Illidan

17

Akama watched the portal open from amid the rocks high on the slopes of the Hand of Gul’dan. He had seen many gateways, but nothing like this one. It was not just the scale that was daunting. It was the sheer power. It had devoured the souls of hundreds, sucked in all the magical energy for leagues around. He could feel the unholy strength of it even from his vantage point on the cliffs. What was Illidan up to? He had told his council that this was all a trap for his foe. Knowing the Betrayer’s hatred for Maiev, everyone had taken him at his word. Now it seemed that there were wheels within wheels, machinations within machinations. It looked as if the capture of Maiev had merely been a feint, intended to cover the unfolding of some greater scheme. Akama almost admired Illidan for it. He was capable of using even his own bitter hate as part of his plans.

Anger surged within him. The Betrayer had broken his promise to spare the lives of Akama’s people. Not only that, but he had harvested their souls. He pushed his fury down. He could ill afford such feelings, not after what had been done to his spirit.

Akama wondered whether the unholy spell that had opened the portal could even affect him. As punishment for conspiring with Maiev, Illidan had drawn part of Akama’s essence from his body. In the darkened hall of the refectory, he had subjected Akama’s soul to unspeakable sorcery and turned a portion of it into a shade. His spirit, his most sacred possession, had been turned into a weapon against him, the instrument by which Illidan bound his will and, through him, his people. At his whim, the Betrayer could unleash the shade, and it would devour Akama from within. It would corrupt the rest of Akama’s followers through the spiritual ties that bound them to him. It had not been merely his own life that was at stake, but the lives and souls of all his people.

Akama let out a long breath. The Betrayer had not believed his claim that he had been meeting Maiev merely to lure her into a trap, that he had wanted to present Illidan’s ancient enemy as a gift to him. It was a story Akama had been prepared to give from the moment he made contact with the warden. He had repeated it to himself for so long that he had believed it. He had not convinced the Betrayer. Akama had been forced to deliver Maiev into Illidan’s hands, and for that he was sorry. She had trusted him, and he had placed her into the clutches of her archenemy.

Even now Illidan stood triumphant over his former captor. He did not look as if he intended to kill her. No. He had something else in mind. He had endured much at the hands of Maiev Shadowsong. She had become a focus for his rage and his hatred and his grievances. He would not grant her a quick death.

Illidan’s great spell shrieked to a climax.

Akama felt the pain and the horror of the Broken and draenei souls as the portal spell devoured them. The split in reality gleamed like the surface of a lake on which oil had been thrown. The substance of the portal swirled and parted, and Akama caught glimpses of an alien landscape, of rocks floating in the sky and globules of solidified green energy moving through the air. It felt as if the land he was looking at was unimaginably far away. Judging by the amount of power used to open the portal, it connected to a world more distant than any Gul’dan had ever made contact with.

He tried to work out what Illidan was up to. The army that had ambushed Maiev’s force was drawing up around the gate to stand guard over it. Why? In case something comes through was the obvious answer.

Even as that thought occurred to him, a new force emerged from the portals leading back to the temple. It consisted of scores of tattooed elven fighters. The army Illidan had been training was finally going to see action.

Akama watched in fascination and horror. He sensed the power in the figures down there. They were mighty and they were touched with evil. In the light of the green gate, it was even more obvious, as if something about the portal fed whatever was in them and lent it strength.

As he watched them move en masse under the Betrayer’s gaze, the resemblance between these combatants and their master struck Akama as never before. They were all like Illidan. They might have been his children. They were certainly his creation. He had forged them from flesh into something new. The question was why.

The air around Vandel was rife with energy. It made his skin tingle and his head spin. The enormous portal ahead tempted him like food on a banquet table might tempt a starving elf. He could tell that his companions felt the same way.

The area around the gate looked as if an ancient battle had taken place. Skeletons and desiccated bodies sprawled everywhere, encased in corroded armor, rusty weapons lying near at hand. If he had not known better, he would have thought this the site of some long-ago war.

His spectral sight gave the lie to that. Here and there the wounded and the dying lay groaning. Tendrils of dark energy licked out from the portal and drew the shimmering souls from their bodies. They flew through the air, eyes wide, mouths open in horror, and disintegrated when they reached the hovering spheres. He knew without having to be told that they were being devoured by the magic here, and their energy was being used to power the spell.

He glanced over his shoulder at the portals leading back to the Black Temple. It hardly seemed possible that barely an hour ago, he had risen from his pallet in his cell and prepared for another day of practice. He had known that something was going on. For days soldiers had been marshaled in the drill grounds of the temple, and an army had made ready for war. It had looked like another one of those vast military exercises that had been so common since he had joined the ranks of the Illidari.

