Tearlach (Chapter 9)

Template:Tearlach nav "Is something wrong?" Fara asked.

"Nay. Destiny is finding me," Tearlach replied as he looked over the Mule's gifts. "Powerful spirits aid me in my quest to destroy The Three, and restore my people to our proper place in the world."

Raising an eyebrow, Fara asked, "Your proper place... ?"

"Aye! What else can it mean, that artifacts of power all come to me and me alone? Fate is our only master. It can only be that my destiny is to destroy all of Hell's minions, and become king and leader of all the world."

Quietly, she stared at him. He didn't smile. "I see you do not entertain small ambitions."

"They are for smaller men than myself."

"Well then, lord of the earth, I'll go downstairs while you dress."

Now he smiled. "Lass... I know you don't really want to."

With no visible reaction, Fara said, "Please don't strain yourself; I'm sure the effects of your adventure with the Black Mushroom haven't completely faded."

"You think I can't hold my ale, woman?"

"I'm sure you can hold a lot; Black Mushrooms are a different matter. It does not surprise me that you have never known anything stronger than ale or mead, but if you are wise, you will stay away from distilled alcohol. That gift of the alchemist's art has not been a blessing for the world."

After putting the Berserker's Arsenal aside, Tearlach picked up this "Bladebone" axe. It had much the same weight and balance as the Berserker's axe, but the head was engraved with grinning skulls. Good; all the better to put the fear of death into Diablo's slaves. The helm was a grand winged helm, imbued with knowledge; only Harrogath's smiths know the secrets of making such helms. Strangely enough, there were no magic stones to put in the helm's sockets, or the four in the plate armor; just sparkly gems. They were big and shiny enough, true... any lass would kill for them. But to a warrior, runes of power are far better. Ah, but the note said to use the gems. Who was he to argue with his spirit guides? There must be a good reason for it, though it might take time to see.

Rucksack on his back, Tearlach walked out of the inn into daylight. It was midmorning; did one little glass of... whatever it was put him down all night? The demon queen of the Rogue monastery didn't have such strong venom! In front of the inn's open window, by a display of old clothes and weapons, was an amazingly mangled man. Tall, dark, and scrawny like every other native of this place, he was missing an eye, a hand, a leg, and who knows what else under his sagging clothes. They were obviously the scars of battle; a sad thing, to see any warrior survive in such a state. He'd never know warfare again, ever.

"Hey, you're awake," Elzix said. "Your mercenary figured you were dead and went back to his boss. You know, Lord Jerhyn came by, asking about you."

"The stripling? He can ask what he wants, I do not answer to a child. What concerns me now is my purse. It is much too light."

"Hey, don't look at me!" Elzix held up his hands. "I haven't had a robbery at The Desert Rain for years! These are things old guests left behind. Kind of a rummage sale."

"Another robbed me, behind the tavern. He will pay with his life. Here; this money is for the night I spent. I will not be indebted to a woman, either."

"She didn't tell you it was three nights?" He waited for an answer, but the confused look on the Barbarian's face told him enough. "Ah, why don't you just forget about it? It's not like I've got anyone beating the door down for a room."

"Three nights? Are you sure?"

"I've still got one eye, don't I? The sun disappeared three times. Three nights."

"Hmm..." A horrible thought crept into Tearlach's mind. "Damn it... the trail will be cold!"

"If you're looking for your robbers, nobody's left town. Jerhyn closed the port."

"No, you pathetic dolt! The demon I follow will have hidden by now!"

"'Scuse me?"

"My destiny is to destroy Diablo, and his brothers with him. In the time I spent, felled by your foul concoctions, the demon lord will have gone to ground and hidden himself, making him that much harder to find. It is the way of these cowardly beasts."

"Oh. Uh, sure. I dunno, the monsters I've tangled with didn't like hiding. Those old tomb guardians out in the desert are all over you the minute you step into their crypts. The only monster I know of that's hiding is down in the sewers."

"What monster? Where? You know of one?"

