Dawn of the Aspects: Part I

by Richard A. Knaak

  “You need not feel guilty for telling me this, Jaracgos,” Kalec interjected softly. “I respect your choice and thank you for coming to me rather than simply departing without a word. To be honest, I thought when you’d left earlier, you were never coming back.”

  The other dragon dipped his head in respect. “I will return on occasion.”

  “Thank you. Safe journey.”

  With another dip of his head, the second behemoth moved on. Kalec watched him for a moment, then continued on in silence toward his sanctum. He had his doubts as to whether Jaracgos would ever return. After all, Kalec had encouraged his fellow blue dragons to do as they desired, even if it meant forever following a path that took them farther and farther from the Nexus—

  Do not argue, Neltharion! a hissing voice roared in Kalec’s mind.

  I do not argue! I fight!

  A stunning wave of vertigo overtook Kalec as the mysterious voices continued to argue. Images began to join them. A young, yellowish dragon with some resemblance to one he knew now. A high peak that reminded him of one to the east, only sharper, less polished by time.

  Through the barrage of mixing voices and flashing images he heard a female blue calling to him. Her voice was distant, indistinct, while the others grew stronger, more vivid.

  A dragon roared . . . and just as Kalec lost sense, he realized it was he.

  • • •

  Hunting had been good. The icy sea teemed with large creatures full of tasty meat and blubber. Some of his kind preferred to hunt the grazers—and they, too, could provide a welcome feast—but for the time being Malygos enjoyed seeking the shapes only half-seen in the depths and planning for the very moment when they drew near the surface. He liked a mental challenge, more so than most of the other proto-dragons. Malygos took special pride in that; it meant to him that he was far more clever.

  The blue-and-white proto-dragon marked one last prey. He spread his wings, which were decorated with icy flakes. More than most, his particular kind was well-adapted to this region. Other “families” occasionally ventured up here, but the majority tended to stay in the warmer climes.

  Yet, today was to be one of those rare visitations. The shadow rushed over Malygos, soaring ahead at a speed he would have been hard-pressed to match. Kalec peered up in the sky in search of the other—

  Kalec. My name is Kalec, a part of Malygos suddenly thought with shock. What—what is happening?

  He wanted to turn and race back to the Nexus, but his body did not obey. Instead, it rose higher into the sky, seeking the mysterious proto-dragon whose shadow had passed by. It was not unheard of for members of one kind to attack another. Dominance was always important among proto-dragons.

  How do I know that? Kalec demanded helplessly. Where am I?

  Kalec could recall nothing after his agonized roar. He had apparently been unconscious. After that, he had no explanation as to why he would be here, flying over the water and seeing things through the eyes of Malygos. Kalec did not even understand how he knew that the body was that of his predecessor or how he also recognized that this was a very young Malygos from an era before there existed true dragons, much less the Great Aspects.

  Kalec/Malygos rose into the clouds. The proto-dragon sniffed the air, enabling Kalec to detect the presence of that other creature. It seemed that the blue could experience everything here, but had no choice as to movement or speech. It was as if he were a ghost sharing Malygos’s form, even though the truth was more complicated. This young Malygos was the spirit . . . as was the entire world surrounding them, Kalec suspected.

  Suddenly, a fire-orange shape darted by, distracting both Malygos and Kalec. A female proto-dragon hesitated a short distance from the blue-and-white male.

  “No battle!” she roared. “I mean no harm!”

  Several new things shocked Kalec. First, what little he knew of proto-dragons had led him to believe that they were incapable of speech. He had assumed them the primitive, animalistic ancestors of his kind and nothing more.

  But somewhere along the way, some had crossed a threshold. . . .

  The female anxiously waited for a response. Kalec recalled a glimpse of a fire-orange proto-dragon in one of the earlier visions and suspected this was the same one. In addition, he again found something familiar about her.

