The wizard could scarce believe what was happening. “Why doesn’t she fly away?”
“Because the time of her enchantment is almost at an end,” Krasus remarked with clear sadness.
“I don’t understand…”
“Look. It happens already.”
The golem’s movements grew sluggish, this despite the fact that the damage done to the body had to be superficial at worst. The stone dragon managed to shake her wings free of several of the demons, sending them flying far into the sky. However, that effort proved her last major one.
“What’s happening, Krasus?”
“She was meant to bring us here at the desire of the one of whom she is only a shadow. But shadows fade, Rhonin, and her task is done. We can give thanks that enough remained for her to do such damage as we have witnessed.”
Despite the clinical tone of his words, the mage’s eyes gave indication of a regret far deeper. Rhonin understood. To Krasus, even seeing this effigy of his beloved queen and mate suffer was a strain.
The false dragon roared mournfully. Demons now practically covered the entire body save the head. The left legs defiantly straightened, but from the right ones there was no movement.
“It’s over — ” Krasus began.
Then, without warning, the false Alexstrasza leaned into her right. Her wing on that side folded in and her left rose into the sky.
Midway up, all animation ceased. The eyes of the golem grew lifeless.
And under the stress of so much weight, the right wing collapsed. The demons atop the statue clung helplessly as the dragon queen’s creation tipped over… and crushed every demon still hanging onto the back.
Krasus’s chest swelled with pride. “Every inch worthy of my queen, even if only her shadow!”
Dust rose from where the gargantuan statue lay. Even as they watched, the legs and the left wing joined the right in collapsing. Demon warriors scattered as huge chunks of rock fell among them.
“What now, though?” demanded the human. His hopes had grown with the arrival of his companions, but if they had neither the disk nor this magical construct as reward for their efforts, then their entire journey had been for nought.
He was not encouraged by Krasus’s next words. “What now, young Rhonin? We fight as we have fought and we wait. We wait for my good queen to rally my kind and bring them to the fight. The Demon Soul is going where it will be, for a time, no threat to them. They will have to act.”
“And if they don’t? If they hesitate too long, as before?”
His former mentor leaned close so that only the wizard would hear. “Then Sargeras will have at last the means by which to enter Kalimdor… and once he has entered our world, the demon lord will unwrite the history of ten thousand years.”
Fourteen
The storm raged over the Well of Eternity, the black waters whipping into a frenzy. Waves higher than the palace crashed on the shore. A howling wind tossed any loose debris through the air like deadly missiles.
Lightning illuminated the coming of the party from the towered edifice. Even the queen herself — accompanied by her handmaidens, of course — had journeyed with, although she was borne on a silver litter carried by Fel Guard.
Mannoroth led the way, followed by Illidan and Captain Varo’then. A number of Highborne sorcerers and satyrs — the two groups purposely separate from one another — followed in their wake and, behind them, came a contingent of the palace guard. At the end of the grand procession marched twin ranks of demon warriors a hundred strong each.
Mannoroth stood at the edge of the Well, stretching forth his brutish arms and drinking in the chaos beyond. Through the “gift” granted him by Sargeras, Illidan marveled at the forces in play above and within the vast body of water. Nothing he had experienced so far, not even the power of the demon lord, compared to that which the sacred Well contained.
“Truly, we never tapped more than a shadow of its greatness,” he murmured to the captain.
Varo’then, blind to such glory, merely shrugged. “It’ll now serve us well by bringing to us our Lord Sargeras.”
“But not immediately,” the sorcerer reminded him. “Not immediately.”
“What does that matter?”
They grew silent as the winged demon turned. He reached out to the officer, grating, “The disk! It’s time!”
Expression masked, Varo’then removed the Soul from his belt pouch and handed it over. Mannoroth momentarily eyed the dragon’s creation with open avarice, then likely thought better of trying to keep it for himself. Glaring at the Highborne and the satyrs, the tusked demon snapped, “Take your places!”
