“All fight together! One family!” Neltharion glared at the rock as he swatted the still-struggling corpse. “I will keep it in! You go!”
But Malygos instead leapt at Neltharion—or, rather, the ripped and torn undead. He seized the flailing body by the throat, twisting the neck so that the claws and the teeth could not threaten him.
Galakrond shook back and forth. Malygos and Neltharion had just enough room to flutter up into the air, keeping them from being affected very much. Malygos launched himself toward the rock again, carrying the animated corpse with him.
The rock began to slide. The upper part of the mouth suddenly loomed in Malygos’s path as Galakrond dipped his head down to aid his breathing. Kalec’s host corrected.
The undead struggled to free itself. Malygos shook his foul catch hard, then sent it tumbling forward.
The ghoulish creature collided with the rock, shoving it slightly deeper. But that was not Malygos’s full intention. He bent his hind legs forward, ready to push as hard as he could.
“Move!”
Malygos veered off just in time. Neltharion, hind paws bent forward in the same manner as his friend, crashed against both the undead and the stone.
With a force that Malygos could not have possibly mustered, Neltharion jammed the bony figure and the rock deep into Galakrond’s gullet.
Teeth slammed against Malygos as Galakrond reacted. A muffled roar still almost deafened him. Neltharion, seeking to avoid the rippling tongue, collided with Kalec’s host. Malygos hurtled out the side of the mouth.
Neltharion! He’s still inside! It was impossible to say whether the thought first originated from Malygos or Kalec, but the blue dragon found himself astounded that he, who could yet recall some bits of his supposed future, would want to rescue a creature who would, in turn, threaten Azeroth. Yet when Malygos immediately arced back, Kalec cheered him on.
Neltharion lay sprawled on his back, trying to right himself despite the mad swinging of Galakrond’s head and the writhing tongue. If not for the fact that the passage was blocked, Neltharion would have been swallowed twice.
Galakrond’s jaws snapped shut. Malygos feared for his companion, but the mouth opened again. Neltharion had managed to turn onto his stomach, but he had still not regained his balance.
Dodging teeth larger than him, Malygos soared back inside. Hind paws ready, he seized Neltharion by the shoulders and pushed on without hesitation. Neltharion went limp in his grip, but only to keep from distracting Malygos.
The jaws started to close again. With another beat of his wings, Malygos pulled himself tightly together.
The two proto-dragons returned to the outside just as the jaws shut. Neltharion stirred to life, and Malygos, barely able to hold on, let him go.
The two exhausted males did not go far, instead banking together and returning to the aid of their comrades.
But both pulled up short at the sight before them. Alexstrasza, Ysera, and Nozdormu no longer sought to keep Galakrond occupied. It did not just have to do with the fact that Malygos and Neltharion were no longer in danger; simply staying near Galakrond was to invite doom.
The gargantuan proto-dragon thrashed wildly, ravaging the nearby mountains and sending one avalanche after another down on the areas below. His tail and wings flailed through the air, striking other mountainsides and creating a wind that buffeted the smaller proto-dragons even as far away as where they were.
Galakrond’s hacking and choking reached epic proportions. To the shock of Kalec and his host, Galakrond struck his head against one peak in what was evidently a more desperate attempt to dislodge the rock. Malygos feared that he would succeed, but all that happened was that Galakrond shook his head again as if to clear it.
As he did that, his furious gaze fell upon Malygos.
Galakrond rose into the air, the icy-blue male his target. Malygos had no choice but to turn and flee. And hope.
Yet barely had he done so when a tremendous thud made him look back. Rather than pursuing Malygos, Galakrond had abruptly banked to the south. He crashed into the top of a mountain and tumbled over it.
Malygos considered continuing his flight, but Galakrond’s next action put an end to such thoughts. Galakrond managed to rise into the air, but his path turned more erratic. Twice he dropped on top of peaks, destroying their crowns, before he succeeded in staying aloft. Yet it seemed as if Galakrond no longer even noticed Malygos and the others. He moved on to the south, past the mountains to the bleak stretches beyond, as if some key to his struggle for breath could be found there.
Fearful that such might be the case, Malygos finally dared to pursue the behemoth. Neltharion and the rest joined him. They all knew that if Galakrond was free to breathe, their own deaths would very likely soon follow.
Galakrond fluttered over the wasteland, his path meandering. His body was aglow again, but now as if aflame. Several of the extraneous appendages shriveled. From a distance, Galakrond almost looked like a true proto-dragon once more, albeit a huge one.
And then he simply dropped.
The land below shook with his collision, the shock wave expanding for miles. Crevasses spread all around where Galakrond hit, cracks that looked like lightning bolts coursing along the ground.
No sooner had he hit than Galakrond shoved skyward once more. He managed to rise as high as one of the lower mountains in the distance, then fell again. While his crash did not reverberate as much as the last one had, it was no less dramatic, for it was quickly followed by the leviathan’s manic flailing on the ground.
All the while, Galakrond coughed and hacked. His eyes stared but no longer appeared to see. He pushed himself up, beating his wings harder. Somehow Galakrond managed to keep going until, at last, he hovered higher than ever—
His wings ceased flapping. The coughing also stopped, but only because Galakrond was no longer trying to breathe.
