Diablo III: Storm of Light (26 page)

The city was loud and thick with people as they walked. They did not see the man in armor until he was directly in front of them.

Suddenly, the crowd parted as if by magic, and the man walked through, the metal point of his spear ringing on the stone. The people around them fell back, staring, as if waiting for the show to begin. He wore an armored breastplate and sword, and his eyes flashed above a heavy beard. “State your purpose here,” he said.

“We look to speak with Lorath Nahr,” Tyrael said. “We have word from his father in Bramwell.”

The man’s eyes narrowed further as he glanced at the others. “I do not know this Lorath,” he said. “But your kind is not welcome here.” He
gestured at Shanar and Zayl with his spear. “Wizards and necromancers have no place in the City of the Light.”

“Perhaps you could guide us to the Church of the Holy Order,” Tyrael said. “We also have business there.”

“What business is that?”

“We seek Norlun,” he said.

“And why should he see you?”

“We are holy warriors who wish to help his cause in any way we can.”

At this, the man’s demeanor changed, and his body relaxed slightly. He looked around at the crowd. None of them met his gaze. “You seek enlightenment, then,” he said. “I can take you there. You should pray you find his favor.”

A templar
. Jacob’s hand crept toward the weapon belted to his waist.

“My companions must secure lodging for us,” Tyrael said. “Is there an inn nearby?”

“The Snapping Dog,” the man said. He glanced at Jacob, then back at Tyrael. “Just around the bend. It’s likely to have beds, although the bugs may be thick as the thieves that sleep with them.”

Tyrael turned to Jacob. “Go there, and take the others with you. Cullen, Thomas, and I will rejoin you later.”

The man led them slowly through the city streets, past huge stone buildings, archways, and alleys, gutters thick with slow-moving black water and refuse. The smells continued to assault them from the doorways of shops and dark corners where beggars hunched in the shadows.

As they continued a gentle climb up toward the center of the city, the buildings grew larger and more ornate, with turrets and window slits and ribbed vaults and buttresses, gargoyles perched
on rooftops overlooking the wandering crowds. There were more people gathered in an open market, jostling one another to get away as the templar pushed through.

Tyrael caught glimpses of the old cathedral long before they reached it. The building rose up beyond the closer structures like a monstrous stone beast, its pointed turret and stained glass seeming to glow from within. The cathedral had been here for centuries, built for the Zakarum, Cullen explained, and later used by the Knights of Westmarch before they became a more secular order, concerned mostly with the protection of the king and Westmarch’s borders.

“From what I have heard, the knights still consider it theirs,” he said quietly, eyeing the back of the man who strode ahead. “If the templar control it, there is bound to be tension between them.”

As they reached the cathedral, several more men with somber expressions met them. The guards were jumpy. The first templar spoke to the others for a few moments, gesturing, and then returned to Tyrael with a scowl. “Norlun is attending to business,” he said. “You may wait inside.”

They were ushered through the main alcove and into the vast inner hall of worship, made entirely of stone, the floor inlaid with a pattern of lines like a web. A massive carving loomed on their left before a short set of steps, candles flickering. A few men were gathered there, talking; they grew silent as the Horadrim were led through their midst, past wooden pews and away from the raised altar, into another hallway.

Before their guide led them into a small waiting room, Tyrael noticed another door at the far end of the hall, barred and guarded by two more armed men. Then the man closed the door behind him, leaving them alone.

A tapestry made of blue silk was hanging on the wall. Cullen lifted the edge to reveal the Zakarum crest carved into the stone
underneath. Candles burned in tall silver clasps, filling the room with light.

Thomas began pacing back and forth. “That was too easy,” he said. “I don’t like this. Why would they let us in here without checking our weapons first?”

Tyrael had thought much the same thing. They might have walked right into a trap. But if the lost city of the nephalem was under the cathedral and they had to go through the templar to get there, so be it.

The people of that city have no idea what danger they’re in
, Nahr had said.
The king will demand a cleansing
.

The cleansing might be coming sooner than anyone expected.

Tyrael’s thoughts were cut short by the sound of footsteps approaching. The door swung open, and a man swept in, ruddy-cheeked and appearing slightly out of breath. He was thin and of average height and did not immediately fit the mold of leading a group such as this. Although he kept a blue sash at his waist, he did not wear the templar armor. But his gaze was like ice, and he clearly commanded respect from the men following him, who bowed and left the room. “I am Norlun,” he said. “Leader of the Westmarch Order of the Templar. What is your business?”

“We travel from Caldeum,” Tyrael said. He shook Norlun’s outstretched hand and found his grip firm. “You may have heard about recent troubles there, but it is likely you do not know the truth of it. The uprising by the emperor’s guard against the people was driven by demons, not men. We fought against the darkness there and have seen horrors few others have. We fear the same thing happening in Westmarch.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“We seek to join with men who are principled and strong enough to do what is necessary when the time comes. Even if it means betraying the king.”

Norlun’s eyes narrowed. “We are a peaceful order and wish only to banish the darkness and serve the Light.”

“As do we,” Tyrael said. “But sometimes . . . there are hard choices to make.”