The spellcasters wended their way over fragments of homes and broken bits of bone. The carnage that had taken much of Zin-Azshari had spread even to the very edge of the Well. Illidan learned that a few defiant night elves had tried to make a stand here on the shore, hoping that their nearness would enable them to draw better from the source of their people’s magic. That hope had not panned out and the demons had gleefully torn them apart on this very spot.
The irony was, at least to Malfurion’s twin, that they had been correct in their assumption, if not the execution of their plan. He could see the myriad ways in which to manipulate the Well’s immense potential and understood more than ever what the lord of the Legion intended.
The sorcerers and satyrs formed the pattern dictated by Sargeras. Mannoroth studied their positions carefully, threatening into their proper places those who had erred. When at last the scaled behemoth was satisfied, he stepped back from the group.
“Do I understand we won’t see our Lord Sargeras just yet, dear captain?” Azshara languidly asked from her litter.
“Not at this time, no, Light of Lights… but it shall not be much longer. Once he has the way stabilized, he will step through.”
Eyes veiled, she nodded. “I trust I will be notified of his arrival, then.”
“What can be done will be done,” Varo’then promised.
Illidan wondered if the queen truly believed that she would become the consort of the demon lord. He doubted very much such a notion fit into Sargeras’s designs.
But thought of Azshara’s desires faded quickly as he watched the spellcasters begin. A crackling ball of blue lightning formed within their pattern. Now and then, a tiny bolt would dart toward one figure or another, but although the Highborne or satyr in question started slightly, they never faltered in their task.
Muttering filled the air, each voice speaking minutely different words of power. The combination of their distinctive incantations began to summon forth energy from the Well. Illidan watched as those energies, as individual as their summoners, coalesced around the sphere. With each addition, the bolts cast off by it grew brighter, stronger…
Then, within the sphere… the all-too familiar gap appeared.
The spellcasters had reopened the portal to the Legion’s nether realm close to the Well of Eternity so that Sargeras could better draw upon the latter. Illidan sensed the sudden nearness of the demon lord’s presence.
Let it be cast out… the voice in all their heads commanded.
“Do it!” reinforced Mannoroth, looming over the night elves and satyrs.
As one, those making up the pattern ceased their muttering and clenched their fists.
The sphere — and the portal within — soared out over the storm-tossed waters, quickly vanishing from sight.
Now… the disk…
Illidan’s heart leapt. He wanted to grab the dragon’s creation from Mannoroth, but common sense kept his countenance still and his hand by his side. There would be no taking the Dragon Soul — or Demon Soul, as he had heard his brother call it — at this time.
But at another opportunity, however…
As before, Illidan immediately buried such thoughts. Fortunately, even Sargeras was likely far too intent on the events at hand to pay any attention to the sorcerer’s duplicitous intentions, even had Illidan’s mind been unshielded.<
br />
He watched intently as Mannoroth held the disk high. The winged demon muttered words lost in the wind.
Green fire surrounded the golden piece. The Demon Soul — yes, that name was far more appropriate, Malfurion’s brother decided — rose above Mannoroth’s palm… and then, like the sphere containing the portal, flew out over the churning waters of the Well.
“Is that all?” Azshara asked somewhat petulantly.
Before the erstwhile Captain Varo’then could soothe her, the wind abruptly died. The storm, too, appeared to pause, although the dark, menacing clouds continued to twist and turn like a thousand serpents coiling around one another.
Illidan it was who sensed first what was coming. “I’d recommend that your highness have her bearers retreat up to the top of the ridge down which we earlier came.”
To prove that he meant what he said, the sorcerer turned and started back. The captain glared at him, as if suspecting some ruse, then ordered his own soldiers to do the same.
With a graceful wave of her hand, the queen had her Fel Guard follow suit.
A sound like the roar of a thousand night sabers issued forth from somewhere near the center of the Well. Illidan glanced over his shoulder at the black waters, his pace doubling.
