It hardly surprised her that she had been locked in, but the truth nevertheless frustrated Kara immensely. The necromancer had been trapped time and time again since beginning this chase and now she wondered whether or not she would be able to escape this prison. Unwilling to give up, Kara touched the handle and muttered a spell of opening. It was a minor incantation, one that actually had its roots in Vizjerei elemental sorcery, but the followers of Rathma had found it one of the few useful creations of the rival calling. That it almost certainly would fail did not escape her, but Kara could think of no other way out of the room that would not require a spell likely to bring the ceiling down on her as well.
The handle turned .
Startled by her unlikely success, the necromancer nearly flung open the door. Instead, taking a deep breath, Kara cautiously opened it a crack, then surveyed the outer hallway. Seeing no sign of danger, the dark mage quietly stepped out. She peered both directions, trying to recall by which she had earlier come. After a brief mental debate, Kara turned to the right and ran.
The corridor ended at a stairway that led up, a hopeful sign. Kara pushed herself up the steps, certain that if she kept going the direction she did, the desperate spellcaster would eventually find her way out.
The stairway stopped two flights later, opening up into a much wider corridor. Making certain that Horazon did not seem about, the necromancer crept down the larger hall. Although the room in which she had slept had been well-decorated, the halls themselves seemed positively austere, with only the occasional door breaking the monotony. The one consistently odd element of her surroundings proved to be the yellow light, whose source never proved evident. It came from everywhere at the same time. There were no torches nor anywhere even to put them.
As she hurried along, Kara occasionally felt tempted to try one of the doors, but knew that it behooved her more to find the way out as soon as she could. Any lingering might give Horazon time to discover that she had gone missing. While the necromancer dearly wanted to know more about the mad mage and his sanctum, she desired to do so on her own terms, not his.
Just ahead, the corridor took a hard right turn. Kara stepped up her pace, hoping that the change in direction meant that she had found a passage to the outside. The frustrated enchantress cut around the corner as quickly as she could, praying that somewhere at the end would be another stairway or, better yet, the true exit.
Instead, she found herself facing a blank wall .
The hallway simply ended just a few yards after it had begun. Putting both hands to it, the necromancer checked the wall for illusions, magic, even a false front. Unfortunately, for all practical purposes, the barrier before her seemed as solid as it looked even though she could find no good reason at all for its existence.
Stepping back, Kara studied the only other direction. To return to the stairway made no sense, but that left to her only the doors. Surely they did not represent a path out of Horazon’s domain.
She went to the first, cautiously opening it. With her luck as it had been so far, Kara feared that her choice would turn out to be the ancient Vizjerei’s very own chambers.
Behind the door stood a long, curving passage.
“Is that the trick, then?” she whispered to herself. Did the true way out depend on opening the doors and not following the regular corridors? Trust her demented host to design his underground lair in such an improbable manner!
Eagerly Kara Nightshadow hurried down the hidden corridor, not even bothering to shut the door behind her. Somewhere at the end, she would find escape. Somewhere she would find the way back to the old building or some other secret entrance into Lut Gholein.
Instead, the necromancer found yet another door.
She had no choice but to open it. There had been no other passage, no other entrance. However, at least this time Kara opened the door with some hope of success. She had journeyed for some distance. Horazon’s mazelike sanctum had to come to an end here and now.
Another hallway greeted her.
That it resembled the wide one Kara had long left behind did not bother her. Of course, the design would be similar. After all, the same man had created it all.
Then she saw the open door just a short distance to her left.
With great trepidation, the weary necromancer walked over to it. She peeked inside, hoping her guess to be wrong.
The same curved corridor Kara had just traversed greeted the weary woman.
“Trag’Oul, guide me out of the madness!” What point had there been to a corridor that returned to the same hall? Kara blinked as another realization hit her. This door and the one she had returned by had been located on opposite sides of the hall. How could she possibly have looped around like that? The corridor would have had to cut through the hallway, a complete impossibility!
