by Kenyon, Nate
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.
He had fought for the side of light in Caldeum as that city nearly fell to Belial’s cunning, although he had never met the people who ultimately brought Belial down. Rumors of demons breaking through the Diamond Gates of the Heavens, gathered from the possessed soul of a guardsman, made him fear that the Great Cycle of Being would be permanently altered.
But if such an invasion had occurred, Hell’s minions must have been turned away by the angelic guard, or the ground beneath men’s feet would have been split asunder. Instead, the world began to settle again toward a semblance of normalcy. He had left Caldeum, searching for more answers, and ended up in Westmarch.
The last time Zayl had been called there, he had very nearly been killed by the spider demon Astrogha. He had also, Zayl hated to admit, fallen in love. It was not something that often happened to necromancers, and the feeling had left him vulnerable. Abandoning Salene back then had been one of the most difficult things he had ever done, but it had been necessary. A priest of Rathma worked alone.
Yet I was so eager to return. Perhaps Salene was the reason, after all. If so, he had broken a cardinal rule of the priesthood—putting his own needs before his calling—and made a terrible mistake.
He had sensed a growing unrest among the proud people of Westmarch. Although most of the citizens were suspicious of members of his kind, he had overheard enough to gather the meaning: there were rumors of an underground religious order that was swiftly gathering power and recruits, and tension was rising between it and the knights. And there was talk of disappearances, always of someone else’s kin.
Zayl had wasted little time tracking down Lady Salene, telling himself she would hold important information that might help him find the answers he was seeking. Humbart hadn’t been fooled for a second; he knew the true reason lay in the shadowed depths of Zayl’s heart. Salene had never married, and in spite of General Torion’s mild objections over his reappearance, her feelings for him were apparent.
When he had found her, now a lady of the court, and they were together, it felt as if no time had passed. She forgave him for leaving her, she said. She had always held out hope for his return and had never stopped waiting.
Then the dark-winged creatures had come for her in the night.
In spite of himself, Zayl shivered. The slight tremor of emotion would not have been noticed by anyone save another Rathmian and perhaps Humbart, who was closer to him than any living being. But it reminded him of his weakness, so recently exposed.
His true regret lay in what he had done next, after he had been too late to save her. He should have known better than to let his personal feelings affect him. There is a new threat to this world, Salene’s spirit had told him, one that may make all others pale in comparison, for its only goal is to wipe humankind from existence forever. You have been called to the old cathedral in Tristram by a very powerful mortal, one who will ask you to join him in a dangerous mission. You must go with him to find Borad the blacksmith in Bramwell. He holds the key that you seek.
Zayl had not questioned her message; it was not in him to do so. His destiny lay here, among the ruins. Now, more than a month later, the anguish over her loss was stronger than ever. Necromancers were not supposed to view death as a tragedy, but Zayl mourned Salene like no other. His undying love for her had led him to this forsaken place.
If you cannot find the way, Rathma had allegedly said, wait, and the way will find you.
“Horadrim, you say?” the skull continued, bringing Zayl back from his dark memories. “I’ve not heard of your kind since the fall of Tristram. Are you certain you’re not possessed?”
“Pardon my traveling companion’s blunt approach,” Zayl said. “But in this case, I fear it’s warranted. As for my business, I might ask you the same.”
The men had recovered quickly from their fright but still eyed the skull and the necromancer with some distaste and kept their distance. Zayl was used to such a reception; Rathmian priests were distrusted in these lands, their dark arts feared by those who misunderstood them. Necromancers dabbled in life and death and knew how to manipulate the line between the two. Raising spirits certainly did not make one many friends.
“We seek the resting place of the founder of our order, Deckard Cain.” The shorter one took a step closer. “My name is Cullen, and this is Thomas. We’re also traveling with an Ivgorod monk.”
Zayl was surprised by this. He had not seen anyone else, which meant that the monk must be very skilled indeed.
“May I?” Cullen’s curiosity was apparently overcoming his revulsion as he glanced at Humbart, then at the necromancer. Zayl hesitated just a moment before he handed the skull over.
“Fascinating,” the man said, turning and examining Humbart, which provoked a startled exclamation and a string of curses from the skull. Cullen gave it back quickly, wiping his fingers on his tunic as if to clear them of some foul stain. “I’ve studied such things, of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen—”
His words were interrupted by a commotion near the ruins of the cathedral. Raised voices were followed by the sound of clashing swords ringing across the shallow valley that separated them. Zayl tucked Humbart into the sack on his belt and drew his bone dagger as Thomas and Cullen scrambled forward and down the slope toward the next rise.
The trees here seemed to grasp at their clothing with dead hands, and the ground was unstable, rolling stones and shifting clumps of black soil under their feet. But Zayl moved with grace, his boots easily picking out the solid spots so that he was quickly outpacing the other men.