  “No battle,” Malygos agreed, much to her relief, and to Kalec’s as well. Kalec realized that he was not surprised that Malygos also could speak, but only because the blue dragon had seen within the male, known his thoughts.

  This was not the Malygos he knew, but even this less sophisticated version was swift of thought. Malygos searched the heavens for other orange figures and, finding none, took a more dominant spot above the female. She, in turn, did not show any unease at his decision, whether a sign of good judgment or naïveté, Kalec did not yet know.

  “I am alone,” she added. “Looking for another. A male of my kind. Clutch brother.”

  Clutch brother. Kalec knew that term. Dragons from the same clutch of eggs were considered the closest of siblings. Kalec had been one of four, but was now the only survivor. He assumed that proto-dragons had larger clutches and thus more chances of survival for the young, but evidently familial bonds still existed, at least for some like this female.

  Malygos did not hesitate. “No others of yours.”

  The female looked disappointed. “I have nowhere else to look.”

  Kalec sensed Malygos’s train of thought. She not being one of Malygos’s breed, the male had no interest in the female, but he enjoyed proving his cunning. Besides, since he was neither hungry nor tired at the moment, the activity suited him. “There are other places. He hunts?”

  She thought for a moment. “He likes to find new places.”

  This appealed to Malygos, who enjoyed such an activity himself. “If he is not here, he must be south. There is a trail?”

  “I know where he was. I do not know where he went.”

  “Show me.”

  But as the female veered around and Malygos started to follow, Kalec’s world leapt forward in such a jarring manner that at first he lost all sense. As his mind settled again, he saw that the pair now flew over a rocky but warmer landscape.

  “This is where?” Malygos finally asked. “Clutch brother was here?”

  “Yes.”

  Once more, Kalec was taken by the conversational ability of the proto-dragon, but before he could pursue the question, a third, charcoal-gray proto-dragon flew into view from the west. The gray creature spotted the pair and immediately darted toward them.

  Malygos let out a low growl. Kalec, who had been expecting another simple meeting, realized that the two proto-dragons were about to do battle.

  “No fighting!” the female called. “No enemies!”

  “A waste!” snarled Malygos as he surged to meet the newcomer. “He is a stupid one! Not smart!”

  The gray suddenly opened wide his maw. A thunderous sound escaped. Kalec suffered along with Malygos as the shockwave struck like a hammer, sending his host spiraling backward.

  Without hesitation, the gray eagerly pursued. Unlike the first two proto-dragons, this one was as Malygos had indicated and akin to those with which Kalec was familiar—an unthinking beast.

  Malygos managed to right himself just in time. He exhaled in turn, and a chilling frost enveloped the oncoming gray. The attacking proto-dragon spun, his wings and head frozen, then dropped below Malygos.

  Malygos dove after, which proved a mistake. The gray shook off the effects of his foe’s blast and, still spinning, accidentally caught Malygos directly across the chest with his tail.

  Kalec wanted to gasp along with his host as the air was shoved from Malygos’s lungs. The icy-blue proto-dragon fought to keep aloft as he nearly blacked out. Kalec uselessly urged him on, but also felt consciousness slipping away.

 
Then, a burst of flame caught the gray in the face. The gray roared in pain, the fire having struck close to his eyes. He shook his head, blinded.

  Recovering, Malygos unleashed another cold blast just as a second plume of fire also struck. Under the double onslaught, the gray retreated. He continued to roar, in both agony and frustration, as he fled the pair.

  Malygos gazed up at the female, allowing Kalec to do the same. She looked both relieved and confused.

  “He was scared. I did not want to fight. He gave no choice.”

  “ ‘Scared’?” Malygos snorted, and Kalec puzzled over her explanation. He shared his host’s low opinion of their attacker. “Hmmph! Very stupid beast! Not smart, like me! Not smart like Malygos!”

  “You are smart, Malygos,” she agreed. “Smarter than me.”