"Sure. Listen at any sewer grate, you can hear it moaning. Big bastard too, huge; bigger than you, easy. Used to come out at night and stalk the city streets, but he's been holed up down there since, uh... since you came to town."

Tearlach thought about this; Elzix could almost hear the gears grinding. Finally, a smile crept across his face. "Damn it, that's clever. My quarry sought to hide right here below your city, under my very nose. Who would think to look there? Ha! I'll say one thing for these demons -- they know how to hide! Very clever, but not half as clever as me."

"Oh yeah," Elzix nodded. "You're sure it's him?"

"I can sense these things. He will not escape me this time."

After collecting his mercenary (he paid for him, he was going to use him, damn it) Tearlach found a maintenance hatch into the city sewers. Water - or something fouler - dripped from the ceiling and gurgled out of pipes in the walls. The nomads of the far-off deserts would kill for such richness, here used to wash away muck under a city grown too large. True to his nature, the Lord of Terror filled the sewers with skeletons. To make them extra-scary, he'd even lit them on fire. When are these demons going to learn? Maybe that skinny little merc of his might be frightened by burning bones, but Tearlach smashed them to bits. His new axe clove greedily through the bones without getting a scratch, obviously made for this.

Looting the dead was profitable enough. He found the merc a spear he liked, a powerfully enchanted blade, and best of all, a battle axe with two sockets. That would be perfect for the runes he found in the Rogue's pass, left there in ancient times. They spelled the rune word "steel," the first word Bul-Kathos ever taught his children. With steel, his people had carved their names into legend; on steel, the reputations of warriors were made and broken; by steel, the world would stand or fall. Tearlach took the axe back to the surface, to find the city's smith.

The smithy was in the central marketplace. The red-headed nurse was nearby. "Woman, where is the smith? I need this axe sharpened and its haft rebound."

"The shaft could use reforging as well; it has obviously been bent a few times, and the metal is fatigued." She took the axe quietly and began work on it.

After a moment's stupefied blinking, Tearlach smacked himself on the forehead. "By the Immortal King's sacred charge... is there a smith anywhere in these lands who's a man?"

"Didn't that hurt with gauntlets?" Emilio asked.

"My head is harder than that!"

"And thicker as well," Cain said as he ambled over.

Frowning in concentration, Tearlach finally said, "You look familiar..."

"I believe he came east from the Rogue's pass with you," Fara said.

"I knew that. He's... he looks different now, that's all."

Cain raised his eyebrows. "I do? How?"

"You... changed the part in your hair."

"I haven't had hair for years!"

Tearlach look Cain up and down. "New robe!"

"I've had it laundered. Perhaps that has confused you."

"Of course, you old fool! How do you expect me to recognize you like that?"

"Yeah," Emilio held his nose. "Take it from him, never clean anything."

"No point in it," Tearlach mused. "What are you doing here, old man?"

"More than anyone, I know what you face, and the threat he represents. I could not stay comfortably behind... though the Rogues wanted me to. If the world is to have any hope, Diablo must be destroyed, by whatever means are open to us."

"Us? What do you mean us, old man?" Then Tearlach noticed the smith; she must be listening. "I mean, I wouldn't let an old man go into danger. You should find someplace you can live out your remaining years in peace."

"I am not eager to be here, believe me," Cain said, looking suspicious. "But I would know no peace if I were not helping. My only hope is that my lifetime of knowledge can be of some use. Say, is that Rixot's Keen you have there?"

"I just found it. Decent, for a pocket knife."

"You do have a talent for finding enchanted items, which seems to be improving."

"It's good to be lucky, but better to be strong. Woman! Are you done with my axe?"

"Nearly," Fara answered.

"Are all the smiths in these lands women?" Tearlach asked.

"No," Emilio answered. "She's good at it, though. I think she learned in Kurast."

"I don't care where she learned, just so she learned. And don't think I don't like that she's a woman doing smithing! I've never had a problem with that."

The silence was palpable. Even Fara stopped working. Finally, Cain cleared his throat and said, "Yes, I've always admired your easy acceptance of non-traditional lifestyle choices."

