Diablo III: Storm of Light (35 page)

Jacob left Lorath Nahr at the entrance to stand guard and led the others through the faintly lit tunnel. They did not speak a word; everyone was grim-faced and in shock at the speed of the attack. He didn’t know how many they had lost. It was a miracle that they weren’t all dead.

Tyrael was still out there alone against the destroyer. Jacob almost turned back, but he knew his responsibility was to get the rest of the group to safety. Lorath would warn them if danger approached. Anger flared within him, and he quickly pushed it away. His father would not have approved.
Never think your anger makes you unbeatable
.

“Where’s the necromancer?”

Gynvir’s voice echoed through the silence. She was breathing hard. Jacob looked back through the gloom and did not see Zayl anywhere. Cullen was already working at the key slot, opening the entrance and allowing the others to go through.

“You’ve been complaining about him since Tristram,” Shanar said. “
Now
you’re worried?”

“He has the satchel,” the barbarian said. “We can’t bring the stone back without it.”

A moment later, two figures shuffled into sight around the bend. Zayl had his arm around Tyrael’s waist, and the archangel’s head slumped loosely forward. His armor had been split open, his chest slick with blood.

Mikulov rushed to help them as a war cry came from somewhere beyond. The Sicarai was close; whether he could enter the tunnel or not was unclear, but if so, they had to hope Lorath could distract him. Jacob had to get everyone through the wall and close the entrance before it was too late.

Zayl and Mikulov reached them, completely supporting the archangel’s weight now, and slipped through the shimmering wall. Jacob waited for Shanar and Gynvir to step through, took one last look up the tunnel, and then followed.

Inside they laid Tyrael on the stone floor of the large room, in front of the steps that led down to the lower levels. The blue light from the torches played about their worried faces as the necromancer bent over the archangel, gently separating his armor where it had been slashed and exposing a nasty gash about eight inches long.

Blood oozed from the wound. Quickly, Zayl set aside several vials and packets from his pouch and began to sprinkle their contents across Tyrael’s chest, chanting softly. After a few moments, he waved a gloved hand slowly over the gash and closed his eyes, his face going ash gray. When he removed his hand, the wound had sealed itself, an alabaster scar like a worm across Tyrael’s flesh.

Finally, the necromancer shook his head, looking drained and barely able to speak. “Something protected him from a fatal blow,” he said. “Something stronger than armor.” He touched an object that gleamed like strange metal. “But he has lost much blood. My magic can heal wounds and give him some strength back, but there is not much more I can do for that.”

“Help me to my feet,” Tyrael said. He had opened his eyes, and his voice was rough with the pain but firm. He pushed Zayl’s hand away and tucked the metal object deeper inside his armor, then stood upright, assisted by the others. He winced but set himself and looked around at the grim faces of the Horadrim gathered before him.

“The Sicarai will raise an alarm since we have escaped his ambush, and our mission depends on us infiltrating the Heavens in secret,” Tyrael said. “Even now, the ceremony of the Ascension—the rise of the new angel—will begin in the Halls of Valor. Our window is short.”

“But you’re too weak,” Shanar said. “You’re not going to be able to fight.”

“I will live,” Tyrael said. “We must go on. This is our only chance.”

The others glanced uneasily at one another. “Master Zayl.” Humbart’s voice spoke up from his pouch. “They should know about our little problem, don’t you think?”

“The satchel has been damaged,” Zayl said, his face slowly regaining its color. “I used it to block the destroyer’s killing blow. Its magic was effective enough for that, but it’s diminished now. I do not know how long it will last, but we will not get the stone back to Sanctuary before it degrades completely.”

“Then you are at great risk in carrying it,” Tyrael said. “The stone’s corruptive power will influence you in ways we cannot predict.”

“I accepted your mission in New Tristram,” Zayl said, “knowing the risks that come with it.”

Tyrael studied his face and then nodded. “Good,” he said.

“We do not know what strange results may occur with the use of magic in Heaven’s realms,” Cullen said. “The blood and
your wounds will be noticed, and with the damage to the satchel, perhaps we should—”

“They will not challenge me until it is too late,” Tyrael said. “I am still an archangel, and those in the Heavens will do well to remember it. We must move. There is no other alternative.” He grimaced again, set his mouth in a firm line. “Follow me.”

In the Heavens, the angels had begun to gather for the Ascension.

The main hall in Valor’s realm was filled with shifting, murmuring shapes. Auriel and Itherael were with Imperius in his private chambers. Soon they would make their appearance, and the new angel would be welcomed into the ranks as a full member of the Luminarei and a Defender of the Arch.

Balzael watched from the shadows above the crowd, standing on a platform that gave him a good view of the sweeping ceremonial hall. Usually when an angel died, another would eventually be born at the Arch to replace it. Such an angel was not an exact replica of the one lost but would join the same Aspect of the Heavens in service to the archangel who ruled it. It was the way of the Heavens, except in a single instance where an angel had been re-formed: Tyrael after the destruction of the Worldstone. Such a thing was unprecedented.

The blindness with which his brothers and sisters offered up their praise to the traditions of the past disgusted him. He was driven by honor and tradition when they were appropriate to advance his own agenda, but there were far too many times when they got in the way of progress.