The sorcerer and satyrs finally fled, their task no longer demanding that they stay so near the shoreline. Only Mannoroth remained, the demon again stretching forth his arms as if to embrace a lover.
“It begins!” he roared almost merrily. “It begins!”
And a wave as large as any dragon swept over the area where the demon stood.
The entire shoreline vanished under a relentless, ripping tide that did not flow inward, but rather sideways. Ruined structures were washed away as if they were nothing. The horrific waves washed over the land again and again, more and more stripping it bare. Stone obelisks were torn from their foundations and paved pathways scattered in chunks. The dead, who had remained unburied, were taken to a deeper, darker place beyond Zin-Azshari where Illidan knew that they would find no better rest than before.
As he finished climbing the ridge, the sorcerer saw at last what was truly happening to the Well and even he stood stunned at the magicks wielded so easily by the distant Sargeras.
A vast whirlpool now engulfed the entire body of water.
He could not, of course, view its full extent, but the very fact that it stretched from the shore of the capital for as far as he could see in any direction gave ample evidence of its mammoth proportions. Illidan saw that, for once, the frenzied energies of the Well now moved in uniform purpose… and all were drawn toward the center.
Below and awash in the forces at the edge of the Well, Mannoroth laughed. Fearsome waves that continued to rip away chunks of stone and earth larger than the demon did not even bother the winged being in the least. Mannoroth drank in the glory of his lord’s power, urging Sargeras on with shouts.
Secure on shore, Illidan dared probe deeper into the spell. His higher senses brought him seemingly bodily over the water, moving him along so swiftly that he soon left all land behind. At the same time, the sorcerer’s mind also soared higher, taking in a better overall picture of what Sargeras had wrought.
He had guessed right when he had believed that the whirlpool encompassed the whole of the Well of Eternity. Even yet only able to see a portion of the entire panorama, it was already obvious to the night elf that no part of the Well had been left untouched.
Then, a shimmering light ahead caught his attention. Stretching his senses to their limits, Illidan took in the Demon Soul itself floating high above the surface. The simple-looking disk radiated a golden light that focused most on the waters below. Illidan already knew enough about the Demon Soul to understand that Sargeras wielded it as no one other than the black dragon could have, possibly more so. Even from the distant realm where he waited, the lord of the Legion manipulated the incredible power of the disk perfectly in conjunction with the primal forces of the Well.
But where was the portal? Try as he might, Illidan could not sense it around the Demon Soul. Where, then had Sargeras —
Cursing his ignorance, the sorcerer looked down into the center of the maelstrom.
Looked down… and stared into a pathway beyond reality, a pathway to the realm of the Burning Legion.
Illidan had thought that most of the demons had passed through already, but he saw now that what had come had been but a fraction. Endless ranks awaited in the beyond, savage, tusked warriors hungry for destruction. They spread on forever, as far as he could tell, and among them were fiends such as he knew Kalimdor had yet to experience. Some were winged, others crawled, but all were filled with the same intense lust for blood as those he had faced.
Then… Illidan sensed the demon lord himself. He felt only the least bit of Sargeras’s presence, but it was more than enough to make the night elf flee from his glimpse of the nether realm. What Illidan had previously experienced of Sargeras’s will had been, he realized belatedly, the tiniest mote of what there truly was. Here, where the lord of the Legion physically existed, no shield could possibly keep the demon from knowing all that Malfurion’s brother thought.
And if Sargeras knew what Illidan planned, the sorcerer’s fate would make that which had befallen the citizens of Zin-Azshari a pleasant and peaceful way to die…
“What ails you, spellcaster?” grated Varo’then’s voice.
Illidan forced himself not to shake as his mind returned to his body. “It’s… overwhelming…” he said honestly. “Just overwhelming.”
Even the captain did not argue with him there.
Mannoroth plodded up the ridge, his four trunklike legs making craters in the already much-damaged ground. His monstrous orbs held a fanatical look such as Illidan had never seen in the demon prior. Although he had been drenched in the Well, the fearsome figure was completely dry. Such was the truth of the Well, for although it resembled liquid, it was far more.
