eyes and peered out of the shadow. Across his campsite, splayed out in direct sunlight, lay Gachev, clad in the clothes he had worn the day he left the monastery. He looked no different. How, after so many months in the mountains, could Gachev's tunic not be tattered and his skin not be filthy and raw? Yet he reclined at his ease, as if relaxed by the blistering heat, and observed Mikulov casually. "My first day here, I was miserable, too, sure I would never experience another instant of joy. Yet the sight of other fools trying to survive these hellish weeks in the wild taught me to laugh again." Raising an eyebrow as if in dismay, he studied Mikulov. "Heartily," he added.

  Mikulov was so surprised that he nearly spoke aloud.

  He was under no vow of silence, though it was understood that only in stillness would the gods allow themselves to be heard. So despite the mockery, Mikulov held his tongue. He merely stared at Gachev through the sweat that stung his eyes, this boy who should have been dead.

  This boy, or this apparition? Given his unchanged appearance and the soundless stealth of his approach, Mikulov considered that Gachev might be a figment of his imagination, a mirage conjured by heat and isolation.

  When Gachev spoke further, his voice lost its taunting edge, and his words touched a fear so well hidden it shocked Mikulov. Speaking flatly, Gachev said, "None of us succeeds. No novitiate has ever come through their trial. None ever will."

  Days of hunger quickly turned to days of mind-rending doubt, every sensation made worse by Gachev's wry commentary. The implications of what Gachev said, and said repeatedly, fed a rising desire to break the seal and undertake his trial prematurely, or even to tear the folded paper, unopened, to shreds. Mikulov began to venture farther from his sheltering rock and the tarn, but Gachev was always nearby, laughing mirthlessly at the other boy's efforts to maintain his vigil.

  Over the days, the mockery and questioning bred all-too-plausible theories. The masters of the Floating Sky Monastery never advanced anyone from among the younger, rebellious ranks; acolytes never became monks. The masters were, after all, inordinately selective when choosing which monks to accept. As submissive acolytes completed their studies, they served merely as free labor until they became too much trouble, at which point they were sent off on deadly trials, to be replaced by a new generation of gullible devotees. Was that how the Floating Sky Monastery had survived throughout the centuries?

  Mikulov understood that his fears were running away with him, making his mind see portents and schemes that didn't exist. He sought to refute the doubt by recalling some orphan who had returned victorious from his or her testing, but could not. It was said that those who succeeded were separated from their former fellows so as to eliminate the least distraction from higher studies, which were to be their reward for years to come.

  Gachev's insinuations made sense.

  "You are a fool, Mikulov," he said. "You are proud and impulsive and weak. Your actions out here will not make you a monk. They will only lead you to the anonymous grave you will share with your brethren."

  The ominous pronouncement called to mind Vedenin's countless dire predictions that Mikulov's actions would bring disgrace on himself and his fellow novitiates. Now, as then, Mikulov chose to believe otherwise, taking in once more Gachev's unsoiled appearance and the echo of the words of his most unrelenting master. Together, their admonitions named the dread Mikulov harbored: not death, but shame before death. The boy who would be a monk decided Gachev was a figment of his imagination, an illusory companion to remind him of his loneliness through this preparatory week in the mountains.

  His taunts are my own fears given voice.

  And so, for the final day, whenever Gachev opened his mouth, Mikulov hardened his heart against him. Gachev mocked him for his efforts, but Mikulov told himself the boy was no more than a chimera born of sweat and pain and unbanished doubt. By the seventh day of his ordeal, Mikulov had made Gachev unreal.

  But then the boy saved his life.

  The more Mikulov anticipated the next morning, when he would break the wax seal and receive his instructions, the more he longed to seize his destiny at the first possible moment. He would greet the day from the very summit of the mountain, where dawn would come earlier than below. Though it would be an arduous journey up a stony incline, the challenge seemed worth it, if only to end his agony a few minutes sooner.

