Nate Kenyon: The Order

The boy thrust his hands into his wool tunic as if to warm them, although the blaze from the fire was hot enough to curl the soft down on his cheek. He was narrow across the shoulders, and his face was thin and drawn even at this young age, so he looked far older than his eleven years. He wore a satchel across his neck made of deer hide with a heavy book tucked into one pocket, which pinched him and made red marks on his skin. He didn’t much care about that, or about what the others might have said about him. He had no real friends. He was a natural loner, at home with his texts, and he liked it that way.

The firelight flickered and danced across the other children, who sat with faces rapt and shining, upward-turned in spiritual ecstasy as if the figure telling stories before them were the archangel Auriel herself, come to walk among them.

No. That wasn’t right. The boy shook his head slightly in disgust. Perhaps a few years ago he might have made such a comparison, but not now. The figure who spoke with such confidence was simply his mother, a mortal with no higher knowledge than any other regardless of her bloodline, and if the archangels existed at all, they certainly would not waste their time coming to this forsaken place.

A log popped, sending a sharp blaze of sparks up into the night and making the others jump. Smoke swirled and drifted around their heads, bringing an acrid, bitter smell that masked the stench of the barnyard below. She had them in her grasp, as always; the elders of the village might roll their eyes as she passed, and the innkeeper and town guard might whisper behind her back about a touch of madness, but the children would always come to listen, and they would believe.

Until they grew older, Deckard Cain thought, and opened their eyes to the truth.

“The last Prime Evil and youngest brother, Diablo, the Lord of Terror, was the strongest of all, and horrible to behold. It is said that those who gazed directly upon him went mad with fear. But the Horadrim never ceased in their pursuit. Once Tal Rasha had been entombed forever with the Lord of Destruction beneath the deserts of Aranoch, Jered Cain led the remaining mages through Khanduras, battling Diablo’s minions at every pass.” Aderes glanced at each child in turn, holding their gaze in her own. When her glittering eyes found his, the boy looked away, as if searching for something far beyond the reach of firelight.

His mother’s tone might have faltered slightly, or perhaps she was just catching her breath. “The Horadrim with their powerful magic did great damage to the demon’s army. But Diablo summoned thousands more of his terrible servants from the Burning Hells to fight for him, and finally Jered decided to make a stand. The archangel Tyrael had formed the Horadrim for a single purpose, to contain the Prime Evils and banish them from our fair lands, and he would not let them fail.”

Aderes Cain’s skin held a waxy sheen, her coal-black curls damp against her forehead. She had the blank-eyed stare of the damned. Deckard had heard this story many times before, and it got larger and more impressive every time she told it. He knew all the twists and turns. Now would come the moment when she shocked the young children by revealing that the heroic mages had made their stand right here in these lands, and the very ground beneath their feet had run black with demon blood. Her voice would grow even louder as Jered and his Horadrim brothers fought back wave after wave of monstrous creatures, finally imprisoning Diablo inside the soulstone and burying it deep beneath the ground, where it still lay even today.

The legend used to thrill him, but he was no longer a young child, and his mother and her growing madness had become something uncomfortable for him. He had more important things to concern himself with now, and he could not bear to listen anymore. When she turned away for a moment to address the others, he slipped back from the circle and faded into the cool night.

The air was moist, and it was much colder away from the fire. Deckard walked barefoot across the slick grass, gathering his tunic closer around his thin frame. He could see his breath in the air, and it seemed to rise up out of him like a creature not made of this earth. Somewhere near the barn below, a man cursed as a sheep screamed at the slaughter, and the sweet-sour smell of blood came, carried by the breeze. Fog eddied around the trees at the edge of the forest, and a chill danced down the back of Deckard’s neck like ghost fingers. He shivered and made for his home, not fifty steps away.

Inside, two lanterns were lit in the small entry, but he did not pick one up, remaining swaddled in darkness as he padded noiselessly to his room. He knew the way by heart. It was cold in the house, too, colder than he would have thought it should be. His fingers touched the binding of the book in his satchel, caressed it, but he did not draw it out, not yet, choosing to let the moment linger deliciously, like a drunkard withholding the taste of wine for a single moment more before bringing the chalice to his lips. It was a book on the history of Westmarch and the Sons of Rakkis, a scholarly text, nothing like the things his mother liked to read: those stories of noble heroes and impossible worlds above and below this one, their inhabitants always dancing just out of sight. The stuff of folklore.

He wanted to be alone for a while. It was only moments later that he heard the door open again and his mother come in, dropping her heavy wooden clogs on the hearth. Soon she would start a fire and put the kettle on for tea, and he would hear her tuneless humming as she sat in her rocking chair to knit or read. But he was wrong; instead she came straight for his room, and he barely had time to tuck the book under his bed and sit down before she knocked on the door and came in.

“Deckard?” She held a lantern up against the darkness, squinting at him. “You left the circle before I was finished.” In the warm yellow glow she looked as if she were unraveling, her hair wild and tumbling down over her shoulders in heavy curls. She had a gray streak just beginning, Cain thought, by her right temple. He hadn’t noticed it before.

“I’ve heard the stories many times. I was tired and needed rest.”

“They’re not just stories, Deckard. Jered is your blood, and you—you are the last of a proud line of heroes.”

“The Horadrim.”

“That’s right. Direct descendants of the great mages, tasked with protecting Sanctuary from the demons that stalk this world. You know this.”

Cain shrugged. He did not like to look directly into her eyes, not quite sure of what he might find there. He sat for a moment in silence, and then: “Why didn’t you let me take Father’s name?”

He didn’t know why he’d said that. His father had died a few weeks before of a wasting disease, after working in the tanner’s shop for most of his life, first sweeping floors, then as an apprentice, and finally the last two years as head of the shop. He hadn’t been much for talking, and it had been a rare thing for him to show any emotion at all. Deckard was not much like him, or maybe he was.

His mother put the lantern down on the bedside table and sat next to him. She reached out to touch his shoulder, and he turned just the slightest amount, enough to make her withdraw her hand as if scalded. “You’re hurt and you’re angry,” she said. “I understand that. But it won’t bring him back.”

He stared down at his fingers clasped in his lap, then felt the straw under the covering that had become gray and threadbare in places through many washings. This had been his bed since he had left the crib, in the same room, in the same modest home and the same town. Nothing ever happens here.