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Gradually, almost imperceptibly, Sanctuary began to return to life. The sunlight brought more people out into the streets, and a celebration of sorts began to spread from neighbor to neighbor as the citizens of Gea Kul realized the reign of terror had ended. Many had been lost during the collapse of the caverns beneath the town, but those who had seen the ruins of the Black Tower themselves returned to tell others, and rumors of the Horadric heroes who had defeated the Dark One grew, until a small crowd began to gather outside the Captain’s Table. Eventually Thomas and Cullen went out to speak to them, and a roar of appreciation rose up as the last of the day’s warm rays bled from the sky.

Cain remained inside, sitting with Leah and holding her hand. Her wounds had been cleaned and covered, and he had dressed her in fresh clothes Jeronnan had given him. They were some of his daughter’s childhood clothes, Jeronnan said, that he’d kept for all these years. The captain insisted there wasn’t a more fitting person to wear them now.

Cain couldn’t find anything physically wrong with Leah. She had lost a lot of blood, certainly, but her color was good and her heart strong. And so he waited patiently by her side, refusing to clean his own wounds or allow himself to sleep.

Eventually, in spite of himself, he nodded off in his chair. When he snapped awake sometime later, she was looking at him, puzzled.

“Uncle?” she said. “Where am I? What’s happened?”

Emotions rushed through him, choking his voice: “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I . . .” Leah looked bewildered. “I remember we stayed at an inn, and met a man . . . I remember you were kind to me. You watched after me. But I don’t remember anything else.”

“You’re safe, and that’s all that matters,” he said, warmth blooming in his chest. He decided not to tell her exactly what had happened during the past few days, no matter how much she begged him. Her childhood would be better without these memories to haunt her, and if he had learned anything through this ordeal, it was that childhood was a precious gift, not to be taken lightly.

He was alarmed to find himself close to tears. “I love you, Leah. We are family now.”

She sighed and nodded, and her eyes drifted closed. Cain sat and watched her for some time, the ghost of a smile on his face. He thought of his wife and son, their bloodied bodies under the blankets the men had spread in the ragged brush. For so many years, it had haunted him, his inability to lift those blankets and see them one last time. The idea of how they had suffered had remained with him like a ghost, buried deep beneath his consciousness until it had become a black, bottomless well. Belial had used that pain to his advantage.

But Cain knew now that they were at peace, that whatever they had suffered had ended long ago and it was time to put them to rest, once and for all.

Eventually he was able to close his eyes again, and this time, his sleep was dark, calm, and deep.

38

The Road Ahead

The next few days were bright and sunny as life came back to Gea Kul.

About half the town was gone, swallowed up by the ground. But the people began to clear the streets that remained intact of the debris that had gathered there, unchecked, over many months. There were more spontaneous celebrations, and more than a few times Deckard Cain left the Captain’s Table only to find a small crowd waiting for him outside, like religious pilgrims. They were respectful enough, but they made him nervous; he was never one to accept adoration gracefully.

Still, they seemed to consider him some kind of hero. “You are that, you know,” Mikulov said, when they left one day and found more than two dozen waiting outside, asking to shake Cain’s hand. “A hero. The last of the Horadrim.”

“I hardly think—”

“It takes all kinds,” Mikulov said. “You don’t have to carry a sword to be heroic.” He smiled. “For a smart man, you seem to have missed the point. You led us to the edge of death and back again. You were the only one with a plan, even at our darkest point, when we wanted to give up. Without you, we would have been lost.”

“And without you, Mikulov, we would have been lost. We’re all heroes, then. Every last one of us.”

“If that is so,” Mikulov said, “then you are responsible for it.”

They walked in silence for a while. Their mission today was an important one, and something they had to do quietly, and alone.

Cain had done a lot of thinking during the past few days, a lot of it about Leah. She was a special little girl; there was no question of that, and yet she had suffered almost unbearable trauma, enough to have blocked it all out. She seemed to remember almost nothing of what had happened, during not only the battle in the tower but much of their entire adventure. It was as if her mind had completely erased anything she had been unable to process.

He, of course, remembered everything, and his latest revelation had to do with Leah, and with the true meaning of the battle between darkness and light. Garreth Rau had been defeated, at least in part, because he had not taken into consideration that Leah had her own free will and the ability to make a choice to fight back for good instead of evil. And he had not understood the power of human relationships—the good in them. Cain hadn’t either, not for a long time, but Leah and Mikulov had changed all that. They had helped make him whole again.

Cain and Mikulov walked through the streets until they reached the Horadric meeting place. Cain was nearly certain that the Dark One’s army had been destroyed. But he had to be sure.

The building still stood, but it had been badly damaged. They managed to get down the stairs to the place where the tapestry hung in tatters on the wall, but the tunnel entrance was choked with debris, and the rooms beyond the library were gone, collapsed into the floor.

They returned to the surface and walked beyond the building to find that this part of the town had simply vanished, swallowed by the earth below and leaving a crater filled with stone and murky water. It was as he had hoped, Cain thought. The lost city of Al Cut, and all it contained, was gone.

“Using Egil’s formulation to destroy the tunnel walls and bring in the sea?” Mikulov shook his head, a look of admiration on his face. “That was the move of a brilliant strategist. None of us really understood what you were doing when you had us dig for the mineral vein. Even when we put the bags against the walls where you told us, we didn’t think it would work.” He shrugged. “But how did you ignite them?”

“It was Leah who did it,” Cain said. “I had witnessed her power before. I knew from studying the map that the caverns were vulnerable if we placed enough of the explosives in the proper areas, and the moss was present to cause the chemical reaction we needed. And I knew that the tower was some sort of focal point above the lost city that we might be able to use like the wick of a lantern.”

They stood and looked out over the destruction. Cain thought about Garreth Rau, and how Belial had twisted whatever vulnerabilities existed in the man to his advantage. And that led to other, more disturbing thoughts. Belial was not one to give up so easily. Cain began to wonder whether it was over, after all. He had come to realize that the prophecies could be interpreted in different ways. Perhaps this was only the first stage in a much larger, much more dangerous plan.

He had to know more, to be sure.

“Thank you, Mikulov, for everything,” Cain said. “I will have to leave here soon, but I will never forget what you did.”

“Nor will I forget you,” Mikulov said. They clasped hands. “I must leave as well. The members of the Floating Sky would have me executed for leaving the monastery, if they could, and may be searching for me even now. But my fate is with the gods. Perhaps we will see each other again, someday.”