“Soon…” Mannoroth nearly cooed. “Soon, our lord will pass through into Kalimdor! Soon he will come…”
“And then he will remake Kalimdor into paradise!” Azshara breathed from atop her litter. “Paradise!”
The demon commander’s eyes grew fiery with anticipation, anticipation… and something else that Illidan quickly focused upon. “Yes… Kalimdor will be remade.”
“How soon?” the queen pressed, her lips parted and her breath quickening. “Very soon?”
“Yes… very soon…” Mannoroth answered. He trudged past her, heading back to the palace. “Very soon…”
“How wonderful!” Azshara clapped her hands together. Lady Vashj and the other attendants mirrored her glee.
“We’re done here, then,” snarled Captain Varo’then, who seemed caught between his desire for Sargeras to arrive and his jealousy against any being who would steal the queen’s emotions from him. “Back to the palace!” the officer commanded the soldiers and demon warriors. “Back to the palace!”
The Highborne and the satyrs needed no such commands, most already following Mannoroth. Only Illidan lagged behind, his thoughts torn between what he thought he had read in the latter’s words and expression and the glimpse the sorcerer had managed of the demon lord’s realm.
Malfurion’s brother looked back at the roaring whirlpool that was now the Well of Eternity… looked back and, for the first time, felt his extreme confidence in himself slightly shaken.
Tyrande was aware that something was taking place, something of tremendous magnitude, but what it might be, she certainly could not tell from her cell. Elune still provided her with some defense against her captors, but little more. The priestess was blind to what happened in the outside world. For all she knew, her people had been crushed and the Burning Legion now marched unhindered across Kalimdor, razing to the ground what remained of the once-beautiful land.
They had taken the guard from her door, the insidious Captain Varo’then deciding that such were wasted on a prisoner clearly going no
where. Tyrande could hardly blame the officer for his decision; she had certainly revealed herself to be of no threat to the palace.
The sound of sudden footsteps caught her attention. It was hardly the time to bring her food and water. Besides, since the one time she had accepted both from Dath’Remar, Tyrande had neither eaten nor drunk anything more. The Highborne had begged her on both his successive visits to do so, but she took only what she needed, not wanting to risk becoming accustomed to depending upon those who had imprisoned her.
The door slid open with a short-lived creak. To her surprise, it was Dath’Remar and another Highborne. The latter glanced inside only once, took stock of the prisoner, then slipped back into the corridor.
“Dath’Remar! What brings you — ”
“Hush, mistress!” He surveyed the cell as if expecting to find it filled with Fel Guard. Seeing that they were alone, Dath’Remar approached the sphere.
From his robes, he removed the sinister artifact that Lady Vashj had used to briefly free her. Tyrande bit back an exclamation, at first wondering if perhaps the sorcerer intended the same fate for her as Azshara’s attendant had.
“Prepare yourself,” Dath’Remar whispered.
He repeated the same steps Vashj had. The sphere lowered and the invisible bonds vanished.
Stiff, Tyrande nearly fell. The Highborne caught her in one arm, the artifact held close to her throat.
“My death will avail you little,” she told him.
He looked startled, then glanced at the thing in his hand. With utter repugnance, the other night elf tossed it away. “I have not come to perform such a foul deed, mistress! Now, keep your voice low if you wish to have any hope of escaping this place!”
“Escape?” Tyrande felt her pulse race. Was this some new, cruel jest?
Dath’Remar read her eyes. “No trickery! This was discussed long and hard by us! We cannot stand this obscenity any longer! The queen — ” He almost choked, clearly caught between his devotion to Azshara and his repugnance for all that had occurred. “The queen… she is mad. There can be other explanation. She has turned her back on her people for a being of depravity and carnage! This Sargeras promises a perfect world where we, the Highborne, would rule, but all some of us see is the ruination of everything! What paradise can be built from blood-drenched stone and parched earth? None, we think!”
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