“I have no doubt of it. This man is consumed by hatred and jealousy, and it fuels him. But he is commanded by another, something far more evil. I have seen them both, in my visions of the secret place, hidden underground. A creature so huge and terrible, it is difficult to describe . . . it had armored claws and three horns, and yellow eyes like lamps.”
Belial. Cain sat back, thunderstruck. He had suspected as much for some time, but this drove it home: the Lord of Lies was at work in Sanctuary.
He searched for the right words. “You describe one of the rulers of what we call the Burning Hells. There are others, but he and his brother Azmodan rose to power after the Prime Evils were banished to our lands. I saw the great mountain fall when the Worldstone was destroyed, and I knew that although Baal and his army had been defeated, it was merely the beginning. Evil overran our lands. The signs of Sanctuary’s corruption are everywhere now: the blight that has begun to overrun our oceans and forests, the tales of hellish creatures spotted in the Dreadlands and among the jungles of Torajan. People vanishing without a trace or, worse, the wasting sickness that seems to spread within certain cities. But I am afraid that the greatest threat to mankind is yet to come.”
Cain described his journey to the Vizjerei ruins in the Borderlands, and what he had found there: evidence of some form of the Horadric order still alive in Sanctuary, evidence that had been strengthened by his visit with Kulloom in Caldeum.
Mikulov nodded. “We must find these men who say they are Horadrim,” he said. “Yet . . . you are conflicted.” He glanced across the clearing at the spot where Leah sat upon the rock.
“How can I ignore such signs, in service to a child? And yet, how can I continue to put Leah’s life at risk?” Cain had done such a thing before, through his own selfishness and neglect. He could not allow that to happen again.
“The girl reminds you of something terrible you suffered,” Mikulov said. “I can sense that well enough. It is natural that you would try to protect her. But she is a part of this, as much as you or I. The prophecies about the coming war speak of her role as well.”
“She is only a child—”
“You must embrace this, and welcome whatever will come. What we witnessed last night should stand as a warning. Dangerous magic is at work in these lands. Such power to raise the dead is not lightly wielded. Whoever is behind this is a very powerful sorcerer, and engaged in the most destructive kind of demonic spells. And his time is coming soon, if we do not do something to stop him.”
Cain found Leah still sitting cross-legged on the rock, staring at the valley below. He sat down next to her in silence and waited patiently for her to speak.
“There are no animals,” she said, after a time. “Where have they all gone? And the trees. Look at them.”
Cain followed her gaze out over the valley toward Kurast, huddled in the distance like a blight upon the world. In days past, the growth would have been a lush, vibrant green, but the trees grew ever more gray and stunted as they neared the city, as if a fire had run through them, turning their leaves to ash.
“I suspect the animals are in hiding, much like most of the people,” he said. “They sense that the world around us is not calm or welcoming. The trees are a part of that.”
“Why aren’t we hiding too?”
It was impossible to answer. In the old days, Cain might have begun a lecture about the history of evil and the rise of heroes who battled against it. In the absence of true heroes, others must answer the call. But something made him pause. “I was thinking,” he said simply, “that it might be time for that. To find a place where you would be safe.”
She looked at him sharply. “You would come with me?”
“I have my own journey still ahead of me, Leah. I must not shy away from my destiny. I will find a place for you, I promise. And I will return, when the time is right.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Cain thought of the long road back the way they had come. The bridge had fallen; they would have to search for a place to cross, and even if they could find it, there was no shelter for them in Caldeum. Where else could they go? All the way across the sea, to Westmarch? There was no shelter for a little girl there, either. The orphanages were little better than slave camps. He sighed, and rubbed his itchy beard. A journey like that would take weeks, and by then it would be too late for everyone.
“I miss my mother,” Leah said. A tear trickled down her cheek. “And I don’t remember what happened last night. Why don’t I remember?”
“Our minds do strange things sometimes. But everything is going to be all right.” Even as the words left his mouth, Cain felt the betrayal, the lie in them. “The truth is,” he said, “I don’t know why. I don’t have all the answers, although I wish I did.”
Leah seemed to shrink into herself, hunching her shoulders against the world. “Please don’t leave me alone,” she said. She looked up at him, her eyes glimmering in the morning light. “Please.”
“It would be best—”
“I want to go with you!” Leah suddenly leaned forward and hugged him violently, her little arms clutching at his tunic. Her tears wet his chest. “I don’t know anyone anymore, I don’t even know who my real mother is, and I don’t want to be alone. My mother—Gillian—she trusted you; you told her you would take care of me!”
Cain sat rigidly upright, every muscle in his body tensed as Leah continued to sob. A thousand different thoughts ran through his racing mind, many of them jumbled fragments of memory that had been forced so deep inside his subconscious they had shattered like stained glass. He caught a flash of color like a little boy’s laughter, and another like the sad moans of a woman in pain as a red-stained wagon wheel spun over and over in the bright, cruel sunlight.
I cannot bear it, he thought, not any longer, but instead of pushing her away he found himself gathering the little girl up in his arms and rocking her until her tears eased and the hitches in her chest began to slow.
“It’s all right, Leah,” he said. “I won’t leave you. I promise. We shall go to Kurast together.”
18
Tristram’s End
Deckard Cain clutched like a drowning man at the slippery bars that stood between him and oblivion. The cage rocked gently in a hot wind, bringing the smell of charred wood and scorched human flesh. Shame and horror twisted like a knife in his guts, and he moaned in sorrow at the memory of all the pain and bloodshed he had seen, and all he had lost.
Everything that had ever meant anything to him was gone. Aidan, the king’s eldest son, whom Cain had tutored so long ago, and who had slain Diablo and emerged from the catacombs a hero, had disappeared in the night, and Hell had come back to Tristram.
“My Aidan,” he whispered through cracked lips, and then gasped a plea that fell away into emptiness. “My Tristram. Please, no more. No more . . .”
His limbs shook with exhaustion, his body near collapse. He had not eaten in days. He peered with watery eyes at the last of the flames guttering among the remains of his town. They had come with little warning, returning to finish the survivors, who had barely had the chance to breathe after the Diablo’s reign of terror. The people had fought valiantly with the last of their strength and taken a few of the damned with them; a bloodied goatman lay sprawled across a pathway with an axe in its chest, and the head of an imp stared vacantly back at Cain from the edge of the well, its eyes like half-lidded, foggy windows to hell.
But the people of Tristram had paid dearly for their efforts. The ground was soaked with blood; human limbs and chunks of bodies ripped and bitten littered the space where the town’s bonfire had been built not long ago.