Читать книгу Diablo: The Black Road - Mel Odom - Страница 13

SEVEN

“Kabraxis is the demon who created the Black Road,” Lhex said.

“What is the Black Road?” Raithen asked.

The boy shrugged, bathed in the golden light of the lantern the pirate captain held. “It’s all just legend. Old stories of demons. There’s talk that Kabraxis was just an elaborate lie.”

“But you said if a demon was involved,” Raithen said, “it was all truth once.”

“I said it was based on something that was supposed to be the truth,” Lhex replied. “But so many stories have been told since the Vizjerei started supposedly summoning demons from other worlds. Some of the stories are based on incidents that might have or might not have involved demons, but many are total fabrications. Or a story has been fractured, retold, and made more current. Old wives’ tales. Harsus, the toad-faced demon of Kurast—if he even existed—has become four different demons in the local histories. The man who taught me history told me there are sages at work now trying to piece together different stories, examining them for common links that bind them and make only one demon exist where two had stood before.”

“Why would they bother with something like that?”

“Because there were supposed to be other demons loose in the world according to all those simpleminded myths,” Lhex said. “My teacher believed that men spent so much time trying to name the demons in mythology the better to hunt them down instead of waiting for them to act. To pursue their quarry, the demon hunters need to know how many demons were in our world and where to find them. Sages research those things.” The boy snorted. “Personally, I think demons were all named so that a wise and wizened sage could recommend employing demon hunters. Of course, that sage would get a cut of the gold paid to rid a place or a city or a kingdom of a demon. It was a racket. A well-thought-out scary story to tell superstitious people and separate them from their gold.”

“Kabraxis,” Raithen reminded, growing impatient.

“In the beginning years,” Lhex said, “when the Vizjerei first began experimenting with demon summoning, Kabraxis was supposed to be one of those demons summoned over and over again.”

“Why?”

“Because Kabraxis operated the mystical bridges that stretched from the demon worlds to our world more easily than many did.”

“The Black Road is a bridge to the Burning Hells?” Raithen asked.

“Possibly. I told you this was all a story. Nothing more.” Lhex tapped the drawing of the elliptical lines threaded through by the solitary one. “This drawing represents the power Kabraxis had to walk between the Burning Hells and this world.”

“If the Black Road isn’t the bridge between this world and the Burning Hells,” Raithen asked, “what else could it be?”

“Some have said it was the path to enlightenment.” Lhex rubbed his face as if bored, then smothered a yawn.

“What enlightenment?” Raithen asked.