Without hesitation Kara headed for the lone door left to her. If it did not lead somewhere other than this hallway, then Horazon’s bizarre realm had finally defeated her.
To the necromancer’s relief, though, the doorway opened into a vast chamber in which two sets of wide, bannistered staircases flanked a pair of high bronze doors decorated with intricate dragon motifs. A well-preserved marble floor covered the entire expanse of the room and more tapestries covered the stone walls.
Kara stepped into the massive room, debating whether to choose the doors or one of the staircases. The doors looked most tantalizing, being directly across from her, but the stairs, too, enticed the necromancer, either one possibly leading to an exit above ground.
A slight sound above her head made Kara look up— then gasp at what she saw.
Far, far up, Horazon sat in a chair, the white-haired sorcerer mumbling to himself while he ate at a long dining table. The noise Kara had heard had been the madman laying his knife on what looked to be an elaborate gold plate filled with rich meat. Even though so far below, Kara could still smell its succulent flavor. As she watched, Horazon reached for a goblet of wine, the elderly Vizjerei taking a long sip without spilling so much as a drop. That feat especially amazed her, not because she had not thought the insane mage capable of simple table manners—but because he did so while he sat upside down on the ceiling.
In fact, the entire tableau was upside down and yet nothing fell toward Kara. The chair, the table, the plates full of fresh food, even Horazon’s lengthy beard—all defied basic nature. Gazing around the ceiling in astonishment, the dark mage even saw doors and other staircases that would have suited the mage well in his present position. If not for Horazon and his elaborate meal, it would have been as if she stared at a mirror image above her,
Still drinking, Horazon cocked his head up—or rather down —and at last caught sight of the startled young woman.
“Come! Come!” he called to her. “You’re late! I don’t like people late!”
Fearful that he might use his considerable power to drag her up to the ceiling, perhaps forever eliminating her hopes for escape, Kara rushed across the great hall, heading to the bronze doors. They had to lead somewhere out of his reach! They had to!
With one last look up at her captor, Kara flung open the nearest of the doors and darted through. If she could just keep ahead of him—
“Aaah! Good! Good! Sit there! Sit there!”
Horazon watched her from the other end of a long, elegant table identical to the one at which she had just seen him sitting, only this time it stood not on the ceiling, but rather in the center of the room she had just now entered. The exact same meal, even down to the wine, lay spread before him. Beyond the mage, doorways and staircases just like the necromancer had seen atop the other chamber now served as backdrop to Horazon and his meal.
Unable to prevent herself from doing so, Kara looked up at the ceiling.
Staircases and doorways, all upside down, greeted her gaze.
One of the latter, a bronze giant, stood open—as if someone had flung it aside in haste.
“Rathma, protect me . . .” Kara murmured.
&nb
sp; “Sit, girl, sit!” commanded Horazon, totally oblivious to her dismay. “Time to eat! Time to eat!”
And with nothing more she could do to save herself, the necromancer obeyed.
A storm covered the desert, a vast ocean of black, churning clouds that spread all the way from the east to as far west as Augustus Malevolyn could see. Dawn had risen, but it might as well have been just after sunset, so dark had the day begun. Some might have taken such a threatening sky for a bad omen, but the general saw it instead as a sign that his time had come, that his day of destiny was at hand. Lut Gholein lay just ahead and in it he knew cringed the fool who wore the glorious armor— his glorious armor.
Xazax had assured him of the last. Where else would the stranger have gone? The winds blew strong, ensuring that no ship would be heading out to sea this day. He had to still be in the city.
The general studied Lut Gholein from atop a massive dune. Behind him and entirely invisible to the eyes of the enemy, Malevolyn’s demonic host patiently awaited his word. Because of the particular spell utilized, the sinister creatures still wore the shells of his men, although eventually they would be able to discard those. They had needed them to make the passage from Hell to the mortal plane and would yet require them for some time to come. That need, though, did not bother Malevolyn. For the moment, it served better that the enemy thought this tiny army simply mortal. It would make the commanders in Lut Gholein overconfident, arrogant. They would commit themselves to tactics which would expend their might early for a quick victory—but in doing so they would merely be setting themselves up for a slaughter that Malevolyn already much savored.
