Thrall Twilight of the Aspects (30 page)

It was blue and black and purple, with grotesque splotches here and there of bronze, red, and green. One of its forelegs ended in a stump. It only had one eye, mottle-hued and bruised-looking, with which to regard its audience.

Kirygosa let out a single harsh sob, then turned away.

“No, no, my dear, do not avert your eyes. Behold what we have
made of your plain blue child,” gloated the human. He extended a gloved hand and gathered the chromatic whelp into his palm. The thing lay limply, tiny chest heaving. One of its wings was fused to its side.

The cloaked man walked a few paces away and placed it on the earth. “Now, small one, let us see if you can grow bigger for us.”

One of the cultists stepped forward, bowing obsequiously. The human extended his hands. One held an imperfectly glimpsed artifact glowing with pale violet energy. The fingers of the other hand fluttered in conjuration. He spoke an incantation, and a strand of white arcane energy shot out from the artifact. It wrapped itself around the whelp, a rope of magic, and began to pull golden life energy from the small dragon. It squeaked in pain.

“No!” screamed Kirygosa, lunging forward. The man jerked on the chain, hard. Kirygosa dropped to her knees, hissing in agony.

The whelp grew. It opened its mouth and let out a small, squeaking cry as its body spasmed. Thrall could almost hear bones creaking and skin stretching as the mage drained its life energy, aging it quickly. At one point, the squeak deepened into a croak, and then into a sharp cry. One wing beat frantically; the other, still fused to its side, simply quivered.

The chromatic whelp collapsed.

The human sighed. “It almost made it to drake size,” he said thoughtfully. He stepped forward and nudged the corpse with a toe. “Better, Gahurg. Better. The Aspect blood in her does seem to render her children stronger than most, better able to withstand modification. But still, not perfect. Take it away. Dissect it, learn from it, and do even better next time.”

“As you desire, Twilight Father,” Gahurg said. Four other cultists stepped forward and began to haul the chromatic dragon away.

“What are you doing
to my children
?”

Kirygosa’s voice had begun low, deep in her chest, but it built to a furious shout. Again, heedless of the pain she must have known would come, she launched herself at the man known as the Twilight Father.

“Oh, dear one,” whispered Alexstrasza. Thrall knew she, too, now saw the marks on Kirygosa’s body where she had been bled or experimented upon. Oddly enough, the pained empathy in Alexstrasza’s voice gave Thrall hope. Better the hurt and the horror than the dull emptiness.

“I am making perfection,” said the Twilight Father, again tugging on the chain.

She winced in torment, then found her breath. “I am glad I must watch only one clutch of my eggs sacrificed to your obscenity,” Kirygosa spat. “My mate is dead. I will give you no more.”

“Ah, but you are still a daughter of Malygos,” said the Twilight Father, “and who is to say that fate—or I—might not find another mate for you, hmm?”

The scene shifted. Thrall’s eyes were still closed, the vision still playing in his mind. He could feel Alexstrasza’s hand, her fingers now winding around his, but the sensation was somehow distant, like a sound heard from far away. He knew what they would see next, and he knew that it would either destroy her, or enable her to save herself.

Either way, he would be there with her.

The place was a sanctuary. Thrall had known instantly what it needs must be, even though he had never beheld the Ruby Sanctum
with his own eyes. It bore damage from what was obviously a recent attack, but the beautiful forest, with bright meadows and softly rustling trees crisscrossed by gently meandering rivulets, was already healing itself. As the Dragonqueen’s true home, the heart of the red dragonflight, should do.

A large male dragon lay in the shade of one of the trees. He seemed awkward in his relaxation, as if he did not often permit himself to so indulge, and continued to watch the clusters of dragon eggs through half-closed eyes.

Her gasp was pure, raw, filled with longing and pain.

“Korialstrasz,” whispered the Life-Binder. “Oh, my love… Thrall, must I see this?”

So distraught was she that she did not command or order, merely pleaded brokenly. For whatever reason—despair or hope, he did not know—the great Life-Binder, Alexstrasza, had seemingly placed herself firmly in Thrall’s hands.

