The macabre branches of the shadow tree receded further into the mist. Malfurion pressed toward it.
The ghastly visions of his past swarmed him, but the staff cut through them as if they were air. They vanished with terrible sighs.
He came within sight of the ax but did not go near it. Rather, Malfurion continued after the shadow of the tree.
But the Nightmare Lord was no longer retreating. Xavius perhaps sensed what Malfurion had known from the beginning.
One long, bony shadow darted forth from the tree. The shadow limb sought the archdruid’s chest. Malfurion had no choice but to defend. Staff and shade met in a brief, dark flash.
A tiny bit of the shadow fell away from the limb, immediately dissipating. Yet in the night elf’s head, Xavius chuckled. The Nightmare Lord knew that he could not destroy what had been drawn from his physical essence, but neither was it sufficient to cause him harm.
The end of this little drama draws near, Xavius mocked. And all you can do is fail and fail and fail, Malfurion Stormrage…
The shadow suddenly expanded over the archdruid’s view. The silhouettes of the skeletal branches again raked at Malfurion. One drew near the night elf’s chest.
Malfurion took the staff and drove it point first down upon the shadow. However, his strike missed and instead he buried the tip in the ground.
The branches sought to crush him in their grip. They failed, but Malfurion released his grip on the staff.
Xavius’s laughter came from everywhere. The shadows surrounded the archdruid.
Malfurion vanished — and woke.
But it was to find that the situation on Azeroth was little better.
“Mal! Praise Elune!” Tyrande cried.
All around them dark, massive tendrils thrust from the parched ground, racing toward where Tyrande had watched over a meditating Malfurion. They sought the archdruid and the high priestess like hungry leeches. Malfurion counted more than a dozen, with others adding to their number from the great fissures that now opened up.
Tyrande fended them off as best she could, the light of Elune having been shaped into a weapon resembling her favored glaive.
The agile warrior leapt between the seeking tendrils — some as thick as the trunks of oaks — and threw the deadly weapon. It sliced at whatever drew too near her and Malfurion, then returned to her for another expert toss. In seconds, several severed pieces lay scattered around her, yet the archdruid noted that none of the main tendrils looked impaired.
He saw why a moment later when she managed to cut off another piece. The tendril immediately sealed over its wound and regrew its tip.
“Pull back!” Malfurion shouted to Tyrande.
But in her determination to protect both of them, the high priestess finally made a misstep. One of the tendrils seized her leg and sought to drag her toward a steaming fissure.
Malfurion threw himself to her side, but the tendril proved stronger than both combined. Tyrande’s legs slipped into the fissure. She clutched at Malfurion as he tried to keep her from being pulled into the dark depths.
Slipping one hand to the offending tendril, the archdruid discovered that though it was of the plant world, it was also something more. He could not help but glance up in what he thought the direction of its true source. Even now it was impossible to see from whence what were not tendrils, but rather roots originated.
When Malfurion had been a prisoner of the Nightmare Lord, he had used his captivity to create roots that had stretched long enough to serve his purpose. Xavius, trapped as a tree for ten thousand years, had evidently done the same, only on a far more elaborate scale.
His roots stretched for miles around. Moreover, their mobility gave some hint as to how the tree could be where it was, instead of at the bottom of the sea where it belonged.
There was no time to cast a proper spell, no time to push against Xavius from a distance. Malfurion sought for assistance from Azeroth itself, but at first found only dead soil. There was nothing in it, no insects, no plant life…nothing. Xavius had fed on everything living in order to grow stronger, deadlier. The final, most visible part of the devastation had surely taken place only recently, though, for someone would have noted the dead land. The Nightmare Lord had been clever, likely eating his way up from beneath through his deadly roots, then finishing the rest when finally ready to strike.
And Xavius had been able to do all this in great part because of what he had been made into by Malfurion.
Both he and Tyrande struggled to keep her from not only being dragged under, but from the pair also being assailed by more roots.
Malfurion managed to deflect them, but knew that the Nightmare Lord was inexorably pulling the high priestess deeper.
The archdruid thrust deeper with his mind, seeking the life that had to be somewhere. He refused to believe that Xavius had made a wasteland of this entire region, especially having done so slowly and in secret.
But what Malfurion found instead was something even more shocking than what Xavius had done to their surroundings. It was an evil so intense, so monstrous, that it nearly caused him to lose his grip on Tyrande. Only his love for her kept the archdruid from failing. Yet another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Now it was clear how Xavius’s location had come to change.
Something welled up inside Malfurion. He sought again for Azeroth’s life forces and finally found them. The archdruid drew upon them.
Thunder roiled. The ground shook anew.
Lightning suddenly flashed farther ahead, in the direction the Nightmare Lord truly lay.
The roots released Tyrande. However, the ground began to seal shut. Malfurion barely tugged her free before her legs would have been crushed by the fissure’s sealing.
The pair half-dragged one another from the region of the tremor.
The ground shook and high hills were created by colliding ground and rock.
“What is happening?” Tyrande shouted.
“There are two forces battering against one another! One comes from the Nightmare!”
“And the other?”