Xazax joined the human, the mantis finally creeping into sight after being gone far too long. Something about that struck the general as curious. Of all the demons now with him, Xazax clearly had to be the most dominating, yet the insidious insect moved about as if fearful that, even on such a dark day, someone might see him.
“Why do you lurk about? What are you afraid of?” Malevolyn asked, growing a bit suspicious. “Are you expecting something I should know about?”
“This one is afraid of nothing!” the mantis snapped, his mandibles working furiously. “Nothing!” However, in a slightly lower voice, he added, “This one is merely . . . cautious . . .”
“You act as if you fear something.”
“No . . . nothing . . .”
General Malevolyn again recalled both Xazax’s reaction to the name Baal and the fact that Lut Gholein had been said to house underneath it the demon lord’s tomb. Could there then be some fact after all to that outlandish tale?
Deciding he could investigate the demon’s anxieties later, General Malevolyn turned his gaze back to Lut Gholein. The city lay unsuspecting. Even now, a contingent of the sultan’s forces rode out of the gate on early morning patrol, the riders’ attitudes plain to see even from this distance. They did their rounds with the notion that no one would have the audacity to attack, especially by way of the desert. Lut Gholein more feared attacks by sea and on a day as fierce as this one looked to be, the odds of that appeared infinitesimal.
“We will let the patrol come as near as possible,” he informed the mantis. “Then we shall take them. I want to see how your warriors act before we seek the city itself.”
“Not this one’s warriors,” corrected Xazax. “Yours . . . ”
The riders swept out, crisscrossing the land beyond the walls. Malevolyn watched and waited, knowing that their course would soon enough take the patrol to where he wanted them to be.
“Prepare the archers.”
A rank of figures stepped forward, inhuman eyes eager. Although they wore but the husks of Malevolyn’s men, the demons somehow retained the knowledge and skills of their victims. The faces Augustus Malevolyn glanced at had been the faces of his best archers. Now the demons would prove whether or not they could do as well—or, preferably, better.
“On my mark,” he commanded.
They readied their bows. Xazax spoke a single word— and the tips of the arrows blazed.
The turbaned riders drew nearer. Malevolyn shifted his mount, the better to be seen by them.
One of the defenders noted him and called out to the others. The patrol, an estimated forty and more in strength, turned toward the outsider.
“Be ready.” He urged his horse a few steps in the direction of the other riders, as if he intended to meet them. They, in turn, rode at a pace that suggested that they were wary, but not very much so.
And at last, the soldiers from Lut Gholein came near enough for General Malevolyn’s tastes.
“Now!”
Even the howling wind could not overwhelm the terrible shrieks of the feathered shafts in flight. Arain of death undaunted by the gale fell upon the enemy.
The first of the arrows landed, some missing, some striking well. Malevolyn saw a bolt hit one of the lead riders dead on, the shaft burning through his breastplate as if the latter did not exist, then burying itself deep in the man’s chest. Even more shocking, that rider suddenly burst into flames , his terrible wound the point of origin. The corpse fell off the frightened horse, colliding with another mount who then shied, throwing his own rider to the ground.
Another shaft caught a guard in the leg, but what seemed a bad wound at best became a new terror as that, too, erupted in fire. Screaming, the soldier frantically slapped at a limb entirely engulfed by quickly spreading flames. His animal, too, shied, sending the unfortunate man to the ground. Even there, the flames would not cease, already spreading up and around the victim’s waist.
Of the forty or so riders in the patrol, at least a third lay either dead or near to it, all the bodies afire. Several horses, also lay stricken. The rest of the soldiers fought for control of their panicked steeds.