“Yes, my lady,” he said, making his deep voice as gentle as possible. “Endure but a moment, and all will be revealed to you.”

And then, in an instant, he was alert and on all four paws, sniffing the air, ears swiveling to catch the slightest sound. A heartbeat later Korialstrasz was airborne, moving swiftly and gracefully, eyes scanning the ground.

His eyes widened, then narrowed, and with a bellow of protective rage he folded his wings and dove. An instant later Thrall and Alexstrasza saw what Krasus had seen: several intruders of all races, uniform only in that they wore the dark maroon and black robes of the Twilight’s Hammer cult.

Korialstrasz did not breathe fire or use magic. The violators of the sanctuary were scattered among the precious eggs. Instead he dove with massive claws outstretched, plucking up and crushing the cultists as quickly and efficiently as Thrall might crush a bug. There was no screaming in terror from them; Thrall watched, angry and sickened, as they smiled while they embraced death.

The threat seemingly ended, Korialstrasz landed next to a cluster of eggs, lowering his scarlet scaly head and nuzzling them with the utmost gentleness.

One of them cracked open. An ugly ochre mist wafted up from the egg, and Krasus’s eyes widened as he recoiled from the small, deformed shape of a chromatic dragon.

“No!” screamed Alexstrasza. Thrall felt for her. It had been painful enough for the Life-Binder to watch Kirygosa’s torment. To know that the same horrible fate had been visited upon her own children—

Horrified, Korialstrasz reached out with a tentative claw to touch the tiny creature. There was a soft sound, and more and more of the eggs began to crack open. All of them hatched squeaking, malformed chromatic dragons.

And then Krasus gasped as he looked down at himself. The very tip of his foreclaw was starting to turn black. Slowly but inexorably, the contagion spread, climbing from his claws up his foreleg.

A low laughter, weak but triumphant, drew the red dragon’s attention.

“And so, all of da chil’ren become da chil’ren of da mad one, da great Deat’wing,” murmured one of the cultists. He was a troll, his skin dark blue. Korialstrasz had crushed his ribs, and blood trickled
from his mouth around his tusks, but he yet lived. “All of your p-people… will belong to him. …”

Krasus stared at his infected limb. He closed the paw tightly, into a fist, and brought it to his chest for a moment. Closing his eyes, he lowered his head.

“No,” he said quietly. “I will not permit that to happen. I will destroy myself and… and my children, rather than see them so perverted.”

The cultist laughed again, weakly. He began to cough, spitting up frothy blood tinged pink with air. “We s-still win,” he rasped.

Krasus stared at him, then suddenly remembered the precise words he had spoken. “What did you mean when you said, ‘all of the children’?” The cultist was silent, leering at him as he labored for breath. “How many were infected?
Tell me!
”

“
All
of dem!” the troll crowed triumphantly. His eyes gleamed and his smile was enormous. “
All
da eggs!
All
da sanctums! You be too late! Dey all be hatching now. You cannot stop it.”

Krasus was very still. He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, thinking.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I can.”

“All of the eggs,” whispered Alexstrasza. “All… of us…”

“It was a terrible choice,” Thrall said quietly. “He knew that it was likely that no one would ever know what had really happened. That without knowing the truth, others would deem him a traitor. That perhaps even you would believe it.”

He heard her gasp and whimper, and squeezed her hand.

“He saved us. … He never betrayed us;
he saved us…!
”

They stood in silence, eyes closed, as Korialstrasz gathered up all his energy and magic, folding in on himself. He took a deep, steadying breath, and whispered a single word:

“Beloved.”

And then it went dark.

Thrall opened his eyes. Alexstrasza’s were open as well. She stared out into nothing, all the blood drained from her face, her hand clamping down on Thrall’s so hard it hurt.

“He… he used his life energy to link the portals,” Alexstrasza whispered. “To destroy all the contaminated eggs before anyone else became infected. I couldn’t understand why there was so much verdancy that remained. … Now I know. Somehow, I understand. He brought death with
life
… to preserve other lives.”

