Diablo III: Storm of Light (21 page)

But Cholik’s notes proved extremely valuable. Cullen had been able to piece together the location of Tauruk’s Port, an abandoned shipping town some distance from Bramwell, built on the ruins of an even older city inhabited by Vizjerei sorcerers and used to summon demons. Cholik had been searching for an extensive cave system that lurked under the mountains and connected to the old ruins, and apparently, he had found it and had loosed Kabraxis there. His notes also made reference to a Zakarum repository at the mouth of another entrance to the caverns, high in the mountains overlooking the gulf—a repository that supposedly contained texts written by Akarat himself.

Nahr had come along as their guide through the treacherous wilderness, but his familiarity with the landscape faltered after they left the immediate area around the city. After several hours hiking through increasingly steep and dangerous terrain, they had reached a plateau of sorts where the mountain fell away on one side to the gulf.

Thomas and Cullen stood together head-to-head amid a patch of trees, consulting the drawings of the landmarks they had hastily sketched based on the information they had found in the hidden chamber. Their breath fogged the air; a chill breeze had swiftly dropped down from the Hawke’s Beak mountain range, bringing heavy clouds and mist that swirled around their feet.

“I think we need to go west,” Cullen said. He pointed to where the ground dropped steeply toward the water far below. “If we
skirt the edge of this peak, then, as was written here, we will see the shape of the spider in the rock—”

Thomas was shaking his head. “I don’t believe we’re on the right slope,” he said. “Look here . . .” He pointed at the drawings in Cullen’s hand. “We should have found the ruins by now, if the texts were correct.”

They went on, the conversation growing more heated as Tyrael stepped to the edge of the drop. He stared out over the tops of trees that had grown bent by wind, rain, and snow, their ragged limbs like weary soldiers determined to hold the line against a relentless enemy. An emptiness inside him grew larger by the moment, rapidly swallowing his newfound confidence. Time was running out. They had so much to do, and every single step of his plan had to go perfectly. Tyrael had begun to formulate a way into the Heavens without being seen; that much was easy . . . but what about turning this group of bickering strangers into a team of nephalem warriors strong enough to survive what they would see beyond the gates? What about navigating them safely through the treacherous arms of the Luminarei? Assuming they could even find this place of safekeeping, how could they steal the soulstone out from under an army of angels and return it to the realm of the nephalem?

You cannot possibly survive
, a voice said. It sounded much like Deckard Cain.
In this, you are overmatched and alone. You must end it now, before it is too late
.

“We are near a place of power,” the necromancer said, coming up next to him. “I feel it.”

The skull had remained nestled in its pouch and uncharacteristically silent during this journey. The night before, the group had bedded down in Nahr’s workshop and spent an uncomfortable night, with Gynvir muttering about the “demonspawn” necromancer being too close for comfort. At one point, Humbart had threatened to call in the spirits of his long-dead comrades to
silence her, and that had nearly led to the skull being cleaved in two by the barbarian’s battle axe before Tyrael ended the disagreement like a parent separating two squabbling children.

Zayl had remained several yards behind the others as they hiked up the mountainside, but Tyrael had noticed his strange gray eyes constantly searching their surroundings, his head up and alert. He was no fool, this necromancer. They were lucky he had stayed with them.

“Gynvir does not trust my intentions,” the necromancer said.

“She is a member of the Owl tribe, which once protected Mount Arreat and the Worldstone from invaders from the Dreadlands, before the Bearers came and brought the rage plague to the barbarians,” Tyrael said. “Her tribe was consumed. Only the explosion on the mountain seared the plague from her flesh and saved her from the same fate.” He glanced at the necromancer, who looked out over the vast forest. “One of the Bearers was your kind, twisted by the plague and the demon Maluus into something else, an abomination. He did great damage to Gynvir’s kin.”

Zayl did not change his expression. “Necromancers are not often corrupted,” he said. “But when we are . . .” He shrugged. “The results can be dangerous.” Now he turned to look at Tyrael. “What we find in these mountains will take us down a path that requires teamwork. She will have to work through her anger for us to have any chance to succeed.”

“Let us hope it comes soon enough.”

Zayl nodded. He was silent for a long moment. “Once we find the lair of the nephalem, what then?”

“We turn you into warriors and thieves,” Tyrael said. “We use every skill at our disposal. Trickery and disguise, misdirection, surprise. We cannot beat the Luminarei face-to-face. We must use the angels’ pride against them and get in and out before they realize what is happening.”

“And if they discover us?”

“We die fighting.”

They watched the clouds darken on the horizon and lightning brighten their underbellies in purple bursts of color. Rain was coming, a stippled line that marched relentlessly closer and promised to drench them to the bone.

“What you seek up here is protected by a death spell,” Zayl said. “It is ancient and well-conceived, and it will take great skill to break it.”

Tyrael patted him once on the shoulder. “You should begin soon, then,” he said.

The necromancer led them down the steep incline, and they zigzagged across the slope to keep their feet and braced themselves against the trunks of trees as they went. Mikulov slipped away and then back again several times, his face growing grim as he spoke in a low voice to Thomas and Cullen. Whatever concerned him, he did not say to the others, and Tyrael did not ask. If it were important enough, the monk would come to him.

