The Last Guardian

6 Aegwynn and Sargeras

Medivh was gone a week, all told, and it was a week well spent for Khadgar. He installed himself in the library, and had Moroes bring his meals there. On more than one occasion he did not even reach his quarters in the evening, rather spending the time sleeping on the great library tables themselves. Ultimately, he was searching for visions.

His own correspondence went unanswered as he plumbed the ancient tomes and grimoires on questions about time, light, and magic. His early reports had drawn quick responses from the mages of the Violet Citadel. Guzbah wanted a transcription of the epic poem of Aegwynn. Lady Delth declared that she recognized none of the titles he sent her—could he send them again, this time with the first paragraph of each, so she knew what they were? And Alonda was adamant that there had to be a fifth breed of troll, and that Khadgar had obviously not found the proper bestiaries. The young mage was delighted to leave their demands unanswered as he sought out a way of taming the visions.

The key to his incantation, it seemed, would be a simple spell of farseeing, a divination that granted sight of distant objects and far-off locations. A book of priestly magic had described it as an incantation of holy vision, yet it worked as well for Khadgar as it did for their clerics. While that priestly spell functioned over space, perhaps with modification it could function over time. Khadgar reasoned that this would normally be impossible given the flow of time in a determinant, clockwork universe.

But it seemed that within the walls of Karazhan, at least, time was an hourglass, and identifying bits of disjointed time was more likely. And once one hooked into one grain of time, it would be easier to move that grain to another.

If others had attempted this within the walls of Medivh’s Tower, there was no clue within the library, unless it was within the most heavily guarded or unreadable of the tomes located on the iron balcony. Curiously, the notes in Medivh’s own hand were uninterested in the visions, which seemed to dominate other notes from other visitors. Did Medivh keep that information in another location, or was he truly more interested in matters beyond the walls of the citadel than the activities within it?

Refitting a spell for a new activity was not as simple as changing an incantation here, altering a motion there. It required a deep and precise understanding of how divination worked, of what it revealed and how. When a hand-motion changes, or the type of incense used is deleted, the result is most likely complete failure, where the energies are dissipated harmlessly. Occasionally the energies may go wild and out of control, but usually the only result of a failed spell is a frustrated spellcaster.

In his studies, Khadgar discovered that if a spell fails in a spectacular fashion, it indicates that the failed spell is very close to the final intended spell. The magics are trying to close the gap, to make things happen, though not always with the results intended by the caster. Of course, sometimes these failed magic-users did not survive the experience.

During the process, Khadgar was afraid that Medivh would return at any time, wafting back into the library, looking for the well-read epic poem or some other bit of trivia. Would he tell his master what he was trying? And if he did, would Medivh encourage him, or forbid him from trying to find out?

After five days, Khadgar felt he had the spellmaking complete. The framework remained that of the farseeing, but it was now empowered with a random factor to allow it to reach through and search out the discontinuities that seemed to exist within the tower. These bits of misplaced time would be a little brighter, a little hotter, or simply a little odder than the immediate surroundings, and as such attract the full force of the spell itself.

The spell, if it functioned, should in addition tune in the vision better. This would collect the sounds at the other end and remove the distortion, concentrating them in the same fashion as an elderly person cupping a hand to the ear to hear better. It would not work for sounds beyond the central location as well, but should clarify what individuals were saying in addition to what the caster was seeing.

The evening of the fifth day, Khadgar had completed his calculations, the neat rows and orders of power and casting laid out in a simple script. Should something go horribly wrong, at least Medivh would figure out what had happened.

Medivh, of course, kept a fully equipped pantry of spell components, including a larder of aromatic and thaumaturgic herbs, and a lapidarium of crushed semi-precious stones. Of these Khadgar chose amethyst to lay out his magical circle, in the library itself, crisscrossing it with runes of powered rose quartz. He reviewed the words of power (most of them known to the young mage before he left Dalaran) and worked through the motions (almost all of them original). Dressed in conjuration robes (more for luck than effect), he stepped within the casting circle.

