Thrall Twilight of the Aspects (16 page)

She kept her face covered, and when she at last spoke, her voice was thick and muffled.

“Tell me one thing,” she said. “Did I make a difference?”

He couldn’t believe she was asking that. Did she not understand everything he had said?

“Taretha,” he said, “it was because of your kindness that I was able to understand that some humans could be trusted—and that’s why I was willing even to consider allying with Jaina Proudmoore. It was because of you that I believed I was more than … than a green-skinned monster. That I and therefore my people—all orcs—were worthy of something more than being treated like animals.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her head and turned toward him, tears streaming down her face.

“Taretha, my dear friend,” he said, his voice shaking. “My sister of the spirit. You didn’t make
a
difference. You made
the
difference.”

To his astonishment, she gave him a shaky smile.

“You don’t understand,” she said brokenly. “I’ve never made any kind of a difference. I’ve never
mattered
. I’ve never done a single thing that affected anything or anyone.”

“Your parents—”

She made a dismissive sound. “The parents from your world sound more caring than mine. I was a female, and little use to them. We were all too busy trying to survive. The schooling you talked about—I never got it. I can’t
read,
Thrall. I can’t
write
.”

Thrall couldn’t imagine Taretha being illiterate. Books were what had bound them to each other in the first place. Without her notes, he might never have escaped. He had thought her fate in the true timeway a brutal one, felt that it was unjust to one who was so kind and greathearted. But in a way, the life she had been leading here was almost worse.

Aggra had accompanied him on his shamanic vision quest, and had, in a fashion, “met” Taretha.

She should not have died,
Thrall had said on that spiritual journey.

How do you know this was not her destiny? That perhaps she had done all she had been born to do?
Aggra had replied.
Only she knows.

And Thrall realized with a lurch in his heart that Taretha—in both timeways—did know.

“To hear this from you—to know that my being alive mattered to anyone, let alone to nations, to … to the history of the world—you don’t know what it means to me. I don’t care if I died. I don’t care
how
I died. At least I mattered!”

“You did, and you do,” Thrall said, his voice urgent. “You may not have made a difference … yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t.”

“If I turned in a wild orc, I could live on what they paid me for more than a year. It’s … that is how my world is, Thrall. It’s how it’s always been. But …” Taretha frowned. “… I’ve always felt … well, it never felt
right
. Not just morally, but …” Her voice trailed off.

Thrall blinked. “So you have said.” It was an important insight, but he did not understand why she had chosen to repeat it now.

She frowned. “Said what?”

The air felt … different. Thrall got to his feet, and picked up Taretha’s gun. It was to Taretha’s everlasting credit that she did not panic, but instead was instantly on her feet and at his side, looking out into the surrounding woods for the threat. “Did you hear something?”

“You did, and you do.” Thrall was sitting beside her. “You may not have made a difference … yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t—”

He stopped in mid-sentence. And then he understood.

“This timeway is wrong,” he said. “We both know that. And there’s something
so
wrong with it, so amiss, that it’s not even
flowing correctly anymore. Things are … repeating. Things may even be unraveling.”

Taretha paled as he spoke. “You mean—you think—this world’s just going to
end
?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Thrall said honestly. “But we need to figure out how to stop it, and how to get me out of this timeway. Or else everything—your world and mine, and who knows how many others—will be destroyed.”

She was frightened. She looked down at the fire, gnawing her lower lip, thinking.

“I need your help,” Thrall said softly.

She looked up at him, and smiled. “You have it. I want to make a difference … again.”

T
he world was silent.

There was not a cry of anger, or pain, or delight. Not the soft sound of a breath. Not the single beat of a pair of wings, or a heart. Not the nearly imperceptible sound of a blink, or a plant taking root.

No, not quite silent. The oceans moved, their waves curling upon the shore, then drawing back, although nothing now existed in their depths. The wind blew, rattling the eaves of dwellings that housed nothing, rippling grass that was turning yellow.

Ysera moved, the only living thing in this place, the unease stirring, becoming worry, becoming fear, becoming horror.

The Hour of Twilight had come.

Her paws fell on earth that had ceased to support life. Would
not
support life, ever again. No longer would a breath from her bring verdancy. She walked on each continent, desperately hoping that someplace, somewhere, had been spared.

Dead, all dead. No dragons, no humans or elves or orcs, no fish, no birds, no trees, no grass, no insects. With each bitter footfall, Ysera trod upon a mass grave.

How was she alive?

She shrank from the question, fearing the answer, and moved on.

Booty Bay, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Darkshire, Desolace—corpses were everywhere, rotting, uneaten by the carrion feeders as they, too, lay rotting where they had fallen. Ysera felt madness brush her at the enormity of it all and pushed it away ruthlessly.

Our temple …

She did not want to see, but had to see—

And there she was, standing at the base of the temple, her great, once-slumbering eyes now open wide.

There were wing beats here. And breath, and cries of hate-filled victory. The air thrummed with them, the twilight dragons, the last things left alive and utterly triumphant on a corpse of a world. At the foot of Wyrmrest Temple lay the bodies of the mighty Aspects: Alexstrasza, burned to death, her ribs charred and thrusting upward. A blue Aspect whose face she could not see, frozen solid in a spasm of agony. Nozdormu the Timeless One, locked firmly in time now, still as stone. And her own body, overgrown with what had once been green and living, but now even the vines that had wrapped around her throat to choke her were themselves dead. Each Aspect appeared to have been slain by his or her own unique powers.