To Kalec and his host, it appeared that Galakrond remained frozen in the air. The gigantic proto-dragon hung before them, wings spread to their full length.
The illusion faded as Galakrond dropped like a stone, his massive body spiraling tail-first.
When he struck this time, the force threw up a cloud of snow and dust that briefly obscured everything. Malygos managed to make out the silhouette as Galakrond’s head swung down after the rest of his body had hit. The great head smashed into the empty landscape so forcefully that the neck snapped and the skull tilted at an odd angle, at which point the lower jawbone also broke off.
And only then, only as the dust cleared enough for the five to see and when it no longer mattered for Galakrond, the rock and the grisly remains tumbled free through the ruined jaws. They came to rest several yards away, insignificant in size compared with the creature they had helped bring down.
Galakrond was dead.
FIVE
PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
Jaina understood. She knew why the artifact had been created, and she knew why it was acting as it was.
She also knew that it threatened to take Kalec from her. However, now the archmage had the key to reaching him.
Jaina only prayed she still had time.
• • •
They hovered there at first, unable to believe what they saw. It was Neltharion who finally did the unthinkable, testing whether Galakrond was dead by landing right on top of the heavy torso. Neltharion hit hard enough that the body trembled . . . but Galakrond did not stir.
Malygos landed before the huge head, marveling at what they had wrought. In retrospect, he knew that he had not expected that they would live, much less triumph. The immensity of their victory only now registered with him, and the proto-dragon shook.
Alexstrasza and her sister joined him. Nozdormu circled the great corpse once, then descended. Neltharion abandoned his perch atop the torso to fly next to the brown proto-dragon as they headed toward the other three.
Neltharion dropped next to Malygos. “We have won! We are powerful!”
“We are lucky,” Malygos murmured in turn.
The charcoal-gray male cocked his head, then nodded. “Lucky, too . . . yes.”
But this was more than luck, just as Neltharion indicated, an increasingly disjointed Kalec decided. We won because we fought as one.
He no longer thought of himself as ever having been a separate entity born in a time long after this. Kalec knew that he had always been a hidden part of Malygos. He assumed the other proto-dragons had similar secondary personalities, but that point was not very important to him. What mattered was that he and Malygos—along with the others—had managed to bring down Galakrond. The world was safe.
“He was right. . . . He insisted he was right,” a feminine voice declared from behind them.
“We should’ve listened better,” agreed a masculine one that sounded to Malygos and Kalec like none other than Tyr.
As one, the proto-dragons whirled around. Teeth and claws readied for the possibility of attack.
But instead, they confronted two cloaked and hooded forms with shadowed faces. One stood as tall and as broad as Tyr had when he and Kalec’s host had first met; the other was slightly shorter and slimmer. Malygos judged the smaller to be the female and was proved correct when the figure spoke again.
“Hail to you, victors. We and this world owe you a debt.”
“Where is Tyr?” Malygos asked impatiently. “You took him?”
“We did take him,” the male responded. “His injury would have proved fatal otherwise. He’s well but not recovered.”
The more the male talked, the more Malygos noted something familiar. “Heard you in my head! You told us the way through mountains!”
“There were things you needed to know, such as Galakrond devouring both the undead and the living. We also sought to give you a few moments’ necessary respite.”
But Malygos was still not satisfied. Aware now that Tyr’s kind had been observing and acting surreptitiously, he needed to know one other thing. “Tyr fought! Tyr fought and almost died! You could have fought! You could have won!”
“Power does not mean victory,” the female answered solemnly. “We might have won, or, more likely, we would have made things worse. Tyr had a point there, too, when last he tried to urge us to a course of action. We were beyond caring, though, indifferent to everything once our suggestions to him were found to be without merit.”
“We let our duty in this world slip away,” her companion continued bluntly. “We were unfit to protect it . . . unlike you.” For the first time, he moved, raising a hand identical to Tyr’s toward Malygos and the other four. “Tyr was correct in many things but most of all in this. He was right in what he found in the five of you. He asked of us—no, properly demanded of us—to set matters right so that no Galakrond, no other threat, may ever bring Azeroth to extinction.”
The five proto-dragons glanced at one another, not understanding at all what the two-legged creatures meant. Kalec had some glimmer of the truth, but the haze that had gradually been enveloping him made those thoughts fade again.
“Guardians are needed, guardians representing the five essential Aspects that have helped mold this world and will continue to,” the female started. Now she, too, raised a hand toward Malygos and the rest. “You will literally be those Aspects, using them in whatever manner necessary.”
“Stronger.” Malygos finally comprehended. “You want to make us stronger.”
“More than just that. You will be something different, something grander.” For the first time, the female hesitated. “But only if you choose to take on the roles of protectors. Tyr was also adamant about that. You chose to fight for your world once; will you now make it the purpose of your existence?”
The words were big ones, but Malygos found he understood better than he would have expected. There was much he grasped that even a season ago he would have believed impossible to decipher.
And in understanding that, his decision was easy.
