Nate Kenyon - The Order

“I can take care of myself.”

Kulloom studied him, his eyes growing sober. “Off with you, then,” he said finally. “I have things to do.”

“One last question.” Cain had been thinking of the other Horadric text he had found at the ruins, the one that had appeared to be penned by Tal Rasha himself. Something nagged at him about the passages he had read—a name he did not recognize, even with his vast knowledge from years of scholarly study. “Have you ever heard of a man called Al Cut, or where his burial chamber might be?”

Kulloom shook his head. “I have not. But burial chambers are not pleasant places. Perhaps you would do well to avoid them.”

Cain looked at him for another long moment, trying to sense whether anything else was hidden behind the man’s hooded eyes. If there was, he could not see it. Finally Cain thanked him for his time and stood, gathering his book and staff. As he turned to go, Kulloom called back to him. “And be careful with that woman you’re with,” he said, as the conversations again dried up and heads turned to watch. “The girl, too. She’s not right in the head.”

“Aye,” someone else said, a balding man with a bulbous nose and blackened teeth. “Tales of demons and black magic and dead men walking the earth. It’s enough to make your hair fall out.”

“You have little enough as it is,” Kulloom said to him. “Now let’s have another drink and forget this nonsense for now. Some of us have to go back to work soon.”

Several of the patrons laughed, and one of them slapped Kulloom on the back. But the man did not smile or take his gaze from Cain’s face. Cain nodded and left the man to his small group, the sound of more laughter and raised voices already drowning out Kulloom’s final words, which might have been a further warning, or simply a dismissal.

Cain emerged onto the street, blinking in the bright sun. The buzz of excitement that had begun inside the tavern still consumed him. He wondered how much of what he had learned today was trustworthy, and how much was the drunken rambling of a man who couldn’t find his backside with both hands. Kulloom was nothing like he had expected from what Gillian had told him, but it was clear that she was no longer welcome in that place. If so, her funds would surely be growing short. He felt a lingering sense of guilt for leaving her burdened with a child who was not her own, mixed with a growing concern for Leah. Without the proper training, whatever natural power she held could very well destroy her. But what could he possibly do? He had nothing to offer a young girl, and had little use for children in general. When he’d been a teacher in Tristram, his job had been to impart the wisdom he had learned over years of solitary study, but the children had been frustrating and difficult. They did not want to listen to his lectures, nor did they care much about the books he cherished so deeply.

And there were far more important things for him to worry about these days. Kulloom’s words came back to him: You must do something. You must find these men and stop them . . .

Stop them from what? What did they have to do with these ghouls that were supposedly haunting Sanctuary? The rest had been left unsaid. Too much, in fact, but Cain had sensed that Kulloom knew little else and he was wasting his time trying for more. The thread he had picked up inside the tavern was tenuous at best, but the idea that a group of rogue sorcerers was operating somewhere to the south filled him with renewed purpose.

Horadrim.

Kulloom himself had used the word, but he had hardly seemed to realize the import. Almost in spite of himself, hope lightened Cain’s steps: could it be true? Could there really be a link between these mages and the teachings of the Horadrim? It seemed impossible. All he believed, all he had read, and all the accounts he had heard over the years led him to believe the way of the order was long dead.

Surely, Kulloom and his merchant source were mistaken; these particular men, if they existed at all, were more likely simply an offshoot of a Caldeum mage group. Underneath all this was the warning Kulloom had given him, and the idea that the purpose of these men was more sinister in nature. The Horadrim had been tasked with saving Sanctuary from Diablo and his brothers, commanded by the archangel Tyrael himself. It was hard for Cain to believe that any true follower of the order would become involved in the dark arts.

One thing was clear: whether it was a dead end or not, he knew he had to find out more, and whatever answers there might be would be found in Kurast.

The tomb of Al Cut. Cain worried the phrase about in his mind like a small dog with a bone. He had never heard of anyone in history by that name. There must be more to the prophecy, but the ancient text had ended abruptly, as if there was more contained in a second volume. He could not make sense of it, but he had the feeling it was important. The answers might lie in the missing volume.

As Cain hurried down the street as fast as his poor feet would take him, he had the feeling he was being watched. He whirled around, expecting to find that Kulloom or others from the tavern had followed him out, perhaps bent on braining him with his own staff before taking the rest of his gold; but the street behind him was empty, save for a man and his child, who were walking with their heads down, ignoring him. The two turned a corner almost immediately and disappeared from sight.

The sun beat down on Cain’s head, washing the buildings on either side with bright light. He had the strange sense that he was alone in Caldeum, that all the other people had winked out of existence at once, and he was the only one left alive in all of Sanctuary. He imagined creatures among the shadows, the city falling into ruin as undergrowth began to reclaim all that had once been human. The illusion was broken when a mule-drawn cart clattered into view and a group of men exited an inn, talking loudly and gesturing to each other.

Nobody had been watching him, yet he still felt eyes boring into his back as he turned once again to go.

Cain spent the rest of the day exploring Caldeum, searching for any more information about the group of mages who called themselves Horadrim. He tried to keep his excitement from becoming too evident, but the people seemed to shy away from him, refusing to speak, and those few who did looked at him as though he had sprouted two heads when he mentioned Kurast. It was a dead city, and full of murderers and rapists, he was told, no place for an old man like him.

He grew more and more discouraged as he went, and the idea that there was any connection to the Horadrim or its teachings began to seem a desperate hope. He had been amazed by the idea of it as he left the pub, but as the hours dragged on without another lead, he became more convinced that Kulloom had been mistaken, or had simply told Cain what he wanted to hear to get the gold nugget that had been promised to him.

Later in the day he was questioned by three of the Iron Wolves, all of them large, muscled men in ornate gold-and-silver armor and carrying heavy swords. Luckily they did not go so far as to search his rucksack, or he might have been thrown in jail; it was clear that significant tension existed in Caldeum between the leaders of the mage clans, the Zakarum, and the trade consortium council, which was now a mixture of Caldeum and former Kurast nobles who had fled that city when it fell to Mephisto and his demonic forces. The people were terrified that the darkness and corruption of Kurast had spread to Caldeum, and perhaps there was something to it. Because of this, allegiances were everything, and the guards had little use for an old man who may or may not have been a rogue sorcerer.