Khadgar let his mind settle and become calm. This was no quickly-cast battle spell, or some offhand cantrip. Rather this was a deep and powerful spell, one that, if within the Violet Citadel, would set off the warning abjurations of other mages and bring them flying to him.

He took a deep breath, and began to cast.

Within his mind, the spell began to form, a warm, hot ball of energy. He could feel it congeal within him, as rainbow ripples moved across the surface. This was the core of the spell, usually quickly dispatched to alter the real world as its caster saw fit.

Khadgar fitted the sphere with the attributes he desired, to seek out the bits of time that seemed to haunt the tower, sort through them, and bring together a single vision, one that he could witness spread before him. The ideas seemed to sink with the imaginary sphere in his mind, and in return the sphere seemed to hum at a higher pitch, awaiting only release and direction.

“Bring me a vision,” said the young mage. “Bring me a vision of the young Medivh.”

With the sound of an egg imploding the magic was gone from his mind, seeping into the real world to carry out his bidding. There was a rush of air, and as Khadgar looked around, the library began to transform, as it had before, the vision moving slowly into his space and time.

Only when it suddenly got colder did Khadgar realize he had called up the wrong vision.

It moved through the library suddenly, a cold draft as if someone had left a window open. The breeze went from a draft to a chill to an arctic blast, and despite his own knowledge that it was merely illusion, Khadgar shivered to his core.

The walls of the library fell away as the vision took hold with an expanse of white. The chill wind curled around the books and manuscripts and left a blanket of snow as it passed, thick and hard. Tables, shelves, and chairs were obscured and then eliminated with the swirls of thick heavy flakes.

And Khadgar was on a hillside, his feet disappearing at his knees into a bank of snow, but leaving no mark. He was a ghost within this vision.

Still, his breath frosted and curled upward as he looked around him. To his right was a copse of trees, dark evergreens loaded down by the passing snowstorm. Far to his left was a great white cliff. Khadgar thought it some chalky substance, and then realized that it was ice, as if someone had taken a frozen river and uprooted it. The ice river was as tall as some of the mountains on Dalaran, and small dark shapes moved above it. Hawks or eagles, though they would have to be of immense size if they were truly near the icy cliffs.

Ahead of him was a vale, and moving up the vale was an army.

The army melted the snow as it passed, leaving a smudged mark of black behind it like a slug’s trail. The members of the army were dressed in red, wearing great horned helms and long, high-backed black cloaks. They were hunters, for they wore all manner of weapons.

At the head of the army, its leader bore a standard, and atop the standard rode a dripping, decapitated head. Khadgar thought it some great green-scaled beast, but stopped himself when he realized it was a dragon’s head.

He had seen a skull of such a creature in the Violet Citadel, but never thought that he would see one that had recently been alive. How far back had his vision truly thrown him?

The army of giant-things were bellowing what could have been a marching song, though it could just as easily have been a string of curses or a challenging cry. The voices were muddled, as if they were at the bottom of a great well, but at least Khadgar could hear them.

As they grew closer, Khadgar realized what they were. Their ornate helmets were not helms, but rather horns that jutted from their own flesh. Their cloaks were not garments but great batlike wings that jutted from their backs. Their red-tinged armor was their own thick flesh, glowing from within and melting the snow.

They were demons, creatures from Guzbah’s lectures and Korrigan’s hidden pamphlets. Monstrous beings that exceeded even the orcs in their blood-thirst and sadism. The great, broad-bladed swords were clearly bathed in crimson, and now Khadgar could see that their bodies were spattered with gore as well.

They were here, wherever and whenever here was, and they were hunting dragons.

There was a soft, distorted sound behind him, no more than a footfall on a soft carpet. Khadgar turned, and he realized that he was not alone on the hillock overlooking the demon hunting party.

She had come up from behind him unawares, and if she saw him, she paid him no mind. Just as the demons seemed a blight incarnate on the land, so, too, did she radiate her own sense of power. This was a brilliant power that seemed to fold and intensify as she glided along atop the surface of the snow itself. She was real, but her white leather boots left only the faintest marks in the snow.