“I will do this.” He looked to his companions. Alexstrasza was already nodding her agreement. Ysera was not far behind. Nozdormu appeared to mull over the offer for a moment and then, with a hiss, added his nod.
Only Neltharion had not answered yet. Indeed, Malygos found his friend staring off toward the mountains, as if he were listening to something.
Malygos let out a low, short hiss that brought Neltharion’s attention back to the gathering. With what seemed almost impatience, the charcoal-gray proto-dragon blurted, “Yes . . . yesss.”
“Then we shall begin now,” the male announced to the proto-dragons and to the air itself.
And all at once, Kalec stirred from his fog. He realized what was about to take place. The female figure—who, like her partner and Tyr, radiated a presence much more astounding than what could at the moment be visibly seen—had even used the keyword. “Aspects,” she said, Kalec recalled. This is how Malygos and the others became the Aspects!
The actual event had been enshrouded in mystery even for the other dragons. Kalec suddenly remembered that, when he was much younger, he had sometimes wondered how the five had come to be the world’s defenders.
And with those memories returned others, so many others. Kalec knew again who he had been and what had happened that had drawn him into these visions—
“Kalec.”
He jolted. No . . . Malygos jolted. Kalec shook his head, Malygos’s head. For the first time, Kalec had control.
“Kalec, look at me.”
“Jaina?” He gasped, turning. “Jaina—”
But it was not Jaina he faced. Rather, Alexstrasza looked intently at him.
“Kalec,” the fire-orange proto-dragon murmured. “Look at me.”
Near them, two more hooded figures materialized. Kalec found himself caught between wanting to see what was happening and wanting to finally escape to his own existence. He wanted his life more than he had in many months, whether or not he was no longer an Aspect.
“Concentrate, Kalec. The artifact is trying to do what Tyr tasked it with, but the foulness that was Galakrond tainted it over the millennia, distorting its function even as it still sought to serve Tyr and the Aspects.”
Kalec tried to seize on her words, but at the same time, the newcomers raised their hands. He also suddenly sensed that there was another, greater presence acting through the keepers, that presence being the true force bringing about the proto-dragons’ coming transformations.
The titans.
It is happening! the blue dragon thought. The titans are the ones overseeing the transformation, the creation of the Aspects!
As they raised their hands, the figures also changed. They began to grow. Their hoods and cloaks fell away, revealing four giants akin in appearance to Tyr when he had fought Galakrond. The keepers continued to swell in size, and their bodies glowed with tremendous power.
“Kalec!” Alexstrasza called more sharply. “Look at me!”
Only she could have drawn him from this moment. Kalec at last concentrated fully on Alexstrasza, seeing in those reptilian eyes human ones.
The world began to turn on its head. Everything except the eyes into which Kalec stared now appeared as if he were looking through water.
Kalec felt his bond with Malygos fade and, with it, the grip the visions had on him.
Darkness enveloped the blue dragon. Only the eyes, Jaina’s eyes, brought any illumination. Kalec held her gaze because he understood that to lose that hold would mean his doom—and also because those eyes were hers.
With a gasp, Kalec at last truly woke up.
He felt the floor beneath him. He detected the scents of the Nexus—the traces of generations of blue dragons and the inherent smells that he associated with so much magic.
But most important,
he saw not only the eyes of Jaina Proudmoore but also her face. Her human scent, so unique among her own kind and so enticing to him, lingered in his nostrils.
Kalec tried to speak, to say her name, but it came out as a croak.
“Hush,” Jaina murmured, her hand gently touching his cheek. “Hush . . . give it a second.”
He was too impatient, though. “J-Jaina . . . you brought . . . you brought me back.”
“Nothing will take you away from me. Ever.”
Her tone was blunt. He knew she meant what she said, and he felt the same. Reaching up a hand—a hand without scales or claws—Kalec touched her cheek in turn.
Then he recalled the bane of his existence. He looked to the side and saw that despite what he would have assumed, Jaina had not destroyed the artifact. It sat nearby, its glow very slight but still there.
With an angry hiss, Kalec started a spell—
“No, Kalec.” Using both hands, the archmage brought his eyes back to her own. “The artifact means no harm. Remember what I said to you in the vision?”
“You said . . .” He did not go on, instead asking, “How do you know?”
“I was given the key, I think by a keeper. Or maybe a part of the relic with its own purpose. I’m not certain. I only know that she wasn’t a taunka.”
“Buniq?” Neither possibility concerning the taunka surprised him.
She summoned a flagon of wine from the air, then gently set the edge to his lips. While he sipped, Jaina explained further. “Tyr—the artifact made all this clear—always planned ahead. His only mistake was not foreseeing what Galakrond would become, as if anyone could have! He tried to make up for it by finding those champions who not only could defeat Galakrond but would also be willing to sacrifice themselves and their lives forever for the sake of Azeroth.”
“He found them. He found the five,” Kalec whispered. “Malygos. Alexstrasza. Ysera. Nozdormu. Nelth-Neltharion. They were heroes even before they were the Aspects. Azeroth wouldn’t have reached the time of the dragons without their willingness to do what they had to do.”
World of Warcraft - [Dawn of the Aspects 05] - Dawn of the Aspects- Part V Page 6
