Diablo III: Storm of Light (40 page)

The monk had trained for many years to steel himself against both physical and emotional pain. The gods were there to support him when he fell, lift him up when he was weak. The Patriarchs preached serenity in the face of evil, to do what must be done without allowing oneself any sign of frailty. Even his own skin had been hardened through years of training, made nearly impenetrable to weapons or claws.

But what he saw cut through him as if he had been wounded. Mikulov bit on his cheek to keep from crying out as the sword whistled down, opening his friend’s belly, and Thomas’s blood wet the ground in a crimson gush.

All at once, his vision from the road to Bramwell came back to him: trapped inside the gates of the Heavens, Tyrael’s transformation into a hooded, faceless stranger, Thomas decapitated in front of them by Tyrael’s own sword . . .

More Luminarei soldiers had streamed out into the gardens. Tyrael and Cullen were lost under a swarm of them; the monk saw Cullen go to his knees under a sea of flashing swords and armor, and the archangel was knocked down from behind.

They are lost
. Every ounce of Mikulov’s being screamed at him to rush back in, to avenge their deaths in whatever way he could. And yet he knew it was useless, that he could never hope to defeat so many alone.

The monk slipped to the floor, his inner balance shaken. The columns before him seemed to bend and bulge, shadows lengthening.
Shapes crept forward through the gloom, their dress eerily familiar.
Ivgorod assassins, sent by the Patriarchs to kill me
. Against their orders, he had left Floating Sky forever, and therefore he had been marked for death. They had pursued him to the edge of Sanctuary and beyond.

The forms dissolved into Luminarei guards taking up positions along the walls of the giant room that opened onto the Courts of Justice. Mikulov shook his head as if to clear the fog that had come over him. The Ivgorod assassins were not here in the Heavens, of course. But the threat was real.

Mikulov remembered the battle at Gea Kul so many years ago, when the demon horde was closing in on them, with little hope for escape. He had called upon an inner power that he did not know he possessed, an energy gathering at his core that exploded outward like a tiny sun, laying waste to his enemies and cracking the very ground beneath his feet.

It had been the beginning of his awakening to his birthright, he realized: his transformation into a nephalem warrior, able to tap into the true source of his power.

Bring me strength to do what must be done
. The deaths of his friends would mean nothing if the Black Soulstone remained in place. He had to hope that Jacob, Shanar, and Gynvir were on their way to the Council room. He must act to draw attention away from them, and the mission must continue, whatever the cost.

Mikulov closed his eyes. Something was building inside, a fire that would turn everything to ash. He saw waves crashing against rock, torrential rains tearing at the sides of mountains. He saw hurricanes uprooting trees like twigs and cyclones spinning and ripping everything in their path. The gods were in all things, their power all-consuming, and within him he wielded that power like a struggling demon about to be set free. He held on as it began to burn, clenched his teeth, let it grow stronger and deeper.

A Luminarei guard spotted him and shouted to the others. As they took flight, Mikulov stepped from the shadows, took a deep breath, and slammed his hands together in a mighty clap, finally letting go of the beast within.

Jacob led the two women toward the vast recesses of the Courts of Justice as quickly and quietly as he could.

He tried to steady his feet as they slipped among the wide columns into a cooler, covered space. He had no doubt the angels would be here any moment; he could only hope they would have assumed the Horadrim had kept going down the wide corridor instead of following them inside the courts. From what Tyrael had told him about this place, it was likely to be empty, since a new archangel of Justice had not been named and the angels were at the Ascension, and he knew from their map that directly on the other side, they would find a corridor leading to the Angiris Council room.

Above a massive set of doors hung a glittering replica of El’druin, ten times the size and cast in some kind of strange metallic ore. The symbol of Justice itself, meant to humble all who entered.

But that was nothing to what they found beyond it.

The next room was empty, or it appeared to be. It was set up like an amphitheater, with seating running around three sides and facing an open ring in the center. Giant lecterns of stone and crystal faced the ring and the seats on the other side, and one wall was inscribed floor to ceiling with words writ large and with an elegant hand. From what Tyrael had said, Jacob knew this must be the Wall of Edicts—the laws of the Heavens themselves, carved in stone and followed for millennia.

But it was the statues that dominated the ring, robed male and female angels that towered over the seats below, their arms outstretched
and pointing to where the accused would stand and where a spiraling column of stone rose to the ceiling. Figures crawled from the column, demons and tortured angels crying out in agony, the condemned and sentenced, their sins permanently frozen upon their intricately carved features as they reached toward the giant statues, begging for mercy.

“The darkness within,” Gynvir whispered. The barbarian was staring at the carvings, her face drained of color, mouth agape. Shanar stood next to her in a similar pose, tears wetting her cheeks, for once unable to speak a word. Jacob knew what Gynvir meant; the sense of terrible deeds and unforgivable sins permeated this place, as if the ghosts of those who had passed through the Ring of Judgment had taken up residence and haunted its walls. The heavy silence pushed down on them. He imagined the trials that had taken place here over the centuries, those angels who had faced their sins with dignity and those who had gone screaming to the prison cells he knew were somewhere below their feet.

There would be no mercy shown for the guilty. If the Horadrim were captured, if they even lived long enough to make it to this place, they would be condemned to their own private torment.

