Illidan (13 page)

“I have no doubt that theirs is a worthy goal, but I feel I can best serve the Light by overcoming Illidan. He is the greatest champion the Burning Legion has in Outland.”

“Is it not strange, then, that he seems to be at war with them?”

“It may be a deception. Or it may be a temporary disagreement. He has fallen out with his demonic overlords before, only to worm his way back into their favor.”

“You know a great deal about it.”

“I was his jailor for ten thousand years.”

“He must hate you.”

“And fear me, too, I hope.”

“I do not doubt it,” Alexius said.

“Can you arrange for me to see the naaru?”

“You can walk in and talk with them in the Terrace of Light. They will know you are here by now, and they will sense the power within you and give you a hearing.”

“Is it that simple?”

“For you it will be, of that I have no doubt. Your war against the new lord of Outland has not gone unremarked.”

“You said he has agents here. Would they be blood elves?”

“Perhaps, but I would not be too quick to rush to judgment if I were you. The sin'dorei here are sworn to protect the city. The Scryers look most unfavorably on those who aid your Betrayer. They betrayed him themselves.”

“Did they?”

“They were sent by Prince Kael'thas to lay waste to our city. A mighty force they were, the best and brightest of Kael'thas's army, mighty magi and scholars. The Aldor braced themselves for defense, but the blood elves laid down their arms and asked for an audience with the naaru. It seems their leader, Voren'thal, had a vision. Only by serving the naaru would his people survive.”

“It might well have been a trick.”

“So many thought, but the naaru spoke with this Voren'thal and accepted his fealty. He and his people have served the city ever since.”

“A deception.”

“The naaru can see deep into the minds of those with whom they converse, and they are not easily deceived.”

“If any could do so, it would no doubt be Kael'thas. He is wily.”

“You speak with some bitterness.”

“I, too, once regarded him as an ally.”

“That is troubling. Nonetheless, the blood elves of the Scryer's Tier would be the next faction I would suggest you seek aid from.”

Maiev felt her face redden. “I would rather seek aid from fel orcs.”

The Broken's hand went to his mouth, and he stroked his drooping tendrils. “The enemy of my enemy…”

“You are not the first to suggest such a thing to me. But an alliance with the sin'dorei is a step too far.”

“That is a pity, for the Scryers are mighty sorcerers…”

Maiev's fists clenched. The Broken realized his mistake. “I shall speak no more on the subject.”

“Perhaps that would be wise.” Maiev felt a brief sting of regret. She had nothing to gain by alienating the innkeeper. “I appreciate the aid you have given me. I am a stranger here, and a friendly guide is without price.”

“We are all strangers in this world, Maiev Shadowsong. We must help one another.”

“Is there anyone else who might help me?”

“There is Khadgar the archmage, a trusted ally of the naaru. I believe he is from your homeworld.”

“Tell me of him.”

“Tales swirl around this one, and it is difficult to get at the truth. He is a human. A few of them have found their way to Shattrath. Some say he is a hero who sacrificed himself to close the Dark Portal between Azeroth and Draenor. Others claim he was an apprentice of Medivh, the Guardian who was possessed by Sargeras.”

“That hardly seems like a recommendation to trust him.”

“The Sha'tar do.”

“I fear I cannot.”

“Then it is probably just as well that he is no longer in the city. The naaru have dispatched him to the Netherstorm—or so I have heard. To investigate some strange appearances there.”

“You are uncommonly well informed, Alexius.”

“I am an innkeeper. We hear things, particularly when we keep our ears to the ground.”

“I am glad that you have done so. Of course, I would be displeased to discover that you had been talking about my business with anyone else.”

Alexius looked wounded. “You were sent here by my cousin. It would be a betrayal of all the laws of kinship and hospitality for me to do so.”

“Of course. I just wanted to make sure we understood each other.”

“Now you sound like my cousin. I can see why he liked you.”

S
O THIS IS THE TERRACE OF LIGHT,
Maiev thought. It was impressive in its odd way. The air shimmered. Crystalline notes sounded. Huge glowing blue crystals descended from the roof of the vast circular chamber. The scent of incense twitched her nostrils. At the center, over a massive stone dais, hovered a glowing entity of enormous power.
The naaru.
Its shape shifted constantly from one geometric form to another, but it returned most often to an outline that resembled that of a star.

Hundreds of petitioners came and went, along with priestly servants who no doubt belonged to the Aldor. Robed blood elves, wearing the tabard of the Scryers, stared at her. They did not look hostile, but they did not look friendly, either. They seemed to be wondering what she was going to do.