She was tall and powerful and unafraid of the abomination in the valley below. Her garb was as white and unspoiled as the snow around them, and she wore a vest made of small silver scales. A great white hooded fur cape with a lining of green silk billowed behind her, held at her throat by a large green stone which matched her eyes. She wore her blond hair simply, held in place by a silver diadem, and seemed less affected by the cold than the ghostly Khadgar.

Yet it was her eyes that held his attention—green as summer forest, green as polished jade, green as the ocean after a storm. Khadgar recognized those eyes, for he had felt the penetrating gaze of similar eyes, but from her son.

This was Aegwynn. Medivh’s mother, the powerful near-immortal mage that was so old as to become a legend.

Khadgar also realized where he must be, and this was Aegwynn’s battle against the demon hordes, a legend saved only in fragments, in the cantos of an epic poem on the library shelf.

With a pang Khadgar realized where his spell had gone wrong. Medivh had asked for that scroll before leaving, the last time Khadgar had seen him. Had the spell misfired, passing through a vision of Medivh himself most recently into the very legend that he was checking?

Aegwynn frowned as she looked down on the demonic hunting party, the single line dividing her eyebrows showing her displeasure. Her jade eyes flashed, and Khadgar could guess that a storm of power was brewing within her.

It did not take long for that anger to be released. She raised an arm, chanted a short, clipped phrase, and lightning danced from her fingertips.

This was no mere conjurer’s bolt, nor even the harshest strike of a summer thunderstorm. This was a shard of elemental lightning, arcing through the cold air and finding its ground in the surprised demonic armor. The air split down to its most basic elements as the bolt cleaved through it, and the air smelled sharp and bitter in its passing, the air thundering in to replace the space the bolt had briefly filled. Despite himself, despite knowing that he was phantom, despite knowing that this was a vision, despite all this and the fact that the noise was muted by his ghostly state, Khadgar grimaced and recoiled at the flash and metallic tolling of the mystic bolt.

The bolt struck the standard bearer, the one bearing the severed head of the great green dragon. It immolated the demon where he stood, and those around it were blasted from their feet, falling like hot coals in the snow. Some did not rise again.

But the majority of the hunting party were outside the spell’s effect, whether by accident or design. The demons, each one larger than ten men, recoiled in shock, but that lasted only a moment. The largest of them bellowed something in a language that sounded like broken metal bells, and half of the demons took wing, charging Aegwynn’s (and Khadgar’s) position. The other half pulled out heavy bows of black oak and iron arrows. As they fired the arrows, they ignited, and a rain of fire descended upon them.

Aegwynn did not flinch, but merely raised a hand in a sweeping motion. The entire sky between her and the fiery rain erupted in a wall of bluish flame, which swallowed the orange-red bolts as if they had simply fallen into a river.

Yet the bolts were merely to provide cover for the attackers, who burst through the blue wall of fire as it dissipated and dropped on Aegwynn from above. There had to be at least twenty of them, each a giant, darkening the skies with their huge wings.

Khadgar looked at Aegwynn and saw that she was smiling. It was a knowing, self-confident smile, and one that the young mage had seen on Medivh’s face, when they had fought the orcs. She was more than confident.

Khadgar looked down the valley to where the archers had been. They had abandoned their useless missiles but now were gathered together, chanting in a low, buzzing tone. The air warped around them, and a hole appeared in reality, a dark malignancy against the pristine white. And from that hole dropped more demons—creatures of every description, with the heads of animals, with flaming eyes, with wings of bats and insects and great scavenging birds. These demons joined the choir and the rift opened farther, sucking more and more of the spawn of the Twisting Nether into the cold northern air.

Aegwynn paid the chanters and reinforcements no mind, but rather coolly concentrated on those dropping on her from above.

She passed her hand, palm up. Half of those that flew were turned to glass, and all of them were knocked from the sky. Those that had been turned to crystal shattered where they struck with discordant chords. Those that were still living landed with a heavy thump, and rose again, their ichor-splattered weapons drawn. There were ten left.

