Diablo III: Storm of Light (7 page)

“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.”

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 brilliant 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
.

He had tried to speak to Auriel again after she had interrupted his confrontation with Balzael. Outside the Gardens of Hope, he had been met by one of her angelic host and was told she was in repose and would not see him. The gardens were a place of peace and tranquility, where angels sat in deep meditation and in search of balance under a heavenly chorus that set the trees shimmering with light and sound. Auriel would not bring this conflict in here, her guard said. The angel had given him
a symbol of peace in a light flower to adorn his robes, as she would for any visitor to the gardens, but her tone was dismissive; would she have acted this way before Tyrael had shed his wings?

It was not like Auriel to refuse him, even under these circumstances. He had left the gardens without protest, but what he had seen there was chilling. The trees continued to shimmer with light, but some of that light had been tainted with the faintest streaks of gray, as if . . 
.

No. He could not think this way. Perhaps the real problem was within, and his new mortality and the rush of strange emotions he was feeling had something to do with it. Was his decision to rejoin the Angiris Council as a mortal shortsighted after all? Was he no longer fit to rule as Wisdom, or any other?

Tyrael made his way to the Council chamber. Imperius met him outside the entrance
.

The archangel of Valor was surrounded by members of the Luminarei guard—one of them Balzael, who stepped forward as Tyrael approached. He appeared about to speak, but Imperius swept his second-in-command aside as he strode up to Tyrael, wings extended in a blaze of light. “Your attempts to persuade our sister to join your side were misguided,” he said. “It is forbidden to pursue a debate in the days before it is taken up in a Council session. You have jeopardized the entire Council with your recklessness. Has your mortal flesh clouded your vision?”

Ever since Tyrael had made the decision to shed his wings, forever altering his relationship with the Council, their conflict had remained unresolved and hung over them all like a dark cloud. “Do not let our unfinished business taint your thinking,” Tyrael replied. “What happens here today has nothing to do with the anger you hold for my choices.”

“Wisdom.” Imperius’s wings trembled with rage or mirth; Tyrael could not decide. “Is that your advice for me from consulting the pools? I think not. A mortal who peers into the chalice may go blind, Tyrael. Perhaps you are afraid of what you might see.”

“I fear nothing but your lust for conflict. The stone’s influence is
having an impact on the High Heavens, even now. Valor does not mean the execution of innocents.”

“Nonsense,” Imperius said. “The stone cannot harm us here. You see this as an opportunity for peace, but peace shall not exist until Sanctuary has been destroyed. Sacrifices must be made for the victory we seek. The Prime Evil nearly brought us to our knees, Tyrael! Never have the gates fallen before. There is no room for mercy—not anymore!”

He turned to enter the chamber, as if dismissing Tyrael from his sight. The archangel of Wisdom caught his armored arm. Power raced through Tyrael’s flesh, nearly making him gasp. He gritted his teeth. “Do not do this, Imperius,” he said. “There is also great goodness in them. Do not turn your back on the chance we have been given.”

Balzael stepped forward again, but Imperius waved him away. He shook off Tyrael’s touch as if disgusted by it, and the tone of pity his voice took on was far worse than his anger
.

“The world of men has threatened our existence for too long,” Imperius said. “It is a tool for the Hells to use against us. You have chosen to join their mortal ranks, and your judgment can no longer be trusted. You will learn, soon enough. The Council will act, whether you like it or not.”

“Do not forget that the last time the fate of Sanctuary rested with the Council, the final vote was in favor of its existence,” Auriel said. “In order to reopen such a debate, you must present evidence of a fundamental change that requires it.”

“The evidence is clear,” Imperius thundered from his perch above the Council floor. The archangel of Valor leaned forward as he gestured toward the Black Soulstone, his wings snapping in ribbons of light around his golden armor, his commanding voice filling the room as he turned to Itherael and Auriel. “It sits in mute judgment before us all.”

“Do you not think the stone is safe here, among us?” Auriel asked
.

“We have argued this many times. The greatest threat lies not with
the stone but with the men who created it. We have failed to act for far too long. And while we argue endlessly through the ages, the Burning Hells continue to whisper their foul secrets in the ears of humans, influencing souls and using their world against us. The soulstone is yet another example of this. Forged by men, Auriel! If not for that, would the gates of Heaven have fallen to the Prime Evil? Would we have lost so many of our brothers and sisters and come so close to the Arch shattering before us?”

“That is not so certain as you make it out to be,” Auriel said. Tyrael watched her from his own seat above the floor. Her voice remained calm, in direct opposition to Imperius’s impassioned speech, but he sensed an edge to it that he had last felt when they were together in these same chambers. “The Prime Evil may have simply found another way and perhaps then would have succeeded in destroying the Arch.”

Imperius chuckled, but the sound held no warmth. “Hope has blinded you to the truth, my sister. Hell’s servants have been broken, their leaders cast into the abyss. Now is the perfect time for us to act! We have the chance to land the decisive blow. Sanctuary has always been our greatest weakness. Destroy it, and we will swing the battle in our favor and end the Eternal Conflict—forever.”