No one there could. Many began looking in amazement at Romus, who shook his head over and over, trying to deny the truth as much as his neighbors had a moment before.
But Uldyssian would not let him. “Romus, come join me here by the fountain! Let the others see!”
Wordlessly, the bearded man obeyed. Others crowded forward, murmuring to one another and pointing at the healed area. Romus began to turn a deep shade of crimson. There was nothing about him that looked like the hardened criminal Master Ethon had first identified.
“Uncanny…” muttered the merchant from the background. “Is it possible?”
Lylia clutched their host’s arm tight. “It is!” she breathed to Ethon. “Do you understand now?”
“Yes…yes…I suppose I do…”
Meanwhile, Uldyssian had gathered the people’s attention again. “It may be some time before anything manifests again, but you see now what is possible! Let no one doubt that everyone will be able to do the same…and more!”
That was enough to send the throng into a roar. Many fell to their knees and thanked Uldyssian, who looked extremely upset by this reaction.
“Get up! Get up!” he insisted. His fury shook his followers. They stared fearfully.
He did not care. They had to understand. “No one bows to me! I’m no king, no patriarch of a mage clan! I was and still am a simple farmer! My land, my home, may be lost to me, but that’s what I remain even with what I’ve been granted! I offer to share, not to command! Never, ever, kneel to me again! There are no masters here! Only equals!”
Even as he said it, Uldyssian knew that they did not entirely see it that way. They would look to him for answers, for direction. He consoled himself with the thought that he acted as teacher, as guide. One day soon, most would no longer need him. There was even the possibility that some would surpass Uldyssian and that he, in turn, would have to learn from them.
For the time being, though, it was all up to him. Romus’s startling act, though, gave him renewed hope. Each person was individual. As a farmer, he understood how growth varied. All he had to do was be more patient.
He had the time. Kehjan was not expecting him. He could stay here until he was certain. That would make it all the better when he did present himself to the inhabitants of the city.
Feeling better about matters, Uldyssian turned to the next supplicant…and the next…and the next…
Malic was being more cautious, this time. Not because he felt any concern about facing Uldyssian, but because he wanted the mission to go very cleanly. The morlu could be a double-edged sword in some respects. They were very capable, but their tendency for bloodshed almost rivaled that of demons. Fortunately, the master had chosen a capable servant in Damos and Damos had chosen well in his five warriors. Collectively, they were a far more potent force than the demons and guards that the cleric had led previously.
Damos even now stalked ahead of the party, sniffing the air like a beast on the scent. The other morlu sat eagerly in the saddle, awaiting word of the prey.
“This way they came,” grated Damos. He raised his ram’s skull helmet up to the sky and sniffed again. “And in this place, they turned…that way.”
Malic’s gaze followed the outthrust arm. “Are you certain?”
The lead morlu grinned, revealing sharp, yellowed teeth. “I smell the blood, high priest…”
“They were heading toward Kehjan. When last I encountered them, they were well on their way to the lowlands and the jungles. Veering off in that direction means an extreme detour.”
Damos shrugged. To his kind, such considerations were unnecessary. All that mattered was where the prey could be found, not what direction it had run before the hunt.
The cleric stroked his monstrous arm, a motion that had, in the short time since the transformation, become an unconscious habit. The clawed fingers twitched. Just before the party had left, the master had finally told him what the hand could do. Malic was now eager to try it…but to do that he had to reach his quarry.
“We go that way, then,” the high priest finally declared.
Grunting, Damos returned to his dark steed. That following the trail was what they needed to do was very obvious to all the morlu, but they knew their place and so did not make anything of the cleric’s unnecessary comment. The high priest could send them to their deaths if he so desired, so long as it served the Temple. They would not question his leadership unless commanded to by the master.
With Malic in the lead, the band rode on at a furious clip. Curiously, their mounts left no trails of their own and, indeed, even the clatter of hooves was missing. Had there been any other person there to witness their passing, they might have noticed that the hooves did not even quite touch the ground…
Night settled again upon the town of Partha. An exhausted Uldyssian fell into his bed. He barely noticed Lylia slide in beside him before sleep overtook the farmer.
Dreams soon invaded his slumber, pleasant interludes in which he was able to help the sick and maimed everywhere learn how to heal themselves or bring burnt lands back to bloom. Uldyssian watched the world become a paradise and its people reach a point of perfection undreamed…
Then, in the midst of the harmony and love, calamity broke out. Fissures opened in the ground and even the sky developed cracks. It was as if his home was hidden inside a vast egg now being broken open by something outside.
And in the next breath, the heavens filled with fiery-winged figures and from the fissures rose monstrous, scaled hordes. The two fearsome armies immediately collided with one another, with Humanity caught in the middle. Men, women, and children were torn to bloody gobbets by the unnoticing warriors of both sides. Thousands lay strewn dead in an instant.
“Stop!” Uldyssian roared. “Stop!”
None of the combatants paid heed to his cries and when he sought to use his gifts to make them listen, nothing happened.