A smile on his face, Augustus Malevolyn turned back to his deadly horde. “Second and third ranks . . . advance and attack!”
A war cry that would have chilled most men but only served to thrill the general erupted from the throats of those summoned. The demonic warriors poured over the dune. As with Malevolyn’s late soldiers, they kept their ranks tight and orderly, yet still he could see the savagery in their movements, the inhuman lust in their continual shouts. In numbers, they more than surpassed those of the riders, but not enough that, under normal circumstances, the patrol could not readily fight their way to freedom.
One of the officers spotted the marauding band and called out a warning. Immediately the survivors of the patrol turned toward Lut Gholein. However, Malevolyn had no intention of letting them go. Glancing at the archers, he ordered another volley.
This time the shafts flew far over his adversaries, just as intended. Moments later, the sand in front of the retreating patrol exploded with fire as the arrows struck the ground. For a few precious seconds, a wall of flame cut off all hope of escape.
Those few precious seconds were all the demons needed to reach their foes.
They swarmed around the riders, swords and spears up. Several riders and horses fell quickly, pin-cushioned. The defenders fought back, thrusting at their assailants. One managed to strike what should have been a mortal blow, only to have Malevolyn’s unholy warrior completely ignore the blade in his side while he pulled the stunned soldier off his mount.
An officer from the patrol attempted to organize better resistance. Two of the demons dragged him down. Abandoning their weapons, they tore his armor from his body, then tore into the flesh underneath.
“They are . . . enthusiastic . . .” Xazax remarked with some amusement.
“Just so long as they recall what I said this morning.”
“They will do so.”
One of the few remaining defenders made a mad break for Lut Gholein. A demon grabbed at his leg and would have brought him down, but another suddenly tore his comrade’s clawing fingers from the hapless rider, enabling the human to make good his escape.
“You see? This one promised you that they would obey your orders, warlord . . .”
“Then, as soon as the rest have been dealt with, we’ll move forward. You’ll remain behind, I trust?”
“For now, warlord . . .” Xazax had suggested that, without a true human form, he would be too obvious a sight for this first struggle. In daylight, the demon could not apparently create sufficiently the illusion of a man, as he had done that night. In fact, had General Malevolyn inspected the shadowed face better during that encounter, he would have seen that no true features had actually existed—just hints of them.
The mantis’s explanation for his hesitation had a few holes in it that the general would discuss with him further, but he knew that such a conversation could wait. The armor called to Malevolyn; all he had to do was take the city to get it.
Below, the slaughter of the patrol took but a few short minutes more, the defenders’ ranks dwindling with each passing second. More and more the true nature of Malevolyn’s force became evident as the demons fell upon the soldiers, drenching the sand with blood.
By this time, the lone survivor had reached the gates of Lut Gholein. Horns blared behind the walls, warning being given to all that the kingdom had been attacked.
“All right! Let’s let them see us!” He raised his hand high in the air—and in it formed the fiery, ebony sword that he had used on the scarab demons. “Advance!”
The clouds rumbled and lightning flashed as General Malevolyn’s army came out of hiding. Below, the first and second rank formed up, their lines a little more ragged than before. The feast of bloodletting had stirred up the demons there, making them forget some of the human traits they had stolen. Still, so long as they obeyed his commands to the letter, the general could forgive the slight error.
The howling wind whipped Malevolyn’s cloak around. He adjusted his helmet, bent his head slightly down to avoid the sand blown into the air. As of yet, the sky had not given any indication of rain, but even that would not stop him now.
Panic must be spreading among the common folk within. The soldiers, however, would, at this moment, be studying his advancing force and determining that, despite the wholesale slaughter of the patrol, this new foe lacked the numbers to be a true threat to them. They would make one of two choices; either defend the walls only—or send out a much larger force seeking retribution for the horrific deaths of which the one surviving guard would speak.
Diablo #1: Legacy of Blood Page 25