  Although Malygos accepted her words as fact, Kalec suspected that the fire-orange proto-dragon was smarter than she had thus far revealed.

  “I am smart,” repeated Malygos, taking pride in the compliment. “I will find your clutch brother, Alexstrasza.”

  Alexstrasza! Kalec observed the young female through his host’s eyes, finally recognizing traits in the smoother, slimmer face. Yes, this was Alexstrasza, but a much younger one he would never have believed could be the Life-Binder. The pair had apparently told each other their names sometime in that lost period between the two parts of the maddening vision.

  Curiously, Alexstrasza only nodded disinterestedly. She continued to eye the direction in which their brief adversary had fled. “So scared. He attacked us because he was scared. Why was he scared?”

  Not having noticed that himself, Malygos simply shrugged. Again, Kalec shared his predecessor’s disinterest. He only wanted to escape this madness. He wondered what was happening to his body.

  Another attack of vertigo overwhelmed him. Kalec floated in darkness for a moment, then once again returned not to the Nexus, but rather to some other vision seen through young Malygos.

  They were in what to Kalec’s judgment was some other part of the same jagged landscape. The sky was as overcast as that over Northrend.

  A mournful howl rose from his—Malygos’s—side.

  Malygos seemed to know what it entailed, for despite Kalec’s desire, his host did not immediately turn toward the cry. Only when the howl continued unabated did he finally look.

  And there Kalec at last beheld Alexstrasza, her snout pointed to the sky, her cry one of terrible loss. Had he a body of his own, Kalec knew that he would have felt a chill up and down his spine, so terrible was the sound.

  Alexstrasza’s wings draped the ground like a shroud. Her body rocked back and forth and her tail scraped the rocky soil over and over.

  As Malygos had promised, he had found her clutch brother . . . or what remained of him. Kalec now wished that his host would turn away, but Malygos eyed the corpse with growing interest as he tried to make sense of the death.

  Alexstrasza’s sibling had perished violently—not a surprise in this world—but he had not simply been slain in some duel with another proto-dragon. No breath weapon with which Kalec was familiar or that even Malygos recognized would have left the corpse in such a horribly desiccated state. The fire-orange male was nothing more than a shriveled mass of skin and bone.

  And what was worse, the contorted visage gave every indication that Alexstrasza’s brother had suffered throughout the entire monstrous process.

  Alexstrasza continued to mourn. Malygos, however, suddenly shivered. A sense of unease filled Kalec’s host, though it was clear to Kalec that Malygos did not understand why the feeling now overwhelmed him.

  A vast shadow blanketed the area. It vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. Malygos rose into the air, spinning so that he could quickly see in every direction, but all that was visible was the thick cloud cover.

  No. There was something high above, just discernible to Kalec for a moment. He tried to urge Malygos to look in that direction.

  His host finally did. At the same moment, whatever lurked above briefly darted through the bottom of the cloud cover.

  But before Kalec could focus, his surroundings became a chaotic maelstrom of unintelligible voices, roars, and momentary images so brief that he could make sense of none of them.

  And then . . . the blackness engulfed him once more.

  THREE

  FATHER OF DRAGONS

  Kalec? Kalec?

  Her voice was the first thing to pierce the darkness and it drew him back to waking. He mumbled what should have been her name, although even to his ears the sounds made no sense. The former Aspect opened his eyes, expecting both to be still lying in the tunnel and to have her leaning over him. Which of those would shame him more, he could not say.

  But when he peered around, it was to find himself alone . . . and no longer lying in the passage. Somehow, he had come to be transported to the gigantic cavern that was his sanctum. More perplexing, he even lay in his favored sleeping spot.

  But the question of how Kalec had gotten here was a minor one to the blue. What was more important was what had happened after he had blacked out. How long he had been lost within, Kalec did not know, but he did have a very good idea as to the source of the startling visions.

  Uncurling stiff digits, the dragon beheld the seemingly insignificant artifact. A curse escaped him at sight of it and he almost threw it against one of the cavern walls. Thinking better of it, the dragon instead turned toward a shadowy part of his sanctum.