She made her way through the crowd, studying her surroundings. Above her the giant domed roof of the terrace echoed back the sounds of prayers and petitions.

It was some time before she confronted the naaru. She was grateful. It gave her a chance to become accustomed to its awesome presence. A'dal shimmered like a chained sun. Unleashed, the naaru's power might destroy cities or level mountains. The full blast of its attention focused on her when she stepped forward to greet it. It was all she could do to prevent herself from kneeling. She kept her head high and glanced straight into its light. Maiev felt as if the naaru was able to read her the way she might read an unfurled scroll. There was something about this being that made her feel like little more than a child.

“Greetings, Warden Shadowsong,” A'dal said. The naaru radiated serenity. Its calm, pleasant voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Perhaps it was speaking inside her mind. “I am A'dal.”

“Elune shines on the moment of our meeting,” Maiev said.

A'dal said, “How can I aid you?”

“You know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“You know what I do?”

“Yes.”

“I have come to Outland in search of Illidan. I mean to return him to his place of incarceration.”

“An ambitious goal. Illidan styles himself the lord of Outland now. He has the power to make good on that claim. Who are you to oppose him?”

“One who held him bound for ten times a thousand years.”

“A blink in the eye of eternity.”

Maiev's smile was rueful. “It seemed long enough to me.”

“As you mortals measure time, it was, no doubt.”

“But not as the naaru do?”

“We see these things differently from you. We have no bodies to age. We are beings of Light.”

“Then you know Illidan must be opposed.”

“It is a task you seem admirably suited to.”

“It is the work of my life.”

“I can see that, and it makes me regret all the more that we have no aid to give you at this time.”

“What?” The word burst from her lips before she could stop it.

“Alas, we, too, have a mission in this place. We oppose the Burning Legion. This is a task that takes all our resources.”

“But Illidan serves the Legion. Opposing him can only aid you.”

“At this moment Illidan opposes the Legion. He is its enemy. We take advantage of this to gather our strength.”

“At this moment he opposes the demons. While it suits him. When it no longer does so, he will crawl back to his masters on his belly, as he always has.”

“Your hatred blinds you.”

“It is not hatred. I seek justice for those he has killed, for those he has betrayed, for those he will murder. You cannot tell me that you believe that Illidan is any better than the Burning Legion.”

“You have no concept of the true nature of the Burning Legion, Warden Shadowsong.”

“And you do?”

“We have opposed it for a thousand times your lifetime. We shall oppose it until the end of all that is.”

“I need more than fine words if I am to bring Illidan to justice.”

“Unfortunately, words are all I have for you now. You must find your own path. You are not without allies here, even if you cannot see that. You can find more if you make the attempt. The chief magister of the Scryers waits to speak with you.”

“A blood elf?”

“One of your people.”

“The blood elves are not my people. They turned their back on my people long ago. We have nothing in common.”

“Save perhaps an enemy.”

“I will have nothing to do with those heretics.”

“That would be your choice.”

Maiev reined in her fury. She bowed and turned on her heel without waiting for A'dal to terminate the audience. She heard gasps from nearby blood elves, which gave her some satisfaction. A tall blood elf in the tabard of a Scryer moved toward her. He was most likely the one A'dal had mentioned. She swept by him without giving him the opportunity to speak.

It seemed that she still had some principles. There were those with whom she would not consider a pact. Even to bring down the Betrayer.

V
andel moaned and tried to sit up. His head spun. He stretched out his hands, trying to maintain his balance, but that just made things worse. He crashed back to the hard floor, smacking his head. His forehead felt wet beneath his questing fingers. He had cut himself again. Blood matted his hair from his previous attempts at rising.

He dry heaved. The demon meat in his stomach was fighting its way free. The thought sickened him, and yet it also made his mouth water.

All around, he could hear screams and groans and babbling. Sometimes he recognized the voices of his fellow aspirants. Sometimes, he thought it was all his imagination, that he was trapped in a private hell of his own making. The air stank of rotting flesh, gangrene, pus, and excrement.

At regular intervals, the hooves of Broken servants clattered on the stone floor as they cleaned the chambers and washed the sick. Twice they had swabbed him with sponges, and he had tried to force them away. All he wanted was to be left alone.

Glowworms of color writhed across his field of vision. At first they had given him hope that he might be starting to see again, but now he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, pretending to see things whenever he heard others near.

“Broken moon, demon moon, blood moon!” He knew that shouting voice from somewhere, but he was not sure from where. “Demons approach. A demon approaches.”

