We must leave this place. I was wrong, coming here.
An icy cold draft caressed Cain’s face, bringing along a foul stench of death. When he touched the paladin’s arm, a chill spread through his fingers.
The young man turned at his touch, but the face that greeted him was no longer Akarat’s.
Leathery skin stretched tight over a swelling brow and cheeks, and the lips were cracked and bleeding. What had been Akarat’s eyes now regarded him, from puffy pockets of flesh, with glittering hatred. Cain thought of cold, dead things rotting away in a nameless grave, and he knew he must not look, must turn away now and run, or the darkness would creep into his own soul and blacken his blood.
“We have been waiting for you, Deckaaaaard Cainnnn.”
“Release him,” Cain said.
“We think not.” The thing smiled, exposing long, canine-like teeth sharpened to points. “There’s so much to do, to prepare for the coming.”
He tried to think of what he had in his sack to assist him, but he had no spell for this, no magic artifact to drive the demon away. Without spells or artifacts, he was lost; he had no magic of his own.
“Last of the Horadrim,” the thing hissed, mocking him. “You are nothing. And you are wrong. Look around you, at the footsteps, the missing scrolls. Others of your kind have been here, and failed. Why should you be any different?”
Others? He glanced at the shuffling footprints around the chamber, some of them his and Akarat’s prints, but some unfamiliar. A faint thrill of hope lifted him from his despair. Yet he knew it was impossible, knew in his heart that he was the last. Nothing this creature said could be trusted. The demon lies. You must not pay attention.
You are the last of a proud line of heroes.
“Akarat,” Cain said firmly. “I am speaking to the man inside this shell. You must fight it, my son. You must fight against the thing that has taken you.”
“Our master comes,” the creature said, licking its bleeding lips. Its breathing rasped heavily in Akarat’s chest, the smell coming from it like that of a thousand rotting corpses. “The true lord of the Burning Hells. He will be upon you soon, and your death will be slow and painful. Perhaps he will make you a slave, forced to serve him forever. We know many others of your kind who are with him now.” The demon grinned at him. “Even those you know and love.”
“Akarat. Listen to me. Do not let it win. You are in control. You hold the power within you!”
The skin on the demon’s face rippled, and it hissed as if in pain. Cain held up his staff between them, and it recoiled from the light. “Release him!” Cain shouted.
The creature hissed again, and for a moment its face became Akarat’s again, the young paladin blinking in bewilderment at Cain before his features twisted into something ugly, and he was gone.
“The boy is not strong enough. And neither are you.” The demon took a step forward until its foot touched the sword Akarat had dropped. It bent to pick up the weapon, looking at the blade shining in the blue light. Then it looked back at Cain, grinning once again. “Shall we use this one? Small cuts, perhaps. A thousand of them.”
Cain stumbled, fumbling in his pack again with one hand, his trembling fingers moving over the texts within, searching for something that might help him. His other hand ached where it gripped the staff, the only thing that seemed to stand between him and a slow and painful death. Akarat was lost, he knew that now, and already he mourned for the man he would have become, while the demon raged before him.
If it only knew that I have no power of my own, and this staff is nothing magical at all without a spell to enchant it . . .
Immediately he regretted thinking such a thing, but it was too late. The demon’s smile grew wider, and it took another step forward. “Not a real Horadrim, after all? Of course not. Your weaknesses betray the truth.”
Cain stumbled backward into the ancient chamber until he neared its center. “Stay away!” he shouted, brandishing the staff. The blue light contained within the globe flickered, began to dim. The grin grew wider still, as if Akarat’s twisted face would collapse into it, a black hole that would consume all light and everything good in the world.
“Do you know what you have begun? The Heavens will burn, Horadrim. The scourge of Diablo and his brothers will seem like days for celebration compared to this. Our master is all-powerful, and he will tear down the walls of Sanctuary until the ground trembles and splits. Caldeum will burn, the archangels in the High Heavens will fall, and all of Sanctuary will be ours. And you will be too late to stop it.
“So pathetic. Your savior is so close, hidden among thousands in plain sight not three days’ journey from here. Yet you know nothing, see nothing.”
Cain fell to his knees. His hand found what he had been searching for, and he curled his fist around the dark jewel pried from the rune-inscribed circle on the floor.
“Where are your angels now, old man? Where are your heroes for you to hide behind as they ride into battle? Is this all you have? This boy you have given to us to mask your own selfishness and pride? You are worthless. Just like your forebear.” The demon lifted the sword in both hands and stood over him, cackling, and Cain recoiled, scuttling backward on his hands as he dropped his staff, the glowing globe ticking across the floor until it came to rest a few feet away. “We have changed our minds. Not a thousand tiny cuts, but only one, to separate your head from your shoulders.” The demon cocked its head, as if listening. Whatever it heard made it cower like a beaten dog. When it spoke, it was not to Cain, but to someone hidden from mortal eyes, and the sound of its voice had changed to a pathetic whine. “We thirst for blood. Why is it not time?”
Then it spotted Cain’s hand gripping the stone. Cain moved as if to hide it, but the demon made a lunge with the sword, chopping down at Cain’s wrist so quickly he dropped the jewel in his haste to move away from the blow. The sword missed his flesh by inches.
“You thought you could banish us with this?” It picked up the stone and held it aloft, the blood-red jewel glittering in the blue light, then took another step closer. “It holds no power without the runes and the magic to awaken it, old man.”
“I—I command you to leave this body—”
“Silence!” The demon raised the sword again in one hand, the jewel still clutched in the other. Cain glanced down at the stone floor. One more step . . .
The demon shuffled forward, hatred etched into its features, unaware that it had walked directly into Cain’s trap. Quickly he spoke the words of power, read from the runes he had committed to memory, the words leaping to his lips in a suddenly clear, strong voice. The demon glanced down, surprise plain on its foul face as the circle of runes where it stood began to pulse with a fiery light and the jewel it still held came to life.
It howled in anger at what Cain had done, and along with the rage there seemed a new expression of begrudging respect. “Trickery!”
But Cain could take no satisfaction in that, knowing that he had sentenced Akarat to death.
The portal that Bartuc’s followers had used to summon demons from the Burning Hells opened with a burst of red light. The demon screeched as the jewel clutched in its hand matched it in brilliant color, the sword clattered to the floor, and Akarat’s outline disappeared, fading like the afterimage of the sun in men’s eyes as they blinked against their own blindness.