But that was not what made her grow cold with terror.

Ysera the Awakened stared at a single, massive body. It was illuminated by the dim, somber light of the twilight skies of Northrend, a limp and too-still thing.

It was impaled upon the very spire of Wyrmrest Temple as the swollen red and orange sun set sullenly behind it.

Ysera sank down to the earth, trembling, wanting to tear her eyes away and unable to.

“Deathwing,” she whispered.

She jolted herself back to reality, her mind clearing even as her body still trembled from the vision. She shook her head, whispering,
“No, no, no …”

It was a vision, but one she somehow knew was not yet set in stone. One that might yet be changed … but only if one orc changed it.

Thrall, I know not what role you have to play, but I beg of you … please, please, do not fail.

Do not let this world become so very, very silent.

The question was … how did they make the timeway right?

“Tell me everything that happened, starting from when I died,” Thrall said.

“That’s … a lot, but all right,” Taretha replied. “Like I said, Blackmoore threw himself into his goal. He trained and honed his men, and then mercenaries. After the Battle of Blackrock Spire, he didn’t dismantle his own personal military. As soon as the orcs surrendered, he made a secret deal with them—a deal that left the rest of the Alliance horrified. Join with Blackmoore’s private army, turn on King Terenas and the others, slaughter them—and they got to live. Guess what they did?”

Thrall nodded. “Of course they would. All they were doing was still fighting the enemy. And so Terenas fell.”

Taretha nodded. “So did Uther the Lightbringer and Anduin Lothar.”

In Thrall’s timeway, Lothar died fighting Doomhammer at the Battle of Blackrock Spire. “What of Prince Varian?”

“Both Varian and Arthas, Terenas’s son, were too young to fight. They fled to safety and both survived.”

Arthas. The fallen paladin … the Lich King.

“Have there been any strange illnesses in the land? Poisoned grain, plagues?”

Taretha shook her fair head. “No, nothing like that.”

The impact struck Thrall like a blow. This was a world in which Blackmoore lived; that much was true and to be despised. But Taretha lived, too … and so did untold numbers of innocents who would become neither Scourge nor Forsaken.

“Do you know the name Kel’Thuzad?” he asked. Kel’Thuzad, a former member of the ruling council of Dalaran, had sought power in Thrall’s timeline. That lust for power had taken him down dark paths. Paths that had had him experimenting with the lines between life and death. After such a flirtation, it was grimly fitting that Arthas had raised Kel’Thuzad’s body as a lich.

“Oh, yes,” Taretha said, grimacing. “Blackmoore’s chief advisor.”

So Kel’Thuzad had succumbed to the lure of power in this timeway too. Except here it was mortal, political power, not an ancient evil, that had seduced him.

“Antonidas and Dalaran have severed all ties with him,” Taretha continued. “They like to appear impartial, but rumor has it that their allegiance is more with Stormwind than Lordaeron, even though they are physically so close to us.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how accurate that is. I just hear things now and then when I venture into Southshore.”

Dalaran was still here, too, then, with Antonidas still at the head of the magi. The city had not fallen; it had not been relocated to Northrend.

“Where are Arthas and Varian?”

“Varian rules Stormwind. Arthas is with him. They are as close as brothers. Varian was best man at his wedding.”

“To Jaina Proudmoore,” Thrall said quietly.

Taretha nodded. “They have a child, a little boy. Prince Uther.”

There was no plague, no Lich King. Not yet, anyway. Arthas was a married man, and a father. Lordaeron had not been transformed into the Undercity, populated by the undead, but instead was ruled by Blackmoore sitting in a good man’s throne.

“To think of him having so tight a grasp on this world,” he muttered.

“Which makes it all that more peculiar that he has suddenly disappeared,” Taretha said.

“Disappeared?”

“Yes. His advisors have tried to cover it up, of course. They said he’s gone on some mission or other, to roust out more orcs, or kill some dragons, or sign a peace treaty, depending on what you want to believe. But he’s vanished.”

“Perhaps someone killed him,” Thrall said. He smiled slightly. “One can hope.”

“If so, then there would be great fanfare,” Taretha pointed out. “That throne would be filled by someone—either Arthas as the rightful heir, or by Blackmoore’s killer. No, something odd is going on. But it won’t last long. I am certain that Arthas and Varian are already planning an attack. They must have spies.”

She was right. Though denied her education, Taretha was still a highly intelligent woman. There would, of course, be spies, and Arthas and Varian would likely move as quickly as they were physically able to take advantage of this mysterious “absence.”

Thrall paused a moment, thinking hard. He knew he had to restore the timeway or else all would unravel. Perhaps it was a good thing that Blackmoore was gone; perhaps this would open up some way for the timeway to restore itself somehow.

And yet—that would mean such great tragedy.

The plague would have to sweep through the land. Thousands would be either corpses or worse.

Arthas would need to become the Lich King. A thought made him break out in sweat: What if, in this world, Blackmoore was to become the Lich King? He had Kel’Thuzad whispering in his ear.

Antonidas would have to die, and Dalaran must fall, as must Quel’Thalas.

And Taretha—

He rested his forehead in his hand for a moment. The task seemed impossible. If only he could find one of the bronze dragons, talk to him or her, explain what was going on. Even a green or red dragon would be of aid. They knew of the charge of the bronzes; they would believe this story of fouled timeways, at least in theory.