“They’re all over us!” shouted Achilios, suddenly at his side. “Do something! I’m almost out of arrows!” Indeed, the archer had apparently managed to bring down nearly a hundred of the fighters, but still the tide flowed toward where Uldyssian and he stood. “This is your fault!” Achilios insisted, growing angry. “Your fault!”
“No!” Uldyssian whirled from the hunter and his accusations, only to find Serenthia gazing at him from afar. She stood surrounded by a sea of furious warriors, oblivious of the surmounting threat to her. Blades already slashed past her head, but all Cyrus’s daughter did was continue to stare at Uldyssian as so many in the audience had this day.
“I have faith in you,” she declared. “I do—”
An ax already scarred from heavy use neatly severed her head. Blood poured forth like a fountain from the open neck. As Serenthia’s head toppled over, Uldyssian saw that the look of trust yet remained.
“Serry!” he choked. Uldyssian tried to push forward, but a hand suddenly pulled him back. He looked at the one preventing him from reaching her and discovered it to be none other than his own brother…but a Mendeln of the likes of which made him shiver.
“Do not worry about her anymore,” the cadaverous figure intoned without emotion. Mendeln’s face was drawn and gray and he seemed half-shadow. A dark cloak surrounded him, a cloak that twisted and turned despite no apparent wind. “Do not worry about her, anymore. She’s one of mine, now.”
Only then did Uldyssian see that there were figures behind Mendeln, faces he recognized from both Partha and Seram. However, they, like Mendeln, had drawn faces and, when he looked close, jagged wounds and torn flesh.
They were all dead.
Having made his declaration, Mendeln drifted past Uldyssian as if a shade himself. In his wake, the corpses of the innocent rose to follow. The fighting separated around Serenthia’s body, which still stood despite its death.
Mendeln gestured and the torso also turned to join him.
“Wait!” called Achilios, leaping forward. Throwing down his bow, he seized Serenthia’s blee
ding head and rushed after Mendeln. “Wait!”
Uldyssian attempted to follow, but for him the battling legions would not make room. The winged warriors and their bestial adversaries pressed tight against one another, yet, despite heavy losses on both sides, the numbers seemed undiminished. An endless flow of replacements continued to come, filling the world to overflowing.
There was no longer even a hint of the paradise that had once stood all around Uldyssian. The ground was a blazing slaughterhouse, the sky burnt and smoke-ridden.
Then, when he had nearly given up hope, he heard Lylia’s voice call to him. Desperately he looked around for her, at last spotting the noblewoman—her finery gleaming—gliding toward him from across the carnage. The battle did not touch Lylia in the least; in fact, the combatants seemed eager to be out of her way. She ran directly into Uldyssian’s arms, holding him as tight as he held her.
“Lylia…” he gasped, relieved beyond belief. “Lylia…I thought I’d lost you, too…”
“But you will never be without me, my love, never…” she cooed, holding him tighter yet. Her face was planted in his chest. “We are bound to each other forever…”
Grateful, Uldyssian leaned down to kiss her. Lylia raised her face to his—
Choking, he tried in vain to disengage from the noblewoman, but Lylia’s embrace was unbreakable. Uldyssian stared in horror as her mouth moved closer to his.
“Will you not kiss me, my love?” she asked with a smile…a smile filled with sharp teeth. Her eyes had no pupils, merely a sinister shade of crimson covering the entire area under the lids. Her skin was scaled and her ears beneath her hair long and pointed. That hair still hung long, but now consisted of harsh quills colored emerald green.
Despite the macabre changes, there was that about her that still filled Uldyssian with desire, a desire so deep that it frightened him. The grand dress that she had worn was gone, utterly gone, and although similar scales covered her flesh, they did not hide what the human garments had often hinted of.
“No!” he blurted, shoving her back with all his might. “No!”
Lylia laughed at his antics. Her tail, which ended in three daggerlike projections, slapped merrily against the bloody soil. She took a step back on hooved legs like those of the goats Uldyssian had kept on the farm and displayed herself fully for his wide eyes.
“Am I not everything you dreamed? Am I not all you desire?” The demonic woman laughed again and even though that laugh sent chills through the hapless farmer, it also heightened his desire for her. “Come, my love,” Lylia continued, her clawed hands inviting him toward her. “Come…you are mine, body and soul, soul and body…come to me…”
As she said this, the armies suddenly halted their struggle and turned to face Uldyssian. They marched slowly toward him, their steps matching the rhythm of Lylia’s voice.
“…body and soul…soul and body…body and—”
With a wordless cry, Uldyssian woke up. He twisted to the side to find Lylia stretched over him, her face—her beautiful face—filled with concern.
“Uldyssian, my love! Are you ill?”
“I saw—the others—you—” Planting his face in his hands, he slowly pulled himself together. “I dreamed…dreamed. That’s all. Nothing but a bad dream.”
“A nightmare?” Lylia reached a smooth—unclawed—hand to his cheek. Uldyssian instinctively flinched, recalling her appearance in the vision. “And what a horrible nightmare it must have been,” she added. “if it makes you so afraid of me!”
“Lylia…I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, letting her loose blond hair cascade around her naked form. Even shadowed by the darkness, she was arresting. Desire again filled Uldyssian and the foul dream began to slip into forgetfulness.