He did not answer her, though he knew the truth. Somehow, Malfurion had stirred up Azeroth as he never had before. It was fighting back against the evil that was Xavius.
No…the archdruid frowned. That was more than Xavius.
They ran until they could run no more. Behind them, great upheavals of land continued. Now it was not merely the mists that obscured much of what lay ahead, but immense clouds of dust and vapor.
And still it went on.
But though Malfurion had raised up a force that astounded even him, he felt no sense of hope. In delving deep near the fissures, Malfurion had gone farther than he had thought. He had not only touched near Azeroth’s core, but also touched the place from which Xavius truly drew his sinister power. A place beyond both the mortal world and the Emerald Dream, but infesting both of them.
And in that foul place, he sensed something incredibly ancient — and somehow familiar — to him. The hardened archdruid shuddered.
There was another, darker force behind the Nightmare Lord…
27
INTO THE EYE
Humans, elves of different natures, orcs, dwarves, trolls, tauren, gnomes, draenei, undead, and more continued to struggle against a tide that proved relentless. Warriors, druids, magi, priests — they and those of other callings added each of those skills that made their particular path a worthy addition to the defenders’ force.
Varian’s dreamform army continued to sacrifice itself at the forefront, striking down the endless enemy and perishing not only by the satyrs’ claws but also the increasing deaths of their physical hosts. Hamuul, who monitored all this, pondered hard on why the dreamforms did not live on despite the deaths of their physical bodies — as happened with druids — and could only assume that the Nightmare’s terrible magic flowed from those killing blows back in Azeroth into the dreamforms by the inherent link between the two parts of each victim.
The druids fed their spells into the onslaught. Here, seeds exploded into cleansing silver fire. There, other druids in bear, cat, or other fearsome shapes used their magic-enhanced claws, teeth, and even roars to wreak what havoc they could on the servants of the darkness.
But still the tide slowed, stalled…and began to shift.
And then both those who remained on Azeroth or fought in the other realm discovered the next wave of evil.
From the mists in either plane marched armies composed of shadow-possessed drakonid, lesser drakes…and other corrupted dragons.
Then…then came something that no druid, not even Malfurion could have expected.
The barrier between the Emerald Dream/Nightmare and Azeroth began to break down…and the two slowly started to meld into one.
The seemingly impossible melding caught Eranikus by surprise. He briefly lost control, then battled to both regain it and keep Thura and Lucan with him.
But as the dragon struggled, Lucan heard a voice calling out. It was not necessarily to him, but to anyone who would listen. There was something familiar about it, something that reminded him of those lost days when his slumber and his dreams had been gentle. He was drawn to it…
And, without thinking, he slipped from Eranikus’s back. Yet he did not fall. Instead, Lucan dropped only a foot or two in the air, then felt as if something invisible tugged him along. Eranikus and Thura vanishedAnd a moment later, the cartographer reappeared in an area most definitely part of the Nightmare. The shrieks and gibbering assailed his ears. Horrific shapes moved in the mists around him…yet they no longer disturbed Lucan so much. He picked himself up off the vermin-infested ground — ground that should have been hundreds of feet below the dragon and his riders and yet now was not.
Then…Lucan realized that there was something just ahead of him in the mists, something that, even though it lay in the midst of the Nightmare, still inexplicably filled him with some hope.
Daring the dangers of the Nightmare, he ran toward the sight. As he neared, he marveled at his find. The structures — an arrangement of vast domes — had not been built by men. They were too perfect. While he could not be certain from his angle, the “smaller” domes seemed to flank or surround an even greater one that, despite the foulness of the Nightmare, retained a wondrous golden color that strangely comforted him.
The cartographer was drawn to the golden dome. Despite his previous weariness, he picked up his pace.
Lucan became so focused on the golden dome that he now barely even noticed the Nightmare. He only knew that he had to reach the structure.
How long it took him to reach it, the cartographer could not say nor did he care. A few minutes, hours…time meant nothing. All that mattered was that at last he came to the entrance…only to find it sealed by a darkness that he recognized as from the Nightmare.
The foul discovery brought him back to his true circumstances and almost made Lucan turn and run away again…but then he sensed that what had drawn him to this ethereal place was inside.
And it needed him…
The beating of wings from another direction made him suddenly dart around to the side of the structure. No sooner had he done so than a massive shape loomed overhead.
Though Lucan would have thought it impossible for him to identify any dragon by face, he was certain that it was the one called Lethon. The dark-scaled leviathan, his ghostly form shimmering with the same sickly green glow of the Nightmare, peered around as if suspicious.
The black, bottomless pits that were Lethon’s eyes turned in Lucan’s direction. The gaze stopped just short of where the human hid.
Lethon snorted, then departed the area.
The dragon vanished in the distance. Letting out a sigh, the harried cartographer leaned against the wall.
The wall shimmered.
He fell through.
Yet it was not into a room that he ended up, but rather a swirling mass of constantly bombarding magical forces that left him spinning out of control as he flew through it. Worse, Lucan felt his strength also beginning to fail him. He knew that soon he would not even have enough to stay conscious.