Jacob shivered. Everything that he had ever done wrong seemed to crash down on him all at once, culminating with what had happened in the Gardens of Hope. He touched the hidden sheath that held the weapon Commander Nahr had forged for him—the Sicarai’s sword. He thought he had lost it in the earlier struggle when the light-tree tendrils had touched him. Now he drew it out, staring at the glowing double blade, the weight of it in his hands steadying his nerves.

His breakdown in the gardens kept coming back to him. He had wanted to embrace everything that Tyrael had expected of him, but at the first sign of adversity, he had collapsed like a
child, screaming for help against the ghosts of his own past. And now the Horadrim were scattered, some of them likely dead, and the mission was in tatters.

Forgive me
, Jacob prayed silently. It was wildly ironic that he was standing here now, in the heart of Justice itself, exposed yet again as a fraud. He had let his father, his friends, his entire world down, and he was leading the woman he loved to her certain doom.

The thought stunned him with its simplicity.
Yes, I love her
. Of course he did; he always had. The truth of it had been lost within a sea of complications and denials, but Shanar’s kiss in the Pools of Wisdom still burned on his lips, and the taste of her still haunted him. The fact that they were all likely about to die only served to heighten the intensity of his feelings.

He glanced at her, saw the loveliness in her face, the vulnerability she tried to hide with jokes and a carefully constructed casualness that covered up her true self. Her incredible skill had gotten them this far. It fed a growing fire within him, a determination to make this final stand an honorable one.

As he took Shanar’s hand, a muffled thud came from somewhere outside, and the floor shook under their feet. Jacob stumbled and caught himself, supporting Shanar before she fell. A rumble ran through them like thunder.

He did not know why he thought of the monk, only that he sensed in some way that Mikulov was responsible for the explosion. Mikulov had drawn the attention of the Luminarei. They had to use the distraction that the monk had provided and hope the corridor that led to the Council room was clear.

A noise came from beyond the courtroom. Someone was coming. They had to hide somewhere, and fast. Jacob led Shanar and Gynvir down through the ring of seats to the floor, where the huge column of stone towered over them, even larger than it had appeared before. The carved angels and demons were three
times the size of him. Quickly, he tucked himself between two of them at the base of the column, and Shanar and Gynvir did the same. The condemned reached out as if to hold them for all eternity, smothering them with their cold, frozen embrace.

A moment later, an entry beyond the lecterns slammed open, and four Luminarei guards came rushing through the courtroom, weapons out. They did not hesitate, continuing out the far end and disappearing through the doors. Jacob waited another moment to be sure there were no more coming, and then he emerged from the small space and escorted the two women up the steps. The guards had left the door behind the lecterns slightly ajar. Jacob crept up to it as quietly as possible, just close enough to peer through the crack.

Another corridor led away from the courts. It was empty. No Luminarei guards stood there ready to ambush them.

He brought Shanar and Gynvir out of the Courts of Justice, toward the Angiris Council room, where the Black Soulstone waited silently for them, its secrets buried deep within its ebony shell.

Pain lanced his skull, a sharp spike driven through his temples that quickly turned into a throbbing ache. He wandered through dream landscapes, one blending into another. The Sicarai was coming at him again and again, the edge of his sword gleaming in the light of a raging fire. The flames consumed the people who had been lashed down, unable to escape. The smell of cooking flesh grew stronger as the screams of the tortured and dying rose up from all around him. Leah reached out, begging for his help, but he could not move his arms, and behind her stood Deckard Cain, a look of sadness and regret etched upon his features. Cain’s beard was full of blood.

Tyrael opened his eyes. Darkness pressed in on him for a moment, and he tried to sit up, but another flash of pain drove him back again. He blinked, trying to clear his sight and orient himself. The world came crashing in all at once. He was in a prison chamber, his arms and legs shackled to the stone wall behind him. He reached up until the chain stopped his arm short. He could just touch the back of his head, and his hand came away sticky with blood.

Nausea rolled over him. He closed his eyes and took a slow breath, then opened them again.

Cullen sat slumped against the wall opposite him, also chained, his bald, bloodstained head against his chest. He did not move, did not seem to breathe.

Tyrael gathered himself and attempted to sit again, this time more slowly. The thudding pain subsided slightly, and he was able to prop himself up until the chains stopped his movements. The bonds that held him were meant for angels and vibrated at a frequency that neutralized an angelic resonance. He felt them buzzing against his flesh.

He looked around at the walls, stained with fluids of demons. The smell of death was strong. Movement came from the shadows beyond. A monstrosity of flesh, rolling greasily in the dark, a glint of red fire flashing from baleful eyes that glared out as if from the pits of the Burning Hells themselves. Chains rattled as the thing pulled against its demonic bonds, bands of silver with a ring of pure light running through them. It stepped forward, moaning. Tiny, lipless mouths with needlelike teeth gaped like landed fish all over its body, and little arms draped themselves over the fat that oozed from every crevice.

Another moved in the opposite corner, hissing and grunting, a coiled, deceptively calm demon like a snake about to strike. Minions of the Hells, captured by Imperius and the Luminarei. They were kept here to intimidate other prisoners and occasionally, if they got close enough, tear them to shreds.