The brush thickened in places, making it slow going, and they had to skirt a gigantic rock outcropping that created a sheer cliff at least one hundred feet high, going nearly sideways for what had to be an hour before finding a way down and doubling back. Nahr had grown more hesitant as they went, unfamiliar with the terrain. Noises seemed to echo all around them. Once or twice, Tyrael thought he saw movement beyond the mist, but it was gone before he could turn his head.

By the time they reached the base of the cliff, the air was thick with moisture, and the mist had shrouded the trees. They gathered in a small clearing. Ancient grooves and cracks on the cliff face dripped with water, the cracks forming the shape of a gigantic spider. “The formation from the texts,” Cullen said. “This is the place—the ruins should be here.”

An animal called in the distance, the sound drifting through the forest like the cry of the damned. The skin on Tyrael’s neck prickled, hair on his forearms standing on end. Zayl approached the sheer rock. He knelt and withdrew a short red candle from his pouch, lighting it with straw from a small tinderbox, muttering words of power.

The sky above them began to darken further, and a chill breeze pushed the mist into swirling shapes that danced around their ankles and caused the candle flame to gutter. Zayl held his gloved hand around it and placed the candle firmly in the dirt. He drew a series of designs, connecting them with forking symbols. Then he dripped red liquid from the vial in his pouch and muttered under his breath, waving his hand over the flame.

Another puff of wind came from nowhere, lifting the dirt and spinning it in mini-cyclones before drawing it up into a vague shape. A sound like a whisper rose from a smoky mouth lined with the barest suggestion of teeth.

Gynvir cursed at the sight, her hands on her axe.

“Speak quickly, spellcaster,”
the conjured demon hissed.
“Before I am finally set free. Your binding spell is almost spent.”

“Break the mountain, X’y’Laq.
Bar’qual d’al amentis
.”

“You do not want to do that,”
the demon said, a lilt in its voice.
“It is a death spell. You don’t know what you will find inside.”

“And conjured by a very powerful mortal, in league with demons,” Zayl said. “I cannot test it myself.”

“It would put me in danger!”
the demon whined.
“What if Il’qual’Amoul were to stretch me at the wheel—”

“We don’t have time for games,” Zayl said. He made a grabbing motion around the flame, squeezing his fist. The demon squealed in pain.

“Stop . . . I will do as you wish!”
X’y’Laq screeched. When Zayl let go, the thing hissed again, whimpering.
“You will pay for that,”
it muttered, after a moment.
“Just wait . . .”

“
Now
, X’y’Laq.”

“Very well.”
The demon took a deep breath, sucking the swirling dirt into itself and swelling in size, taking in more and more until its open maw loomed over the necromancer.

And then it exhaled, sending the dirt cloud rushing toward the cliff.

Pebbles caught in the draft bounced off rock, and the ground shuddered, and the wind howled like a banshee. Tyrael stood tall against the storm, squinting into it as the others shielded their eyes, turning away.

A demon exploded from the soil before the cliff, a humanlike shape made of dust and the bones of the dead strung together into limbs that cracked and screamed, its massive shoulders like slabs of white rock below a ghoulish face that leered down at them.

“Break it, X’y’Laq!” Zayl shouted, but X’y’Laq laughed.

“You should have considered the consequences!”
it squealed gleefully. “
Il’qual’Amoul will strip the flesh from your bones! You will—”

With a ground-shuddering growl, the gigantic bone demon reached down with a clawlike hand made of human tibias and skulls for joints and wrapped its fingers around the smoky form of X’y’Laq.

The smaller demon screeched again, struggling against the bones as it was lifted up and away from the candle flame. Its essence stretched longer and longer, thinning as it writhed, X’y’Laq’s needlelike teeth trying to bite down without success.

As X’y’Laq screamed one last time and the smoke trail snapped, Zayl muttered something, and his enchanted bone dagger appeared in his hand. The blade glowed brightly as he strode forward and thrust it into the bone demon’s abdomen.

The giant roared in pain, and the necromancer twisted the blade into the nest of bones, yanking downward. More bones spilled from inside it like entrails. The demon swiped at Zayl,
and the necromancer jumped back, slicing off the tips of two bony appendages. But the bone demon swung its other limb too quickly for Zayl to react. It caught his arm and spun him like a doll, the dagger flying through the air to land twenty feet away.

As Il’qual’Amoul reared up over the prone necromancer and raised a gigantic foot to stomp, a blur of bright energy exploded toward it. Mikulov thrust his palm outward in a thunderclap of power that shattered the bone demon’s leg and stopped its deadly attack. Dry bones flew everywhere, hitting the cliff and bouncing back. Without its leg, Il’qual’Amoul teetered and then fell back into the hole that had opened with its passage, stuck with its head and shoulders sticking out of the ground.

Tyrael drew El’druin from its sheath and swung the blade with all his strength, severing the demon’s head.

Almost instantly, the swirling storm subsided as the bones lost the energy that had been animating them and tumbled back into the muddy ground. The wind died, leaving them all panting in the silence.

Zayl regained his feet, reaching out a gloved hand. The bone dagger flew through the air to him, and he returned it safely to his sheath. Although it had seemed to last forever, the entire sequence had lasted only seconds.

The red candle was gone. Where it had stood was now a gaping hole in the ground strewn with human bones, exposing a set of stone steps leading into darkness below the cliff face.