  Kalec drew forth a bit of that shadow. From within, there emerged a large cubic shape that expanded before his eyes, growing immense enough to contain a night elf. Had Kalec desired it larger, he could have expanded it with only a thought. The arcane prisons had been created for a variety of tasks, including what the second half of their name indicated. This was but one of many secreted in the Nexus, and Kalec had chosen it because it was emptier than most.

  Blue energy crackling all around it, the massive cube floated slightly above the ground. To an onlooker, it resembled a large box seemingly made of wood and stone and lined at each edge by a bronze, metallic border. Rich blue seals ran across the center of each of the four sides from the top to the bottom, and a dark border ran across the middle, as if the top and bottom were separate halves kept together only by the seals and border.

  At the former Aspect’s unspoken command, the seals fell away and the metallic border faded. Now acting like a lid, the upper half tipped open. Not all arcane prisons functioned in this manner; this one, being designed specifically for storage, could also open in several other ways, depending on what Kalec needed of it.

  Thrusting his paw inside, the dragon deposited the artifact. There, it not only would be safe from other eyes, but would no longer be able to taint his thoughts.

  Resealing, the arcane prison vanished again. Exhaling in relief, Kalec recalled the voice that had brought him back from the blackness. This was not the first time that she had reached out to him since his departure from Dalaran. After their last meeting, she had no doubt assumed that he would contact her again, but he had found so many reasons not to, including his certainty that even she blamed him in part for not finding the Iris.

  They could not continue this charade, Kalec decided not for the first time. There was no path ahead that the two of them could travel together—

  And yet, once again, her voice touched him. Kalec . . . Kalec . . . speak to me. . . . He wanted to ignore her, but his will had been too weakened by the visions. Besides, Kalec told himself, as an archmage—perhaps the greatest one not with the blood of a dragon coursing through her veins—she might know something of the magic that would create a thing like what he had found. Jaina was, after all, the one who had helped him sense the Focusing Iris when his own efforts had failed. From that hunt alone, he considered her in many ways far more cunning, more adaptable than he . . . and that made him all the more shamed
by his own failures.

  When she called to him again, Kalec finally answered. I am here, Jaina.

  As he replied, two things also happened. The least of those was a gap that opened in the air before him, a gap in the center of which formed the large circular image of a walled chamber he knew was hundreds of miles away. In that image, a feminine figure began to take shape.

  But even before that took place, Kalec himself went through a transformation. He shrank, becoming only a fraction of his original size. The dragon stood on his hind legs, which reversed at the knees and became like those of a man even as the forelegs became matching arms. Kalec’s wings and tail shriveled, finally vanishing. His snout receded into his face, which lost its scale and deep blue tint, at last refining into a pale but handsome young face worthy of any of the elven races.

  The most obvious hints remaining of his true self were his long blue-black hair and the hunter’s garments he now wore, which were also of a dark blue and black. Kalec straightened, in many ways more comfortable as he was now than when a dragon. In this form, he had learned what it was like to truly live, to truly understand happiness . . . and pain. Indeed, often there were moments when he wished that he had been born as the humanoid creature he pretended to be here.

  As he finished transforming, the figure in the image also became fully distinct. However, unlike Kalec, the woman before him was exactly what she appeared to be. Human. Beautiful. So very powerful.

  And still so young for all she had been forced to experience. Kalec could see how recent events had done even more to harden her, although she tried to pretend that she had not changed. Jaina Proudmoore had not asked to become leader of the Council of Six—the council of wizards ruling the realm of Dalaran—but she had been the one to whom the other powers had turned after the sacrifice of her predecessor, Rhonin. Jaina, the daughter of the late, legendary—and some would also say infamous—grand admiral Daelin Proudmoore, had also had to balance her duties on the council with governing the island kingdom of Theramore.