Aegwynn placed her left fist against her upright right palm, and four of the survivors melted, their ruddy flesh melting off the bones as they slumped into the snow banks. They screamed until their decaying throats filled with their own desiccated flesh. There were six left.

Aegwynn clutched at the air and three more demons exploded as their interiors turned into insects and ripped them from the inside out. They didn’t even have time to scream as their forms were replaced by swarms of gnats, bees, and wasps, which boiled out toward the forests. There were three left.

Aegwynn pulled her hands apart and a demon had its arms and legs ripped from its torso by invisible hands. Two left. Aegwynn raised two fingers and a demon turned to sand, its dying curse lost on the chill breeze.

One left. It was the largest, the leader, the bellower of orders. At close range Khadgar could see that its bare chest was a pattern of scars, and one eye socket was empty. The other burned with hate.

It did not attack. Neither did Aegwynn. Instead they stopped, frozen for a moment, while the valley beneath them filled with demons.

Finally the great behemoth of a demon snarled. His voice was clear but distant to Khadgar’s ears.

“You are a fool, Guardian of Tirisfal,” it said, wrapping its lips around the uncomfortable human language.

Aegwynn let out a laugh, as sharp and as thin as a glass dagger. “Am I, foulspawn? I came here to spoil your dragon hunt. It seems that I have succeeded.”

“You are an overconfident fool,” slurred the demon. “While you have been fighting only a few, my brothers in sorcery have brought in others. A legion of others. Every incubus and petty demon, every nightmare and shadow-hound, every dark lord and captain of the Burning Legion. All have come here while you have fought these few.”

“I know,” said Aegwynn, calmly.

“You know?” bellowed the demon with a throaty laugh. “You know that you are alone in the wilderness, with every demon raised against you. You know?”

“I know,” said Aegwynn, and there was smile in the voice. “I know you would bring as many of your allies as possible. A Guardian would be too great a target for you to resist.”

“You know?” shouted the demon again. “And you came anyway, alone, to this forsaken place?”

“I know,” said Aegwynn. “But I never said I was alone.”

Aegwynn snapped her fingers and the sky suddenly darkened, as if a great flock of birds had been disturbed, and blocked the sun.

Except they were not birds. They were dragons. More dragons than Khadgar even imagined existing. They hovered in place on their great wings, waiting for the Guardian’s signal.

“Foulspawn of the Burning Legion,” said Aegwynn. “It is you that are the fool.”

The demonic leader let out a cry and raised its blood-spattered sword. Aegwynn was too quick for it, and raised a hand, three fingers outstretched. The foulspawn’s scar-ridden chest evaporated, leaving only a cloud of bloody motes. His brawny arms fell away to each side, its abandoned legs folded and it collapsed, and its head, registering nothing so much as a look of shocked surprise, fell into the melting snow and was lost.

That was the signal for the dragons, for as one they turned on the collected horde of summoned demons. The great flying creatures swooped down from all sides, and flame sprung from their open maws. The front rows of demons were immolated, reduced to no more than ash in an instant, while others struggled to pull out their weapons, to ready their own spells, to flee the field.

In the center of the army, a chant went up, this one an intense pleading, and a passionate cry. These were the most powerful of the demonic spellcasters, who concentrated their energies as those at the borders fought off the dragons at deadly cost.

The demons regrouped and retaliated, and dragons now began to fall from the sky, their bodies riddled by iron arrows and flaming bolt, by sorcerous poisons and by maddening visions. Still, the circle around the center of the demons shrank as more and more of the dragons took their revenge against the demons for the hunt, and the cries in the center became more desperate and indistinct.

Khadgar looked at Aegwynn, and she was standing stock-still in the snow, her fists clenched, her green eyes blazing with power, her teeth locked in a hideous grin. She was chanting, too, something dark and inhuman and beyond even Khadgar’s ability to recognize. She was fighting the spell the demons had constructed, but she was pulling energy from it as well, bending mystic force contained within back on itself, like layers of steel in a sword’s blade are folded back on themselves to make the blade stronger and more potent.