Leathery wings snapped. Displaced air swirled around his face.

“On your feet,” Illidan's voice said. “You have rested long enough.”

It was the first time Vandel had heard the Betrayer's voice since the ritual. He felt his lips tighten into a sneer. “What is the point? I cannot see.”

“I thought the same thing once. But now I can see to the end of the universe. It is closer than most think.”

Remembering the march of the Burning Legion through countless devastated worlds, Vandel understood the bitter humor of the Betrayer's words. “I know.”

“Then you also know what we fight. And why.” There was an arrogant certainty in Illidan's tone that Vandel resented. There was a challenge, too.

The demonic thing within him stirred, responding to Illidan's presence with something like hunger. It lent Vandel strength and goaded him to speak. “How can you fight against what I saw? It is impossible.”

Impossible, impossible, impossible,
whispered the voice in the back of his head. It still sounded like his own, only clotted with hatred. The felhound had grafted itself to his soul, and its spirit seemed able to use his mind and his memories now.

“Be quiet,” Vandel told it.

He heard the creak of wings as Illidan moved. The Betrayer ignored his words as if he sensed to whom Vandel was speaking. “We must fight. Countless worlds have fallen to the Legion, and ours will be next unless we stop it.”

Fragments of apocalyptic visions swirled through Vandel's mind. He saw worlds burning and nations dying, and through it all he saw the Legion marching, its victory as inevitable as death. The thing at the back of his mind snickered. “Be quiet,” he repeated, but it ignored him.

“Stand up,” Illidan commanded, and there was no disobeying that voice. Even the thing in Vandel's mind quailed. He lurched to his feet and stood there, swaying. His stomach heaved. The world spun once more. A clawed hand dug into his shoulder and held him upright. Writhing worms of light shimmered beside him, slithering away from the point of contact.

“I cannot see,” Vandel said.

“You can see everything.”

Vandel's head spun faster. Lights flickered all around him.

He lashed out with his hand, seeking to strike at the lights. They moved away. Rage surged within him. The worms of light were everywhere, covering everything. They filled the space surrounding him. He heard a whimpering sound from a mass of sickly green, knew it was a feverish elf.

He twisted to where Illidan stood, and he saw a blaze of light. If he looked closely, it appeared to be a winged shape.

“You tricked me, Betrayer. You told me you would give me the power to fight demons, to avenge my family.” His anger was a bonfire as bright as Illidan's aura. It gave him strength. Hatred tasted like bile in his mouth. He wanted to smash his fists into Illidan's face and beat him till the bones broke. He wanted to drink his blood and eat his heart and be filled with the power that burned before him.

The dizziness was gone now. He had no trouble moving. He wished he had his blades.

“I have given you all that and more.” The blaze of Illidan's aura moved. Vandel turned his head, tracking it, and he realized that he was also tracking the source of the voice. This did not make him less angry. Frustration built up in him. He wanted to rend and tear. He bit his lip until blood flowed. He was going to kill the Betrayer. He was going to supplant him.

He sprang forward. He heard a rustling sound. His fist smashed into something leathery but lined with bone. A wing. Illidan's wing. A moment later it buffeted him from his feet. He hit the ground and rolled toward another swirling mass of light. He felt the contact of flesh when he reached it, heard a feverish voice groan.

No doubt about it—in some way, he was perceiving where things were.

He sniffed the air, smelled soiled bandages, unwashed flesh, and beneath that the tainted odor of demon, repulsing him and arousing his hunger at the same time. He wanted to feast upon it. He dived forward, jaws clamping on the sick elf's arm. A powerful hand caught him by the neck and lifted him like an elf might lift a nightsaber cub.

Illidan said, “Enough. You must learn to control that which lies within you, or it will control you.”

Rage goaded Vandel to aim an elbow backward. Once again he felt himself cast across the room. Air rushed by. He sensed the cold presence of the wall before he hit it, and he let himself go limp. The impact hurt but not as much as it ought to. He rolled once again to his feet.

The Betrayer was keeping him from his prey. Vandel coiled his muscles to leap. Illidan's aura became sharper, its greenish-yellow light blazing. Motes of it swirled in the air around him, shifting into new patterns as the Betrayer moved his fingers and arms. Vandel realized he was seeing fel magic being bound to Illidan's will as he drew upon its power. A moment later a bolt of it leapt from Illidan's finger and impacted on Vandel's chest. Strength drained from his body like wine from an upended goblet. The dizziness returned, multiplied a thousandfold. He crashed into the stone at Illidan's hooves, rage departing in proportion to his strength.