  And so he embarked. The sun was past its zenith, yet the heat persisted and seemed only to worsen. Still he began hi
s ascent, to arrive at the peak with plenty of daylight left and to spend his final night of prayer and meditation closer to the gods. He gave little thought to water, for the route he had charted would keep him close to the trickle that fed the tarn in his camp.

  Gachev let pass no opportunity to tell him he had set out unprepared.

  At first Mikulov was confident water would remain accessible as he rose higher, but inevitably the heat and his exertions made his tongue swell from thirst. He was tempted to return, but when he looked back and saw how much closer he was to the summit than to camp, he pressed on.

  "This is ridiculous, all this effort."

  Mikulov, his breath now coming in gasps, ignored his unwanted companion.

  "You rush toward nothing but an earlier death."

  Each rock sought to wrench Mikulov's ankle, each fissure to trap and hobble a foot.

  "You provide the gods with nothing but amusement."

  So enfeebled was Mikulov by the sun and his exhaustion that he feared succumbing to the dangers of the terrain. If he broke a bone, he would be forced to use his healing mantra prematurely and would be left unprepared at a time of greater need.

  "The thousand and one gods are powerless."

  Hearing that unforgivable insult, Mikulov felt the impulse to vent his fury but remembered another of Vedenin's litany of admonitions: The gods are in all things, both physical and spiritual. If so, then they must also be in Mikulov's rage, which provided him newfound energy to shout at Gachev. This was energy to be channeled and utilized, not squandered on a wraith. Do not swallow the anger or cast it away. Feel it. Use it.

  With a new source to draw upon, Mikulov drove himself upward.

  He reached the summit as night fell, a promontory that ended in a cliff. So enervated was he that he could spare no time to look for a site to rest. Squinting past the fierce burning in his eyes, he crawled far enough away from the edge that he had no fear of falling, and collapsed to the stony surface.

  He awoke in cold darkness. Stiffness in his joints told him he had not moved. Several attempts were necessary to open his eyes, and when he did, he saw Gachev sitting on a nearby rock, shaking his head in precious silence. When first light brought a soft blue to the eastern horizon, Mikulov made a move to rise but could not. Sleep had made little difference. He was depleted. Mikulov lay under the sky and contemplated his circumstance. The sun would crest the horizon soon, but he felt nothing, cut off from his body. Strangely, he did not even feel the familiar morning compulsion to relieve himself. This he took as a bad sign. His body lacked the water it needed to survive out in the mountains; he had failed to bolster himself for these extreme conditions. His thoughts were an echo of Vedenin's curse: You will fail before you have even begun. Mikulov added his own, silent imprecation.

  "Yes," Gachev agreed, voicing the words in Mikulov's mind. "You are a fool."

  Once more, anger came. He wants me to fail, Mikulov thought, but he directed his fury again. Despite his body's pain, Mikulov used his rage to rise. As he got to his feet, the first rays of dawn touched his brow.

  He paused while dizziness passed, looked down, and saw the folded paper in his hand. It had been secure in his tunic pocket for seven days, and he had no memory of retrieving it. His fingers shook as he struggled to insert them beneath the fold at the seal. He was shamed by the effort it took to break the lump of wax. He closed his eyes for just a moment, then spread the paper wide to read its contents.

  Inside.

  Mikulov was suddenly too tired to feel even anger. The paper bore just one word? What sort of nonsense was this? "Inside" was no instruction; it was a mistake. His masters had erred, perhaps muddling what they were supposed to give him with a more mundane order for another boy in their service. Even at that moment one of his fellow orphans, expecting to find the directions for his daily chores, might instead be marveling at the meticulous instructions for Mikulov's ordeal in the wilds. The absurdity of the idea was comic. It threatened to undo him, leaving him frenzied and bewildered there on the mountaintop. Mikulov suppressed the hard mirth that rose within him. His laughter would only give Gachev satisfaction.

  He dared not affront the gods. This message could not have come in error. He racked his brain to see how this word fit his circumstances. He must be overlooking something.

  Inside.