He had suspected it might have something to do with the groups of sorcerers who had left the temple in the previous days. Rumors had flown thick and fast. It had all seemed distant, though. For the demon hunters, there had only been the endless rounds of training, right up until the moment the horns had sounded, and Varedis had told them to assemble in the central courtyard with their weapons prepared.

He had been surprised that there were few signs of active conflict when they emerged from the portals. The army they had seen gathering over the previous few days was there, and it had fought. It had obviously suffered a number of casualties, too.

The spell opening the gateway had not distinguished between those who had fought for Illidan and those who had fought for his enemies. It had sucked the souls out of them regardless of whose side they had been on. Perhaps it would have sucked the life out of him if he had been wounded. He had most likely stumbled on the reason why he and his comrades had been deployed last. It was clear that whatever their purpose was, it had nothing to do with the battle here. Their lives were being preserved for something else.

Looking at the yawning portal, flickering and shimmering ahead of him, he knew what that purpose was. Through the gateway, as it swirled, he caught the psychic traces of fel energy and demons. It was like standing some distance from a kitchen on a windy day and catching the scent of food cooking within it. The stench of demon buffeted his nostrils. When he licked his lips, he tasted a faint residue of fel magic. The gate was the mightiest spellwork he had ever seen. His new senses let him appreciate it as he never could have before.

The part of him that had wandered the woods of Ashenvale hated it. He knew his family and neighbors would have, too. The part that had devoured demons and followed Illidan appreciated it for what it was.

He touched the amulet he had made for Khariel and checked his rune-worked weapons. He was as ready now as he was ever going to be.

Soon. Soon, whispered the voice within him that was not his own.

Illidan turned Maiev’s armored form over with the tip of his hoof. She was skilled and powerful, of that there was no doubt. Looking at the carnage she had wrought among his forces, he had almost been tempted to take a hand in the fight himself. He had feared that she might break free and escape once more into the tortured landscape of Shadowmoon Valley.

He was glad now he had decided to deploy an entire army to watch over the gate. It had proved necessary before the way was opened.

She had almost succeeded in distracting him at the crucial moment of the ritual, when he had needed all his concentration to finish the weaving of energies and bring the construction to fruition.

Almost.

No matter. Maiev was his prisoner now and she would never trouble him again. He allowed himself a smirk of satisfaction. It was a good omen, he thought. A portent of how this day would go. Whatever powers still watched over these ancient worlds looked favorably on his actions.

Do not be too confident, he told himself. We make order from chaos by the force of our wills. It is foolish to read anything more into the patterns random chance throws up. He took one last, lingering glance at Maiev and promised himself that she would suffer as he had. Ten thousand years of pain would not be too many for her to endure. She would not live for another ten millennia, so he would need to find a way to concentrate all that agony into a much shorter span. There would be time enough to consider such things later.

The portal shimmered and pulsed. Raising his hands wide, he spoke the final words of the great spell. The knots of energy tied themselves. The structure stabilized. The shimmering curtain parted, and the way to Nathreza, the homeworld of the dreadlords, was clear. A dagger of pure force sliced reality around the gate. Through it washed a torrent of fel energy. His tattoos channeled and absorbed it, filling him with ever greater power.

His satisfaction with this achievement exceeded even what he felt with Maiev’s capture. He had created a gate to a world farther away than any other reached from the surface of Outland. Gul’dan himself would have struggled to invoke it and contain its energies. This portal was the greatest feat of sorcery worked in Outland since its catastrophic creation.

An eerie green light bathed the upturned faces of his followers, making them look even more monstrous than usual. They were a weapon he had spent a long time forging. He wondered whether they would survive the first battle or shatter like a flawed blade created by a neophyte smith. They had been gifted with power, trained by masters. They had been selected from the most driven individuals with the greatest thirst for vengeance against the Burning Legion. They had survived when most others would have died.

That itself meant nothing. They could still perish in the next few hours. He could still die. His whole life could be turned into an empty cosmic joke by the whims of chance.

It was too late to worry about such things now. He would need to trust that his calculations were correct and that his schemes would work out as he had planned them.

He raised his hand into the air, flexed his wings, and soared above his troops. All gazes went from the gateway to him, just as he intended. He set himself down by the open portal, felt the tingle of magic around him, caught the scent of alien air.

He gestured for his demon hunters to follow, and then he swooped through the portal to confront his onrushing destiny.