The Last Guardian

15 Beneath Karazhan

The discussion at Stormwind Castle had not gone well, and now they were circling Medivh’s Tower on gryphon-back. Beneath them, in the gathering dusk, Karazhan loomed large and empty. No lights shone from any of its windows, and the observatory atop the structure was dark. Beneath a now-moonless sky, even the pale stones of the tower were dark and brooding.

There had been a heated discussion in the King’s Privy Quarters the previous evening. Khadgar and Garona were there, although the half-orc was asked to surrender her knife to Lothar in the presence of His Majesty. The King’s Champion was there as well, and a gaggle of advisors and courtiers all hovering around King Llane. Khadgar could not smell a single spellcaster in the group, and surmised that any that had survived Medivh’s poaching were either on the battlefield or squirreled away for safekeeping.

As for the King himself, the young man from the early visions had grown up. He had the broad shoulders and sharp features of his youth, only now starting to surrender to middle age. Of all present, he was resplendent, and his blue robes shone among the others. He kept an open-faced helm to one side of his seat, a great helm with white wings, as if he expected to be called onto the battlefield at any moment.

Khadgar wondered if such a call was not exactly what Llane desired, remembering the headstrong youth of the troll-vision. A direct conflict on an open and level field, with his forces’ eventual triumph never in doubt. He wondered how much of the assuredness derived from the faith in the Magus’s eventual support. Indeed, it seemed that one led naturally to the other—that the Magus will always support Stormwind, and Stormwind will always hold as a result of the Magus’s support.

The healers had tended to Garona’s split lip, but could do nothing for her temper. Several times Khadgar winced as she bluntly described the orcish opinions of the master mage’s sanity, of the paleskins in general, and Llane’s troops in particular.

“The orcs are relentless,” she said. “And they will not let up. They will be back.”

“They did not get within bowshot of the walls,” countered Llane. To Khadgar, his majesty seemed more amused than alarmed by Garona’s direct manner and blunt warnings.

“They did not get within bowshot of the walls,” repeated Garona. “This time. Next time they will. And the time after that they will get over the walls. I don’t think you are taking the orcs sufficiently seriously, sire.”

“I assure you, I take this very seriously,” said Llane. “But I am also aware of the strengths of Stormwind. Of its walls, of its armies, of its allies, and of its heart. Perhaps if you saw them, you too would be less confident in the power of the orcs.”

Llane was similarly adamant about the Magus as well. Khadgar laid everything out before the privy council, with assurances and additions from Garona. The visions of the past, the erratic behavior, the visions that were not visions at all but rather true demonstrations of Sargeras’s presence in Karazhan. Of Medivh’s culpability in the present assault on Azeroth.

“If I had a silver groat for every man who has told me that Medivh is mad, I would be richer than I am today,” said Llane. “He has a plan, young sir. It’s as simple as that. More times than I can count he has gone off on some mad dash or another, and Lothar here had worried his beard to tatters. And each time he’s proved to be right. The last time he was here did he not hare off to hunt a demon, and bring it back within a few hours? Hardly the action of one demon-possessed to decapitate one of his own.”

“But it might be the action of one who was trying to maintain his own innocence,” put in Garona. “No one saw him kill this demon, in the heart of your city. Could he not have summoned it up, then killed and provided it as the one responsible?”

“Supposition,” grumbled the king. “No. With respect to both of you, I do not deny that you saw what you saw. Not even these ‘visions’ of the past. But I think the Magus is crazy like a fox, and all this is part of some larger plan of his. He always speaks of larger plans and greater cycles.”

“With all due respect,” said Khadgar. “The Magus may have a larger plan, but the question is, does Stormwind and Azeroth truly have a place within that plan?”

So went most of the evening. King Llane was adamant on all points—that Azeroth could, with their allies, destroy or drive back the orc hordes to its home world, that Medivh was working on some plan that no one else could understand, and that Stormwind could withstand any assault “as long as men with stout hearts were manning the walls and the throne.”

Lothar for his part was mostly silent, only breaking in to ask a relevant question, then shaking his head when Khadgar or Garona gave him a truthful answer. Finally, he spoke up.

“Llane, don’t let your security blind you!” he said. “If we cannot count on Magus Medivh as an ally, we are weakened. If we discount the capabilities of the orcs, we are lost. Listen to what they are saying!”

“I am listening,” said the King. “But I hear not only with my head but with my heart. We spent many years with young Medivh, both before and during his long sleep. He remembers his friends. And once he reveals his thinking, I’m sure even you will appreciate what a friend we have in the Magus.”

At last the King rose and dismissed all, promising to take the matters under proper consideration. Garona was muttering under her breath, and Lothar gave them rooms without windows and with guards on the doors, just to be sure.

Khadgar tried to sleep, but the frustration kept him pacing the floor for most of the night. Finally, when exhaustion had finally claimed him, there was a sound pounding on the door.