Be at ease, young Lucan…I will stave off the effects long enough…I hope…
He knew the voice, knew it even before his body turned in the direction of the source.
As with the human, the great dragon Ysera floated in the midst of the churning forces, albeit clearly more assailed by them. Her wings were spread wide and she was surrounded by a very thin emerald-green aura that constantly flickered, as if seeking to vanish. The long sleek dragon’s eyes were shut tight, but she seemed to see him nonetheless.
Lucan sensed that the dragon was far from helpless, despite her captivity. She was still fightingBut that was wrong. He had seen her utterly defeated. The Nightmare had taken her, bent her to its will…
Trust only lies to come from the Nightmare and its lord, Ysera answered to his unspoken question. I am a prisoner, yes, but with some resistance…though fading, I admit…
What is this place? he silently asked.
Her head twisted to the side. Long ago, when Azeroth was new and we were first sent to protect it and the Emerald Dream, those of my flight honored me by naming the field and that created within it the Eye of Ysera…this became the place from which we watched over everything…Her expression saddened. Now,
through Lethon’s betrayal…it has become my prison…
The Great Aspect suddenly rumbled in pain. Her body shook and for a breath became as that of a ghost.
Though the effort was futile, Lucan yet reached out a hand to try to comfort Ysera.
The line between the embattled Dream and Azeroth is blurring! she proclaimed in terrible worry. Though I still fight, they are quicker and quicker leeching my will and adding my powers to the destruction of all!
What can we do? the cartographer pleaded.
Drawing from what strength remained to her, Ysera replied, Know the truth, Lucan Foxblood…I have been aware of you since Eranikus found you when you were an infant…I decided to see what could become of your unique birth…if anything…even Eranikus did not know…he simply acted as I knew his heart would make him…
Lucan gaped. To his tired mind, the Aspect could have prevented all his troubles, kept him from this ability he had —
There was nothing I could do to change the circumstances of your birth, but perhaps…I acted with hubris in not giving you some…some sort of protection from early on… Ysera gasped again, then continued, But there is no time for thinking of the past…I have been attempting to…to contact another…and nearly given up hope…but your very uniqueness may help me to reach him after all…
Me? What can I do?
Again, the dragon suffered great agony and all but faded. We are — reaching the point of no return! she managed at last. You may be the way to circumvent the Nightmare’s spells that keep me from communicating with Malfurion Stormrage…
Malfurion? I’ll do anything, if it can help, even if it costs me my own life! the cartographer responded. He realized that he meant it. What was his life, if all else fell to the Nightmare?
Let us hope it does not come to that, the Aspect commented, again appearing to read his thoughts. Eyes still shut, she added, Are you certain, Lucan Foxblood? Are you certain you understand the risk to you?
He nodded.
I will seek to be as gentle as possible…
Ysera opened her eyes. Her gaze met the human’s.
To the human, it was as if every dream that he had ever had began again. The eyes of Ysera carried within them a kaleidoscope of images all tied to Lucan…and every other creature that dreamed. He became a part of each one of those dreams and by doing so opened up the most hidden parts of his subconscious to the dragon…
Lucan Foxblood stared in awe as he was engulfed by the Aspect’s will.
• • •
We must return to Azeroth, Varian warned Hamuul. Tell Malfurion Stormrage it must be so! They strike our bodie
s down even as we fight them here!
The tauren acknowledged his words but did not otherwise reply. However, he immediately sought for Malfurion, seeking to warn him of the looming disaster.
Hamuul’s concern reached Malfurion even as the night elf came to grips with the truth behind Xavius’s astounding power. He had felt that ancient evil before and could never forget it. Small wonder that Xavius had accomplished so much; an even greater darkness worked through him.
But Malfurion still kept his wits about him, aware that to lose all hope was to lose everything. He listened as Varian’s demand was relayed through Hamuul to him. The archdruid understood what the king desired and why.
Malfurion cursed himself for having allowed it to happen; he had feared that Xavius would do just what he had — strike the unprotected mortal forms of the defenders.
As he drew Tyrande back, he told her what was happening and what he had to do. She nodded understanding, though her face filled with dread for all of them and pity for all that Malfurion had taken upon his own shoulders.
“Are we lost, then?” the high priestess bluntly asked, clearly having considered matters as he had. “Is all Azeroth lost?”
Before he could answer, another voice touched his thoughts, a voice he had prayed constantly that he would hear before it was too late.
Malfurion Stormrage…can you hear my words?
Mistress?
Yes…it is Ysera…listen to me…see me…
A living image suddenly filled his mind. He saw Ysera in her confinement, the Aspect struggling to hold back her full abilities from being utilized by Xavius and his secret master.
And in seeing that, Malfurion came to a realization about his foes and their nature. He understood that he had been about to make a critical mistake.
You see the truth, then…
Malfurion did…he also sensed that he was not alone with her in this conversation. There were two others.
One was the human, Lucan, who somehow acted as Ysera’s means by which to at least bypass her imprisonment enough to speak.
The other — the other was not supposed to be a part of this, but he had somehow sensed the communication
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