As they approached the next rise, the sounds of the skirmish ceased. Wind gusted through the valley, dust swirling around them. Zayl stopped for a moment to let it pass. When the air cleared and the moon returned, four figures were coming down the gentle slope to meet them, the Ivgorod monk leading the others. His bald head gleamed; he wore cloth wrapped around his heavily muscled chest, with a yellow sash knotted at his waist, armor around his forearms, and a string of wooden beads around his neck. A formidable presence, Zayl decided. He moved with confidence and purpose and with a quiet sense of strength. A warrior you would be better served to have on your side.
The others behind him walked three abreast: a female wizard next to a slim male figure with blond hair and dressed in a nomad’s worn robes and, slightly apart from them, a barbarian who towered over her companions by at least a foot, her impressive curves accentuated by the armor that clung to her breasts and waist and left the flesh of her hips exposed. She held a battle axe across her shoulder that must have weighed nearly as much as Zayl himself, and yet she carried it with ease.
“What’s happening?” complained the voice from his sack. “A little narration, if you please? There’s dark magic about this place. I’d like to know if you’re about to get an arrow through you!”
Zayl glanced back at Cullen and Thomas, who were nearly caught up now. “We have company,” he said. “This time, let me do the talking.”
The monk, whose name was Mikulov, had surprised the three new arrivals as they approached the other side of the ruins.
The wizard was named Shanar, the slim blond man was Jacob, and the barbarian introduced herself as Gynvir. The barbarian was older than he’d guessed at first glance, Zayl thought, but well preserved. The blond man was
a bit ragged around the edges, but the wizard, the youngest of the three, was slender and remarkably beautiful.
They had also been called here for some purpose that was unclear. “The High Heavens’ Crystal Arch has a resonance—a song,” Shanar said after the introductions were made. “I’m able to tap into it, and the resonance . . . it speaks to me. I can’t make it plainer than that.”
“I’ve studied texts that describe the Arch,” Cullen said, eyes brightening. “The resonance gives birth to angels, the legends say. Deckard wrote about it in a seminal volume of our order. And you found a way to sense this, here on Sanctuary?”
Shanar nodded. “The song flows through all of us, shapes the destiny of mortals in mysterious ways—a vibration like a struck fork, felt only in the ether that surrounds us. Most people can’t sense it. The song led me here, to Tristram.” She gestured toward Jacob and the barbarian. “Their presence was . . . required. The resonance made that pretty clear.”
Gynvir in particular seemed wary of the necromancer, her hands tightening on her battle axe. “What is he doing here?” she said, glaring at Zayl before glancing back at Shanar. “You told me we were needed to save Sanctuary from evil, and you know I’ll fight to the death for that. But I didn’t sign up to be in the presence of one of his kind.”
Barbarians were a superstitious, spiritual people, fiercely loyal to their duty to protect the Worldstone. After Mount Arreat had been destroyed and the stone was thought lost forever, many had taken to searching for conflict to assuage the emptiness in their hearts. Denied a proper warrior’s burial on the slopes of their beloved mountain, they were wanderers from then on, and death was no longer something they cared to understand in such an intimate way.
“Please, I mean you no harm,” Zayl said. “I’m here for the same reasons you are, to battle against the darkness and restore the Balance.”
“Pah.” The barbarian spit in the dust. “If you try any of your dark spells around me, you’ll taste the edge of my axe. I’ll ask you again, necromancer, what are you doing in Tristram?”
“Hunting barbarians,” Humbart said from Zayl’s pouch. “What else?”
The barbarian swung her weapon into place before her sizable chest, holding it in a double-handed grip. “Who spoke?” she said, looking around wildly. “Reveal yourself!”
Zayl sighed. He attempted a small smile, more to put the barbarian at ease than through any sense of friendliness. But smiling didn’t come naturally to him, and from her reaction, he supposed the effect was more like a baring of teeth. He regretted Humbart’s attempt at humor and didn’t particularly enjoy making others uncomfortable, but he wasn’t ready to volunteer more information just yet. This chance meeting was entirely too convenient. More would be revealed soon, Zayl was sure, but until then, he would remain silent.
As if in answer, a bright light flared briefly in the dark, outlining the remains of the cathedral from the other side. Along with it came a ripple in the Balance; Zayl felt it wash over him, and a muttered curse came from Humbart, who was far more attuned to these changes than any living mortal. It meant the presence of something not of this world, something powerful that was in league with either the Heavens or the Hells and threatened the natural equilibrium between light and darkness.
Who or what this was, he could not say, but he had the sense they would all soon find out.
The monk led the charge back up the hill. They reached the top as the light began to fade, skirting the edge of the fallen cathedral to the graveyard on the other side. Stones leaned crookedly in every direction, their markings worn to faint lines and shadows. But all eyes were on what would have been the graveyard’s entrance.
A pillar of fresh white stone, twice the height of a man, rose up from the ground, a beautifully carved monument in perfect symmetry, squared edges running up to a triangular top with markings etched across it. The same symbol that appeared on the two men’s satchels.
The sign of the Horadrim.
As the wind changed, the smell of charred wood was carried over to them. The remains of a burning lay at the foot of the monument. Thomas and Cullen rushed forward with the others close behind them, leaving Zayl at the graveyard’s edge. The world fell silent for a moment.