"Of course! Why limit yourselves to being wrong in only one way? Ah, the axe is done! Let me see that thing."

"Careful, it's still hot."

"OW!" The axe clanged to the ground, but Tearlach immediately picked it up again. "You're right, it is. Not too hot, though. Just surprised me." Juggling it from one hand to the other, he took it back to where he'd stashed his rucksack, and retrieved the runes.

While he was gone, Fara whispered to Cain, "Has he always been like this?"

"Actually," Cain thoughtfully muttered, "I think he's getting better."

The battle axe was a thing of beauty. Skulls shattered with ease, cloven straight down into the spine. He'd have to give more thought to his choice of weapons in the future. In the Rogue pass, he used a single-handed axe because it was part of the set, but it seems that breaking with tradition has its rewards too. In the deepest node of the sewers, Tearlach found his prey. Skeletal mages, and other walking bone-piles burnt black with flame, formed a wall of undeath in front of a huge demon. As though that would save him. Ha!

Tearlach leapt over the skeletons and laid into the demon. The skeletons surrounded him, blasting their magic, but his concentration was too strong to be broken. The merc knocked one down every so often, but the demon just raised it again. Stupid. Every moment it took away from Tearlach was one he used to carve another chunk out of its ancient, leathery body. Midway through the battle, Tearlach realized this couldn't be Diablo. It didn't have a heartbeat. Demons have a heartbeat; the monster was just some kind of undead.

In time, it gave up the ghost, like dead things should. Undead or not, it went spectacularly. Bolts of white light shot down through the roof, lighting up the sewer node while Tearlach killed the last skeletons. Human bodies littered the thing's lair. Several had been skinned, or had pieces missing. On a rack in the corner, the skins of many bodies had been stitched together into some kind of suit. Damn, that thing was ugly. If the monster thought it was going to fool anyone, it should have at least gotten matching tits. Tearlach cleared anything that might be valuable out of the lair and hauled it up to the surface.

"Damn it, old man, it wasn't him. I'll have to keep looking."

"I cannot imagine Diablo remaining here in Lut Gholein. He will be out in the desert, trying to find his brother's tomb. Ah! You should look at this book. It is a description of some old martial techniques you may find useful."

"I am privy to the oldest martial techniques of all, and the strongest." Tearlach looked at the book. "No harm in looking, of course."

"None at all. From what you describe, the sewer creature must have been a mummy, the desiccated, preserved body of an ancient mage or king."

"Don't be stupid. It was over 8 feet tall."

"When the Horadrim mummified their greatest mages, their bodies were enhanced with the bones and blood of animals, to give them greater stature and physical power. They were meant to guard their tombs after death, and to remain there... but it seems many of the old binding spells are being unraveled."

Tearlach spat. "What fools would work so hard to give the dead power over the living?"

"None of this could be foreseen. Those ancient mages doubtless had no idea their remains would be put to such uses. I wonder if this one was trying to rebel against Diablo's will; he seems to have been trying to restore his body with living flesh."

"Then ancient mages were idiots. That thing wouldn't fool a child of 3."

"Being dead does tend to dull one's wits. Ah, a Horadric scroll! This mummy must have been a Horadric mage!"

"Not anymore he isn't. Never mind, you read your useless scrolls. I'll be at the smith's."

Cain didn't answer; he was already lost in the ancient glyphs. Wizards. Put a piece of paper in front of them, they're lost to the world. Makes you wonder if an effective technique for taking on wizards is to throw a book at them and kill them once they're distracted. While Fara was putting a new edge on Tearlach's axe, he took the chance to tell her of his many deeds of skill and prowess. He'd been in such a rush to find Diablo, he never got a chance to tell her about himself. Now he knew that finding Diablo might just take some time... and he can't spend all his time scratching around in that desert. Unlike the Rogues, Fara didn't go quiet and look ill while he spun his tales; she chatted patiently, and never once took her eyes off her work. She must like him. But how could she not?