The cries of the demons in the center reached a fever pitch, and now Aegwynn was shouting herself, a nimbus of energy coalesced around her. Her hair was loose and flying now, and she raised both arms and unleashed the last words of her conjuration.

And there was a flash at the center of the demonic horde, at the center where the casters chanted and screamed and prayed. It was a rip in the universe, this time a bright rip, as if a doorway into the sun itself had been opened. The energy spiraled outward, and the demons did not even have time to scream as it overtook them, burning them out and leaving the shadows of their afterimage as their only testament.

All of the demons were caught, and a few of the dragons as well who strayed too close to the center of the demonic horde. They were caught like moths in a flame and snuffed out just as surely.

Aegwynn let out a ragged breath and smiled. It was the smile of the wolf, of the predator, of the victor. Where the demonic horde had been there was now a pillar of smoke, rising to the heavens in a great cloud.

But as Khadgar watched, the cloud flattened and gathered in on itself, growing darker and more intense, like the anvil of a thunderhead. Yet in redoubling itself, it grew stronger, and its heart grew blacker, verging on shades of purple and ebony.

And from out of the darkened cloud Khadgar saw a god emerge.

It was a titanic figure, larger than any giant of myth, greater than any dragon. Its skin looked like it was cast in bronze, and it wore black armor made of molten obsidian. Its great beard and wild hair were made of living flames, and huge horns jutted from above its dark brow. Its eyes were the color of the Infinite Abyss. It strode out of the dark cloud, and the earth shook where its feet fell. It carried a huge spear engraved with runes that dripped burning blood, and it had a long tail ending in a fireball.

What dragons were left fled the field, heading for the dark forest and the distant cliffs. Khadgar could not blame them. As much power as Medivh held within him, as much great power that his mother now showed, it was like two small candles compared to the raw power of this lord of the demons.

“Sargeras,” hissed Aegwynn.

“Guardian,” thundered the great demon, in a voice as deep as the ocean itself. In the distance, the ice cliffs collapsed rather than echo this hellish voice.

The Guardian pulled herself up to her full height, brushed back a stray blond hair, and said, “I have broken your toys. You are finished here. Flee while you still have your life.”

Khadgar looked at the Guardian as if she had lost her mind. Even to his eyes she was exhausted from her experience, almost as empty as Khadgar had been against the orcs. Surely this titanic demon could see through the ruse. The epic poem spoke of Aegwynn’s victory. Was he about to witness her death, instead?

Sargeras did not laugh, but his voice rolled across the land, pressing down on Khadgar nonetheless. “The time of Tirisfal is about to end,” said the demon. “This world will soon bow before the onslaught of the Legion.”

“Not as long as there is a Guardian,” said Aegwynn. “Not as long as I live, or those who come after me.” Her fingers curled slightly, and Khadgar could see that she was summoning power within herself, gathering her wits, her will, and her energy into one great assault. Despite himself, Khadgar took a step back, then another, then a third. If his elder self could see him in the vision, if young Medivh could see him, could not these two great powers, mage and monster, see him as well?

Or was he too small to notice, perhaps?

“Surrender now,” said Sargeras. “I have use of your power.”

“No,” said Aegwynn, her hands in tight balls.

“Then die, Guardian, and let your world die with you,” said the titanic demon, and raised his bleeding rune-spear.

Aegwynn raised both hands, and unleashed a shout, half-curse and half-prayer. A flaming rainbow of colors unseen on this world erupted from her palms, snaking upward like a sentient strike of lightning. It struck like a dagger thrust in the center of Sargeras’s chest.

It seemed to Khadgar like a bowshot fired against a boat, as small and as ineffective. Yet Sargeras staggered under the blow, taking a half-step backward and dropping his huge spear. It struck the ground like a meteorite hitting the earth, and the snow rippled beneath Khadgar’s feet. He fell to one knee, but looked up at the demon lord.

When Aegwynn’s spell had struck, there was a darkness spreading. No, not a darkness, but rather a coolness, the heated bronze flesh of the titan-demon dying and being replaced with a cold, inert mass. It radiated from the center of its chest like a wildfire, leaving consumed flesh behind it.