Snaking her delicate arms around him, Lylia whispered, “Let me help ease your mind, let you see that you have nothing to fear from me…”
“Lylia, I—”
“Hush!”
Their lips met and stayed that way until Uldyssian was well out of breath. As he inhaled, the noblewoman giggled, a sound not only extremely pleasant, but not at all like the seductive yet mocking laughter of the nightmare.
“And that is just for the beginning, I promise you.” Her hands caressed his arms, ran over the hair on his chest, and worked their way down.
The last vestiges of the dream faded. With a playful growl, Uldyssian lunged forward and filled his arms with her. The two of them rolled to the other side, where the son of Diomedes worked relentlessly to make certain that no memories of the vision would ever return…
When Uldyssian again slept, it was in a mood that could only bring to him enjoyable dreams, not nightmares. With lusty snores, he lay on his stomach, one arm draped casually over Lylia.
But Lylia did not sleep. Lying on her back, she stared without blinking at some place in her own memory, a place far from the bed and Uldyssian.
There were many among Humanity who believed that dreams were portents and Lylia knew that they were not far from the truth. Dreams could be portents; she knew that better than most. Throughout their lovemaking, Lylia had managed to gather little snippets that Uldyssian did not even realize he mentioned. Those combined to create a vision that had caused her at one point to nearly forget herself. Fortunately, her powers had quickly healed what would have under other circumstances left the farmer with a deep and hideous scar on his back.
Yes, dreams could be portents and there was that possible aspect to Uldyssian’s. However, there was another reason for them, one that concerned Lylia far more.
Dreams—and nightmares, especially—could be warnings, too.
Lylia knew just what those warnings concerned. What she did not know was the source. She had done her utmost to veil her presence to those who would recognize it. To be sure, they now had their suspicions, but they, too, had to tread carefully. To not do so would reveal the entire situation to the High Heavens. No one, not even he, desired them to discovery Sanctuary’s existence.
Which still left her at the advantage, at least as far as she could see.
But this dream continued to disturb her. It did not sound like an attempt by any of those who would seek to prevent her from fulfilling her goal…yet, what else could it be?
It does not matter, she told herself. She was mistress of this situation. She was the one who had awakened the power of the nephalem in the fool beside her and through him she would raise it up in every mortal possible. Nothing would stand in her way.
And if Uldyssian ul-Diomed failed at some point to remain a docile puppet, then Lylia would simply kill him and find another dupe. After all, there were so many men…
FOURTEEN
Four more days passed in Partha, days in which Uldyssian became ever more comfortable with his surroundings. Kehjan remained a focus of the future, but that future stretched further ahead with each passing day.
In addition to the townsfolk, others from the farmlands and smaller communities within a day’s ride began filtering in, the news spread to them by those who had already been touched. Naturally, Uldyssian greeted each newcomer and did what he could. Although progress was slow, at least now he had proof that what he had told them was true; in addition to Romus, nearly two dozen others had manifested some sign of powers. Those signs varied wildly, from healing minor injuries or causing flowers to blossom to a child’s sudden ability to call birds to her hand. No two were exactly the same. That in itself fascinated Uldyssian further and he spent some of his time trying to decipher why what worked for one did not for another.
He suffered no repeat of the nightmare and, with matters demanding so much of him, soon even forgot it. Meanwhile, the ranks now swelled in another, unexpected manner. Partha was a trading town and so visitors and merchants en route elsewhere would stop there on a daily basis. They could not help but be swept up in the excitement going on all around them and many who came merely out of curiosity left touched by Uldyssian. Not all did, of course, even as not all
in Partha had yet. However, the reluctant shrank in numbers with each new “miracle,” such as the elderly man whose daughter healed his failing vision, initially without even realizing it. Again, it was an act she could not repeat, but Uldyssian could not help thinking that many more were on the threshold of joining him.
Despite the monumental change going on inside them, most of the townsfolk tried to continue their normal lives. What else were they supposed to do? Crops still had to be harvested and children fed. Master Ethon freely admitted that he enjoyed his own work, especially since the death of his wife several years earlier and the departure of his two older sons for Kehjan the season before.
In fact, it was because of that enjoyment that he had to abandon his guests come the following evening. “I will be apologizing to you, good Uldyssian, for my absence tonight. An old friend and fellow merchant would have me visit his caravan to show me some of his latest items! Like me, he had been touched, but, also like me…well, he, too, is a merchant at heart!”
“There’s no need to apologize, Master Ethon. You’ve been more than generous. You’ve done so much.”
“I? I?” The older man laughed. “Oh, Uldyssian, you are likely the most humble person I’ve ever known! I’ve done so much! You’ve merely altered forever the lives of everyone here!”
Ethon left still laughing and with Uldyssian feeling somewhat embarrassed.
Lylia later sought to sooth Uldyssian’s feelings. “You should be full of cheer! You are just being yourself, my love! Nothing to be ashamed about!” She kissed him. “But it is true, you are wonderfully humble, considering the truth.”
“Perhaps…” He suddenly felt restless. “I need to walk.”
“Where shall we go?”
Diablo: The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet Page 19