  As his mind formed the question Inside what? Mikulov's eyes fell on what looked like the mouth of a cave. It opened in the rock half a hundred paces below, on the side of the summit opposite the one he had climbed. Jutting up out of the incline's face, roofed by an intricately wrought arch no more than an arm's length across, the cave's mouth beckoned him.

  Inside.

  How could his masters have known he would ascend this mountain? They had given no instructions about what direction to walk. He'd been sent out guided only by instinct.

  Vedenin's words from Mikulov's youth came unbidden to his mind. What you sense as instinct is rather the gods' divine direction. Had his travels been steered by communication he had not known he heard? If so, it stood to reason that his masters, too, had been so guided, preparing this one-word message without knowing what, when the moment came, it would mean to the novitiate undergoing the trial.

  The portal offered no answers. The morning's rays, descending the slope below him, quickly warmed the surrounding rock. This day, he saw, would be yet more intense, more searing than before. Whether it was the place the gods had ordained for his trial or merely blind chance, Mikulov knew the cave would provide protection from the heat, if nothing else.

  Exhaustion and volition warring within his depleted muscles, Mikulov awkwardly stumbled downward. Gravity more than will carried him to the portal. Knowing nothing of what lay in the darkness, Mikulov lurched forward and let it gather him in. Inside.

  Only dimly did he wonder why Gachev remained behind.

  As he moved down, the impression he got of his surroundings was of inconceivability; these halls could not exist. That they had been hewn—no, intricately carved from the gutrock of this mountain—was hard enough to ken, yet the fact that he could still see, now deep beneath the surface, was even more difficult. At first, following the rough stairs' descent, he assumed daylight was filtering through, though after what must have been one hundred paces downward, he knew this could not be. Even the fierce sunlight of the mountaintop was too weak to penetrate this far, and hidden shafts or unseen clefts in the rock could not account for this strange illumination. Finally, a long and level hallway stretching out before him, Mikulov understood that what his eyes beheld was utterly different from any of these notions, though every bit as impossible: the walls themselves contained a soft glow that surged within them.

  What is this? Mikulov asked. He studied the stone of the walls around him. The light did flow indeed, like blood. The illumination moved in a steady rhythm, pulsations following the beat of his own heart.

  What hell have I blithely entered?

  Mikulov asked himself if what he had witnessed thus far aligned with what he knew about the gods' behavior. I know that the gods speak to us through signs, both in nature and through the works of men. Further, the gods are in all things, he thought, and the light within the stone seemed to fairly scream that it was the work of the gods. Therefore these steps, this hall—clearly hewn by men—must be a manifestation of the gods' will. Seeing nothing to contradict this, Mikulov took a moment to ponder their message.

  Concentration was difficult; thirst kept intruding into his thoughts, and even though he stood motionless, his thigh muscles shook with strain. The deprivation he had endured for seven days and nights had taken a deep toll on his body, and therefore on his mind as well. Even when he exerted a tremendous effort to suppress his discomfort, he still could not focus.

  His thoughts returned to Gachev, Mikulov at last wondering why the boy had not followed him down. And the more he exhorted himself to ponder the gods' message, the farther into his concentration Gachev seemed to run. The boy had
anticipated, even savored, Mikulov's disappointment for days, so how could he now forgo the chance to revel in the novitiate's confusion and imminent failure?

  Mikulov turned his face upward to the smallest flicker of light at the top of the stairs he had just descended. Craning his neck to see past outcroppings of stone, Mikulov saw his tormentor. The older boy stood solemnly, silently staring down at him. No barbs, no jibes, no provocation. Simply mute vigil. Gachev seemed to defend the stairs from anything that might follow Mikulov to his doom.

  Or did he bar Mikulov's ascent back to open air and daylight?

  Seeing Gachev so distant above, sensing how far into the dark depths of the mountain he had come, Mikulov was afraid. He gestured to Gachev. Pointing ahead to the shadows of the hall, he beckoned the older boy to follow.

  Gachev remained where he stood. He merely shook his head. His words, "This test is yours," fell to Mikulov like rain, heavy and cold. "I go no farther."