Sargeras regarded the growing devastation with surprise, then alarm, then fear. He raised a hand to touch it, and it spread to that limb as well, leaving an inert mass of rough, black metal behind. Now Sargeras starting chanting himself, pulling together what energies he possessed to reverse the process, to staunch the flow, to put out the consuming fire. His words grew hotter and more passionate, and his unaffected skin flicked with renewed intensity. He was glowing like a sun, shouting curses as the dark coolness reached where his heart should have been.

And then there was another flash, this one as intense as the one that consumed the demon horde, centered on Sargeras himself. Khadgar looked away, looked at Aegwynn, who watched as the fire and darkness consumed her foe. The brightness of the light dimmed the day itself, and long shadows stretched out behind the mage.

And then it was over. Khadgar blinked as his eyes regained their sight. He turned back to the vale and there was the titanic Sargeras, inert as a thing made of wrought iron, the power burned out of him. Beneath his weight, the heated arctic ground started to give way, and slowly his dead form fell forward, remaining whole as it mashed into the ground. The air around them was still.

Aegwynn laughed. Khadgar looked at her, and she looked drained, both by exhaustion and by madness. She rubbed her hands and chuckled and started to walk down toward the toppled titan. Khadgar noticed that she no longer rested delicately atop the drifts, but now had to slog her way down the hill.

As she left him, the library began to return. The snow began to sublimate in thick clouds of steam, and the shadowy forms of the shelves, the upper gallery, and the chairs slowly made themselves visible.

Khadgar turned slightly, back toward where the table should have been, and everything was back to normal. The library reasserted its reality with a firm suddenness.

Khadgar let out a chill breath and rubbed his skin. Cool, but not cold. The spell had worked well enough, in generalities if not particulars. It had called the vision, but not the desired one. The question was what went wrong, and what was the best way to fix it.

The young mage reached for his scribe’s pouch, pulling from it a blank sheet of parchment and tools. He fitted a metal nub to the end of his stylus, melted some of the octopus ink in a bowl, and quickly began to note everything that happened, how he cast the initial spell, to Aegwynn sinking deeper in the snow as she walked away.

He was still working an hour later when there was a cadaverous cough at the doorway. Khadgar was so wrapped up in thought that he did not notice until Moroes coughed a second time.

Khadgar looked up, mildly irritated. There was something important he was about to write, but it was eluding him. Something that was just at the corner of his mind’s eye.

“The Magus is back,” said Moroes. “Wants you up at the observatory level.”

Khadgar looked at Moroes blankly for a moment, before the words gained purchase in his mind. “Medivh’s back?” he managed at last.

“That’s what I said,” groaned Moroes, each word given grudgingly. “You’re to fly to Stormwind with him.”

“Stormwind? Me? Why?” managed the younger mage.

“You’re the apprentice, that’s why,” scowled Moroes. “Observatory, top level. I’ve summoned the gryphons.”

Khadgar looked at his work—line upon line of neat handwriting, delving into every detail. There was something else that he was thinking about. Instead he said, “Yes. Yes. Let me gather my things up. Finish this.”

“Take your time,” said the castellan. “It’s only the Magus that wants you to fly with him to Stormwind Castle. Nothing important.” And Moroes faded back into the hallway. “Top level,” came his disembodied voice, almost as an afterthought.

Stormwind! thought Khadgar, King Llane’s castle. What would be important enough for him to have to go there? Perhaps a report of the orcs?

Khadgar looked at his writing. With the news that Medivh was back, and that they would leave soon, his thoughts were disrupted, and now his mind was on the new task. He looked at the last words he wrote on the parchment.

Aegwynn has two shadows,it said.

Khadgar shook his head. Whatever course his mind was following was gone now. He carefully blotted the excess ink to make sure it did not smear, and set the pages aside. Then he gathered his tools, and quickly headed for his quarters. He would have to change into traveling clothes if he was going gryphon-back, and would need to pack his good conjuring cloak if he was going to meet royalty.