“Have they left us, then?”
“They haven’t gone far, Humbart,” Zayl said, his voice low. “Don’t antagonize them, please. I have enough to handle without having to explain your rather odd sense of humor.”
“That’s the least of your problems,” Humbart said, muffled by the sack. “Forgive me, but you seem to be acting a bit daft. First, chasing after those things that took Salene—”
“That’s no business of yours,” Zayl said. His voice held an edge.
“It needs saying. We’ve been together too long for me to cut words. You’ve lost her, and that’s a terrible thing. I lost a woman I loved . . .” The skull trailed off a moment. “You shouldn’t have called her spirit and gone racing off, and it’s led us to this hellhole where the ground’s stained with both human and demon blood. Coming here won’t bring Salene back, and now you’ve run into a bunch of wanderers and thieves without a thought to our safety. One might think you’re looking to speed up your own end.”
“This is about restoring the Balance between order and chaos. My time will come—”
“When it’s ready and not before,” the skull interrupted. “Of course it will. And maybe that time is here and now, eh? Maybe you’d welcome it.”
Zayl had to admit that Humbart might have a point. But now his skin prickled; it was the same feeling he’d had a few moments earlier but stronger this time. There was someone else nearby. Someone very powerful indeed. The Balance was threatened, but whether this being was aligned with light or the darkness was not yet clear.
He approached the others, who had gathered around the monument. The monk and his two companions seemed nearly overcome with grief. The Horadrim’s fallen leader Deckard Cain lies here, Zayl thought. But if they had come to put up a shrine, then who had carved the stone that already stood in place?
Humbart made a small sound at his side. Zayl looked to his right to see a figure approaching over the crest of the hill dressed in armor and flowing robes, broad-shouldered and shaved bald, bearing the scars of battle across his lined and handsome face.
He carried a rucksack and walked with slow purpose, and his expression did not change. If he saw Zayl watching him, he did not acknowledge it.
Zayl might have felt alarmed at this, but for some reason, he did not. One by one, the others noticed the man and turned to stare. He came to a stop before them. The stranger radiated a sense of calm, quiet strength, of well-being and light. Trag’Oul had spoken, Zayl thought; the Balance was restored here, if only briefly, and Zayl realized that under his feet, in defiance of the rest of this corrupted ground, grass had begun to push through the rocky soil.
“Welcome, warriors of the light,” the stranger said. “I am Tyrael of the Angiris Council, and I have come to ask for your help. The High Heavens and all of Sanctuary are in danger, and you”—he looked at each in turn with a gaze that appeared to pierce them to their very core—“are the only hope we have left.”
Chapter Four
The Angiris Council, Several Weeks Earlier
Wisdom dreamed of the death of men.
Tyrael slept on a bed of cold marble. In his dreams, the End of Days came swiftly. Black tar dripped and pooled, spreading its tendrils through clouds that swelled across a bright blue sky. The light that was cast upon the ground changed, and the world of Sanctuary began to tremble. Screams of countless mortals rose up through the dust as fissures erupted from soil. Mankind’s greatest creations, towers of wood and stone and brick, tumbled in pieces to the ground, crushing bodies beneath them. Entire cities disappeared as yawning caverns opened up, swallowing them whole. Oceans boiled and turned red with blood.
Still, the minions of the Burning Hells did not burst forth, for this was not their doing. Rays of bri
lliant light cut through the black clouds that roiled and churned above the wreckage. A horde of angels descended upon the destruction they had wrought, blanketing the skies and butchering any remaining survivors with ruthless conviction, one by one.
Tyrael awoke in a cold sweat, blinking away the sting. He touched his face, looking at the moisture on his fingers, wondering at what he saw.
You weep for your fellow mortals.
The archangel had never wept before. He stood, his joints aching from the stone floor, and stretched his back, feeling the muscles tense and release. So many experiences were new to him, and each one gave him pause. He tried to let go of the darkness from the dream, but it clung to him like a shroud. It had not been long since the fall of the Prime Evil and Tyrael’s proclamation that a new age of angels and men living in peace had begun. Today the Angiris Council would once again fall into heated debate over the role of mankind in the Eternal Conflict.
Angels were as much a threat to Sanctuary as the Hells. It seemed that Tyrael had been terribly wrong in his prediction. How had it come to this, and so quickly?
It is the stone’s influence.
Sanctuary had been secretly created by Inarius eons ago, and the archangels had debated Sanctuary’s fate ever since. Imperius would never be swayed in his opinion that it must be destroyed. Even Tyrael himself had held similar beliefs, centuries ago, before humanity had proved itself capable of greatness.
But it was not Imperius whom mankind should fear, Tyrael thought as he made his way toward the Council chamber. A dark foreboding lingered as he walked alone through the Heavens. The archangel of Valor’s opinion was already well known. But Auriel . . . she would cast the crucial vote. If she remained in favor of Sanctuary’s existence, there was a chance Itherael would side with her. Even if he did not, without Malthael’s presence, they would be deadlocked, and the vote would be set aside according to Council law.