He felt like himself once more, but he understood now what he was seeing, what had happened to him. “The demon I devoured. It is still within me, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Illidan, “and it wants to be free.”

“How can I control it?”

“You take the first step along that road today. Walk with me.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you here? Why are you helping me?”

“Because you know who the true enemy is, and you have the potential to be a great hunter of demons. I saw that the day your village burned. I see it now. I will have need of fighters like you before the end.”

Still dizzy and weak, Vandel forced himself to his feet. His true foes were the innumerable forces of the Burning Legion, which even now prepared to strike at his homeworld.

He stood for a moment, calming his mind, listening for any internal voice that was not his own. He heard nothing, but he knew that didn't mean anything. He did not doubt that the demon was still in there, waiting for the opportunity to break free once more.

He was aware now of the ebb and flow of energies all around. The lights were auras of living things, some bright, some filled with energy. The brightest of all came from the being who stood beside him.

“Is this how you see the world?” Vandel asked.

“It is one way. Your mind becomes accustomed to it eventually. It maps its new way of seeing onto its old way of understanding reality. There will come a time when you will be able to perceive the world as once you did. It is a much narrower way of seeing, but our minds crave familiarity.”

“You are saying you can shift from seeing the world like this to seeing it as if you had eyes?”

“Indeed, and many gradations between.”

He tried to imagine Illidan as he had previously seen him, and slowly a very rough image of the Betrayer stood before him, like a child's illustration drawn in mud. Its mud mouth moved as Illidan spoke. “In a way it is like working magic. You get a feel for the flows of power. You get a sense of the souls of the living and the unliving.”

They walked toward a doorway. Vandel sensed its lack of density in the air and the solid matter around it. He was not sure how. He also sensed there were living things beyond it. There was power in them, too. They were waiting for something.

Illidan pushed him forward. He collided with something at about waist height. It felt like the edge of a table. “Lie down on it.”

“Why?” Vandel asked.

“You are about to receive your first tattoos.”

Vandel fumbled at the table with his hands, feeling the rough texture of the wood. It came to him then how much he had taken his sense of touch for granted, and how inaccurate it used to be. Now he could feel every grain of the wood, every knot, every splinter. He felt areas that were slightly rougher, as if the carpenter had been sloppy with his planing. It seemed like his various senses were now many times magnified.

He lay down on the board. Leather straps snapped into place around him. Momentary panic filled him as he was restrained. It increased as power blossomed in one of the nearby figures.

“You will learn to do these for yourself one day, but for now, you must accept them from others. Be still,” said Illidan. “This will hurt.”

The inker leaned forward, and something so hot it was cold, or perhaps so cold it was hot, touched Vandel's flesh. He fought down the urge to scream. When the needle withdrew, he felt as if a dagger were being pulled from a wound and twisted.

No. No. No.
The voice in his head gibbered in panic. The fear communicated itself to him.

This was a trap. Evil magic was being worked here.

The needle stabbed in once more. Pain blasted his body, worse than anything he had felt since he had pulled out his own eyes. He thrashed around, trying to free himself. The restraining bands drew tight. Hard hands pushed down on him.

The needle stabbed again and again, and every touch of its point sent blazing agony searing through him. With every stitch, strength leached out of him. The voice in his head grew weaker and weaker.

He was dying. This magic was going to kill him.

He snarled threats and whimpered pleas, but the pain went on and on and on, until he could struggle no more and could only lie there while the inker went about his work.

Eventually the straps were undone. He could barely rise from the table. His anger and his fear had subsided. For the first time in days, he truly felt like himself. He could barely see the glow of auras around him. His enhanced senses had returned to normal levels. It was as if he had been drugged and the potency had worn off.

“I am glad that is over,” Vandel said.

“The worst is just beginning,” Illidan replied.

T
HE CELL WALLS CLOSED
in all around Vandel. Down below in the courtyards, he could hear fighting and practicing. Were they like him, he wondered, a new intake of fools who had been seduced by Illidan's promises of power?

It was a relief to be away from the sick house, to have his own chamber. He had been brought here immediately after gaining his first tattoos. It had taken him the whole day to recover from that. It was pleasant not to be surrounded by the auras of living things. The quiet was relaxing. He lay on his bed and touched his empty sockets.

His eyes were gone forever. In the absence of living things, it was easy to convince himself that he had hallucinated the whole experience of seeing auras. Perhaps it was a dream.