Take the fate of Sanctuary, for example. The Angiris Council might debate the issue for what would be measured by mortals as weeks, months, even decades, and all the while, the sickness that was mankind spread like a plague and threatened to tip the scales of the Eternal Conflict toward the Hells. Balzael could not afford to wait any longer, nor could the Guardian. They had hoped the Black Soulstone would be enough on its own, but it was time to be more forceful. They would use whatever they needed in order to accomplish their goal.

Regardless of Tyrael’s meddling, the soulstone had been created by men, and it would be their undoing.

There was a kind of poetic justice in that.

The murmur of the crowd below was growing in pitch. They watched the archway that led to the hall, waiting for Imperius to make his grand entrance. But Imperius had a flair for the dramatic and would let them wait while he remained in his chambers until the last moment.

The wait was not the issue for Balzael. He sensed something else. There was a strange feeling in the air, a feeling of something important about to happen, and it wasn’t the binding of the new angel to the Aspect of Valor.

Where was the Sicarai?

Balzael turned away from the spectacle, the sense of concern growing within him. He had sent the destroyer back to Sanctuary some time ago. It shouldn’t have taken him long to deal with Tyrael and his band of humans; his spies had spent a good deal of time learning about this team, watching from afar, getting to know its strengths and weaknesses, the bickering, the human folly of relationships. They had even branded one of them, a link that kept the others tethered to his mortal soul.

And the humans had led them right to the nephalem stronghold, as Balzael had suspected. The Guardian had decided that there could be a use for the stronghold, if they altered their plans.
Although it was shielded from all but mortals for now, the Guardian was already working on that particular problem. It would not be long before the stronghold fell.

The rest had been easy. His spies had known exactly where Tyrael’s team would be and when, and an ambush should have guaranteed a slaughter. Not that the Sicarai should have had any trouble with such a small group regardless of the circumstances. But Balzael preferred to ensure victory ahead of time, and he expected a detailed report of the carnage his warrior would wreak.

Almost on cue, movement came from the shadows beyond his private balcony. A moment later, the Sicarai stepped forth. His sword was at his side; one edge held a dull haze of blood.

Balzael’s pride swelled in his apprentice. He had trained the destroyer well, given him every advantage in the art of battle. He thought again, as he had before: the Sicarai was the perfect weapon.

But the destroyer’s words changed everything.

“He has escaped, my lord. We waited for him and his companions at the bog, as you instructed, but they entered the lair before they could be taken.”

Balzael’s thoughts of victory turned to rage in an instant. His urge to run the Sicarai through with his own weapon was stilled by curiosity. How had they beaten his best soldier a second time?

His aura pulsed once and then settled. “Tell me,” he said, aware of the dangerous growl in his voice.

“I wounded him badly. His mortal blood ran thick. But a human used an object infused with magic against me, draining my strength long enough for them to get to the catacombs.”

“What object?”

“I do not know. But it repelled my killing blow with a force I did not expect.” The Sicarai hesitated, a new sound present in his voice. Could it have been uncertainty? Impossible. “I was held
still for a time by invisible hands, and when I was able to break free, they were gone. We pursued the mortals down the tunnel but could not find them again.”

“They have gone into the city,” Balzael said. “The lost stronghold of the nephalem shields them from you.” He contained his anger, channeled it in a more fruitful direction. They were trapped in there and would have to emerge sooner or later. He knew about the second entrance to the catacombs, but his spies were stationed there and in the bog.

Whatever Tyrael had planned, it would fail. Of that, he was sure . . .

“There is more, my lord. Your soldiers have been monitoring their conversations in secret, and they have learned much through their connection to the man Jacob.”

“What have you learned, Sicarai? Tell me, or lose your miserable life.”

The Sicarai’s next words stopped him short. “We have reason to believe he is coming here, to the Heavens,” the destroyer said. “They plan to steal the stone out from underneath you.”

The way to the Pools of Wisdom was silent and empty. Balzael slipped from the shadows of the columned entrance, rage still coursing through him. How could he have been so blind? He had expected Tyrael to make a move on the Heavens, just not so soon—and he had thought the Sicarai would have slaughtered the entire team before then.

Certain he was alone, he hurried across the crushed stone of the path toward the Fount, aware of the hole where Chalad’ar had been, glaring at him like an eyeless socket. He did not have much time; Imperius and the other archangels would be expecting him at the Ascension. But an emergency meeting with the Guardian was necessary.

The Heavens were not the same since the Prime Evil’s attack—that was an irrefutable fact—but the changes had really begun much earlier than that. The Pools of Wisdom were a casualty of them. A once warm, peaceful realm had turned cold and dead.

But there was life here—one just had to know how to awaken it.

At the Fount, he paused, staring into the dry basin. The light was sharper in the Pools of Wisdom, illuminating everything in stark terms, turning the landscape into black and white. He waited patiently for a long moment, then raised his arms above the basin and spoke. The dead air nearly swallowed his voice completely. Nothing happened at first, and then a gurgling sound emerged from below, growing louder. A swirling, flickering light began to fill the basin from the bottom up, until it was brimming with colors woven in a web of countless lines, undulating like liquid in motion.