Norlun studied him for a long moment. The door opened, and a burly man entered. “Lord,” he said. “You had asked to know when—”

“Not now,” Norlun snapped. “Tell Stefan and Kamir to wait outside.”

The young man nodded and closed the door quickly.

“Hard choices indeed,” Norlun said. “You will have some before you shortly, if I am right. But the templar have been given a holy charge, and we intend to take this message to the people. We work to cleanse those sinners who have embraced the darkness, and they are reborn through us as children of the Light, scrubbed clean and pure. We wish no trouble from the Zakarum, the knights, or King Justinian, unless they bring it to us.”

“Perhaps we have come to the wrong place, then.”

“Here is what I think,” Norlun said. “I think you have been sent as spies by the king to gather information about our order, perhaps even to infiltrate it. I think the knights are threatened by our presence and would wish nothing less than to stamp it out.”

“If so,” Tyrael said, holding the man’s gaze, “we know nothing of it.”

“Or perhaps the Zakarum are behind this, still pulling the strings,” Norlun said. “They continue to hold more sway in this city than most believe.” He shrugged. “No matter. I answer only to the grand maester of the templar order and sometimes, truth be told, not even to him. My men understand our mission and will die for me, if necessary. Here are two of them.” He opened the door to show two men outside standing rigidly at attention. “They wait on my orders. Make no mistake, we will do what
must be done to cleanse evil from Westmarch and our surrounding lands and bring the people to the Light.”

There was silence in the room for a long moment. Tyrael waited to see if the templar would draw their weapons. But they did not move, and Norlun finally smiled. “Now you will do something for me,” he said. “Bring this back to the king. We wish to continue our mission in peace, bringing our message to Westmarch, one man at a time. But we will not be intimidated, and should the knights attempt to stamp us out, they will be surprised at what they find. We have support among the people. The Church of the Holy Order may have been built by the Zakarum, but it is a templar church now and shall remain so.”

“If we knew the king, we would,” Tyrael said.

Norlun’s toothy grin grew wider. “Slippery of you, isn’t it? But you want something. You won’t get it here.” Norlun gave a brief nod to his men, and they stepped aside. “You are free to leave and bring my message to Justinian,” he said. “I would not linger here any longer, if I were you.”

Tyrael grew close and the two guards tensed, hands gripping their spears. Norlun took the slightest step back, and his steely-eyed expression failed for just a brief moment.

“Perhaps we will meet again,” Tyrael said.

He left the smaller man without another word, Thomas and Cullen following in his wake. The door at the end of the hall was still barred and guarded by two armed men.

As they made their way back through the old Zakarum cathedral, he thought he heard the faint sound of a scream filtering up from somewhere below their feet, but he could not be sure.

Having secured three flea-bitten rooms for them at the Inn of the Snapping Dog, Jacob set about getting word to Lorath Nahr. It wasn’t difficult; a guardsman in the streets knew the name and
promised to bring the young knight back with him in short order, after being told they had brought an urgent message from Lorath’s father in Bramwell.

The guard told them to wait in the tavern on the ground floor of the inn. The monk and the necromancer went off on their own. Gynvir seemed relieved to see Zayl go. They had settled into an uneasy truce, but even Zayl’s efforts at the nephalem temple had not swayed her opinion of him, and Jacob was reluctant to speak of it. Zayl was useful to the group in many ways, but her distrust of his kind ran through deep and treacherous waters that he did not want to cross.

Jacob took a corner table at the tavern with Shanar and Gynvir. They ordered mutton and bread and mead and listened to the conversations of the people of Westmarch. There was an undercurrent of tension even as they drank their fill and made merry; rumors of strange disappearances were circulating. A man at another table nearby was discussing a possible uprising against the king’s guard, while most declared the whole thing to be a silly fiction, propagated by those who did not like the new curfew declared after three knights were found dead, their throats slit by unknown assailants.

“Commander Nahr was right,” Shanar said. “There’s darkness in Westmarch.” She looked at Jacob, something else flickering in her eyes. “You gained a little of the old swagger back on the road, though, didn’t you?” She glanced at Gynvir, a half-smile gracing her pretty lips. “Better watch out, or the barbarian will carry you off to her cave.”

Gynvir colored slightly before looking away. “I have no cave,” she said. “And it’s you who have the history with him, not me.”

Shanar was correct, Jacob thought. He did feel different. Closer to the way he used to feel when El’druin had given him strength and courage to do what was right. And yet things had changed for him back in Tristram in other ways. He touched the
puckered scar on his shoulder. Could the phantoms follow them into the city? Or were they already here?

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival at their table of the guardsman, who introduced a young man in knight’s armor as Lorath Nahr. The man was blond-haired and blue-eyed and bore little resemblance to the commander, except for the cut of his jaw and his broad forehead.

“You have word from my father? How do I know you speak the truth? It is a dangerous time to be trusting strangers.”

Jacob pulled the sword free of its sheath, just enough to show him the brand seared into leather, careful not to reveal the strange blade to others. “He did this work for me,” Jacob said. “If you join us here for a drink, we can talk about how we might help each other.”

“Who are you?”

“We are Horadrim,” Jacob said. “On a mission of utmost importance. The fate of Sanctuary may depend on it. And time is running short.”