“The Spirit of Life is telling you things it cannot show,” Thrall said quietly. “This was why I had to come. Korialstrasz was not a traitor. He was a hero. And he died well and willingly, saving not just his own flight but all the flights, with you in his heart.”

“He was the best of us,” she whispered. “He never failed me, nor anyone else. I—I have failed, and faltered, but not him. Not my Korialstrasz.” She lifted her face to Thrall’s. “I am glad I know how brave he was. I am so proud of him. But now… knowing that, how can I possibly endure without him? Can you, so short-lived, possibly understand what it is I have lost?”

Thrall thought of Aggra. “I may have only a short life span, but yes. I know of love. And I know how I would feel if I had lost my beloved as you have lost yours.”

“Then how could you continue on without this love? What is there to go on for?”

He stared at her, his mind suddenly blank. All the images, the ideas, the pat words and clichés that rose to his lips, seemed so empty and devoid of meaning. What reason, indeed, would there be for a sole survivor to continue, when one had had such a love?

And then he thought of it.

He continued to hold the Life-Binder’s hand in his right one. With the left, he reached into his pouch and brought forth a small, seemingly humble object.

It was the acorn that the ancient had gifted him with. Desharin’s words came back to him:
Take good care of it. That acorn holds all the knowledge of its parent tree, and all the knowledge of that parent’s parent tree… and on and on, back toward the beginning of all things. You are to plant it where it seems right for it to grow.

Krasus had known it was not for him, though he had longed for it. Thrall wondered if the red dragon had guessed that, perhaps, such a thing was meant for his mate. Thrall hoped so.

The orc turned over Alexstrasza’s hand, placed the acorn in her palm, and gently closed her fingers over it.

“I told you of Dreamer’s Rest, in Feralas,” Thrall said softly. “Of the ancients who were in peril there. What I did not tell you was how truly magnificent they are. I did not tell you of their… presence. The simple power of age and wisdom pouring from them. How small and awestruck I felt surrounded by them.”

“I… have known ancients,” Alexstrasza said, her voice small. She kept her fist tightly closed over the acorn for an instant, then opened it.

It shifted in her hand, so subtly that Thrall thought it was simply rolling over the hills and valleys of her palm. Then a small crack appeared at its light brown base. The crack spread, and then a tiny green shoot, only a fraction of an inch long, extended from the tip.

Alexstrasza let out a sobbing gasp. Her other hand flew to her heart, pressing down hard on a slender chest that suddenly heaved once, twice, three times with racking, gulping sobs. She kept pressing on her heart as though it hurt her. For an instant Thrall was worried that all this was too much—that it was killing her.

And then he understood. The heart of the Life-Binder had been closed—closed against the pain that caring brought. Against the torment of losing someone dearly loved. Against the agony of compassion.

And now, like the shell of the acorn, like ice during the spring thaw, her heart was cracking open.

“I am who I am,” she whispered, still staring at the germinating acorn. “Whether in joy or in pain. I am who I am.”

Another sob racked her, and then another. Tears welled in her eyes as she grieved for her lost love, finally weeping the healing tears that had been locked inside her shuttered heart. Thrall put an arm around her shoulders, and she turned into his broad chest; she, who had once been tortured and enslaved by orcs to serve them, wept freely against him.

Her tears seemed endless, as the tears of the Life-Binder ought to be. It was more than the loss of Krasus, Thrall suspected. He sensed she wept for all the things that had fallen; for the innocent, and the guilty; for Malygos and Deathwing and for all they had harmed; for the corrupted children, who had never had a chance to truly live; for the dead and the living; for all those who had suffered and tasted the salty tang of their pain on their cheeks.

They came freely now, her weeping as natural and pure as breathing. Tears rolled down her face and dropped onto the acorn she held, onto the soil beneath where they sat.

And as the first one splashed gently down, a flower began to push its way through the crust of the soil.

Thrall looked about, disbelieving. Before his eyes, ten thousand times more swiftly than it should have happened, he saw plants appear: flowers of all shades, small shoots that stretched into saplings, thick, soft green grass. He could even hear the sound of growing things, a vibrant and joyful striving and crackling.