He looked down at the staff in his hand. A cursed thing. Aidan should have been the one to do this, he thought. The rightful heir to the kingdom of Khanduras, and the leader who had saved all of Sanctuary. But he had refused, for reasons that remained unknown. Cain would have to carry it through.
He reached the fire. “Citizens of Tristram,” he said. “You have peered into the abyss, and you have survived. But none of you have avoided a terrible loss. The Prime Evil Diablo is dead, but what he has brought upon this town still lurks, in the shadows and within the hearts of all of us. Never forget what has happened here. Never allow such evil to surprise you again.”
He looked around at the faces surrounding him: the wounds on the bodies of several people raggedly sewn shut, puffy, dark circles under their eyes, the blank looks of those who have seen more than their souls could bear. All of them had lost loved ones, and all of them were suffering. “I give you the staff of Lazarus,” he said. He held it up for them to see, ignoring the ache in his back and the pain in his knees. “The traitor who betrayed us all and awoke Diablo from his slumber will not haunt us anymore.”
Cain tossed the staff onto the flames. The fire seemed to rise up and embrace it with a dull roar. He stumbled back from the sudden heat, feeling the hands of others catch him and hold him up. For a moment he sagged into them, welcoming the support. Perhaps he would not have to do all this alone, after all.
The tortured wood gave off a sound like a high, hissing scream. It popped and cracked, emitting a green smoke that rose up into the air and swirled higher. The flames began to blacken it before the pile collapsed and it disappeared under the glowing embers.
Cain sighed. He had meant to give a rousing speech, a way to put a ceremonial end to their misery. But it felt hollow to him. Lazarus was dead and gone; his staff was only a piece of wood, and it burned like any other.
He tried to move away from the hands that had been holding him, but they held him fast. He turned to find the familiar, round face of Griswold the blacksmith, his bald head shining in the sunlight. “Old friend,” Griswold said, “stay a while, and drink with us.”
Cain smiled, but something about Griswold unsettled him. The blacksmith had been a fierce ally in the fight against the demon plague, helping forge weapons and armor and wading into the battle himself, using his bulk and brute strength to shatter the skulls of imps and siege beasts until suffering a terrible leg wound. But his eyes were distant now, his meaty hands clutching Cain’s upper arms. A vague threat of violence clung to him like a foul odor.
Cain glanced back across the fire at Aidan, who had not moved. “Aye, he’s a brooding one,” Griswold said. “Not been the same since he’s returned from below. He speaks little, and does not socialize with the others.”
“He’s suffered.”
“As have we all.” Griswold’s gaze grew distant. “I hear voices, in the night. Keeps me from my bed.”
“Demonic contact can have long-lasting effects,” Cain said.
“Suppose that’s what it is,” Griswold said. His fingers tightened, digging painfully into Cain’s flesh. Then he shook his head and released Cain’s arms. “Go speak to the boy,” he said. He took a bottle from someone’s hand and drank deeply before tossing it aside. “He could use some wise counsel. And have some ale. We’re here to celebrate, after all.”
Cain skirted the fire, moving away from the small crowd. Something was not right. Diablo had been destroyed, his minions dead or scattered. The danger was over.
Then why did he have this unsettled feeling growing inside him, like a black, creeping sickness?
He reached the shadowed place between two buildings and peered in. Aidan was gone. A moment later he heard a muffled voice from somewhere beyond, and he stepped into the dark, walking carefully without his staff, moving away from the sounds of the crowd and the fire. It was isolated in here, and he felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck before he emerged into a side street.
Aidan stood with a woman about fifty feet away, under the shade of a large tree. Cain stopped short at the building’s edge, something telling him to remain hidden. He watched the woman touch Aidan’s arm, and Aidan bent to speak to her, and then the two of them moved away, out of sight.
The light was dim under the tree, and they had left quickly. But Cain would have recognized the mix of grace, beauty, and raw power anywhere, the way she moved, seemingly gliding over the ground. The woman with him was the witch Adria.
A new sense of unease fell over him, but he dared not follow the two. He had more important things to do. He had vowed to never again let his own lack of dedication to his Horadric studies destroy others’ lives. He would return to his texts, today, and search for answers to his nameless fear. He would not rest until he knew the truth.
When he turned back to the alley, a small boy stood before him, hands clasped at his waist, his face mournful.
“Why did you leave me?” the boy said. “Why?”
Cain awoke with a jerk, stifling a cry. The fire he had built had died down to embers, casting shadows that seemed to move among the low-hanging branches of the trees.
Cain’s fingers crept toward a hidden pocket in his tunic, where a single sheet of brittle parchment lay nestled apart from his nest of other treasures, close to his heart. He caught himself, his heart thudding in his chest. No, he thought, remembering the boy’s face in shocking detail for a moment before pushing it away from his mind. Not that. I cannot bear to go back there again.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was the incident with the girl that had brought on his dream, almost certainly. He should never have told her about her mother in that way. He had handled the entire thing terribly. He did not know how to deal with children: how much did you share with them, and how were you to bring up such difficult subjects? Thank the archangels it hadn’t been worse.
After Leah had run off, he had chased her out of the trees, and had felt the crackling energy of whatever strange power she held inside building toward a horrible end. If she hadn’t tripped and fallen, who knew what might have happened? He had found her lying motionless and unresponsive on the ground near the river, and carried her back to the fire, where she sat slumped forward in shock.
He was finally able to get her to eat a bite of the fish, and she tore into the rest with her fingers like a starving animal. After she had eaten, she had started asking him questions, quietly at first, then with more conviction and urgency.
She had wanted to know everything. Cain had done the best he could, while trying to be sensitive to her situation. Adria had arrived in Tristram shortly after the troubles began, and had quickly become well known among those who had remained for her abilities with potions and enchanted objects, and her gift for foreseeing future events. In fact, it was that gift which saved her life when Tristram fell. But the last thing Cain had heard was a report of her death many months ago, somewhere in the Dreadlands. That had brought more tears from Leah, and one last question:
“Did she . . . look like me?”
Cain stood up, shuffling around the fire to where Leah lay on her side under James’s cloak, her eyes closed now, her face peaceful and smooth. She looked so small and helpless. How could he have treated her this way? What was wrong with him? Was it really so hard to take care of children, to be sensitive to their particular needs? Or anyone else’s needs, for that matter—his focus on his studies was a form of selfishness he could no longer afford.
For the first time, he considered turning back, finding shelter somewhere in Caldeum or beyond, as far away from Kurast as he could get.