It was Lothar, in full armor, with a uniform draped over his arm. “Sleep like the dead, will you?” he said, holding out the livery with a smile. “Put this on and meet us at the top of the tower in fifteen minutes. And hurry, lad.”

Khadgar struggled into the gear, which included trousers, heavy boots, blue livery marked with the lion of Azeroth, and heavy-bladed sword. He thought twice about the sword, but slung it onto his back. It might prove useful.

There were no less than six gryphons clustered on the towers, rustling their great wings in agitation. Lothar was there, and Garona as well. She was similarly dressed to Khadgar, with the blue tabard marked with the lion of Azeroth, and a heavy sword.

“Don’t,” she growled at him, “say a word.”

“You look very good in it,” he said. “It goes with your eyes.”

Garona snorted. “Lothar said the same thing. He tried to convince me by saying that you were wearing the outfit, too.And that he wanted to make sure that none of the others shot me thinking I was someone else.”

“Others?” said Khadgar, and looked around. In the morning light, it was clear that there were other flights of gryphons on other towers. Around six, including theirs, the gryphons’ wings pink with the unrisen sun. He was unaware that there were this many trained gryphons in the world, much less Stormwind. Lothar must have gone to talk to the dwarves. The air was cold and sharp as a dagger thrust.

Lothar hurried up to them, and adjusted Khadgar’s sword so he could ride gryphon-back with it.

“His Majesty,” grumbled Lothar, “has an abiding faith in the strength of the people of Azeroth and the thickness of the walls of Stormwind. It doesn’t hurt that he also has good people who take care of things when he’s wrong.”

“Like us,” said Khadgar, grimly.

“Like us,” repeated Lothar. He looked at Khadgar hard and added, “I had asked you how he was, you know.”

“Yes,” said Khadgar. “And I told you the truth, or as much of it as I understood it at the time. And I felt loyal to him.”

“I understand,” said Lothar. “And I feel loyal to him as well. I want to make sure what you say is true. But I also want you to be able to do what needs to be done, if we have to do it.”

Khadgar nodded. “You believe me, don’t you?”

Lothar nodded grimly. “Long ago, when I was your age, I was tending to Medivh. He was in his coma, then, that long sleep that denied him much of his youth. I thought it was a dream, but I swore there was another man opposite me, also watching over the Magus. He seemed to be made of burnished brass, and he had heavy horns on his brow, and his beard made of flames.”

“Sargeras,” said Khadgar.

Lothar let out a deep breath. “I thought I had fallen asleep, that it was a dream, that it could not be what I thought it was. You see, I too felt loyal to him. But I never forgot what I saw. And as the years passed I began to realize that I had seen a bit of the truth, and that it may come to this. We may yet save Medivh, but we might find that the darkness is too deeply rooted. Then we will have to do something sudden, horrible, and absolutely necessary. The question is—Are you up to it?”

Khadgar thought for a moment, then nodded. His stomach felt like ice. Lothar raised a hand. On his command, the other flights of gryphons strained aloft, springing to life as the first rays of the dawn crested the earth’s rim, the new sunlight catching their wings and turning them golden.

The chill feeling in the pit of Khadgar’s stomach did not ebb on the long flight to Karazhan. Garona rode behind him, but neither spoke as the land fled beneath their wings.

The land had changed beneath their wings. Great fields were little more than blackened wreckage, dotted by the remnants of toppled foundations. Forests were uprooted to feed the engines of war, creating huge scars in the landscape. Open pits yawned wide, the earth itself wounded and stripped to reach the metals beneath. Columns of smoke rose up along the horizon, though whether they were from battlefields or forges Khadgar could not say. They flew through the day and the sun was ebbing along the horizon now.

Karazhan rose like an ebon shadow at the center of its crater, sucking in the last dying rays of the day and giving nothing back. No lights shone from the tower nor from any of the hollow windows. The torches that flamed without consuming their source had been extinguished. Khadgar wondered if Medivh had fled.

Lothar kneed his gryphon down, and Khadgar followed, quickly setting down, and slipping from the back of the winged beast. As soon as he touched the ground, the gryphon shot aloft again, letting out a shrieking cry and heading north.

The Champion of Azeroth was already at the stairs, his huge shoulders tensed, his heavy frame moving with the quiet, agile grace of a cat, his blade drawn. Garona slunk forward as well, her hand dipping into her tabbard and coming up with her long-bladed dagger. The heavy blade from Stormwind clattered against Khadgar’s hip, and he felt like a clumsy creature of stone compared to the other two. Behind him, more gryphons landed and discharged their warriors.

The observatory parapet was empty, and the upper level of the master mage’s study deserted but not empty. There were still tools scattered about, and the smashed remnants of the golden device, an astrolabe, rested on the mantel. So if the tower was truly abandoned, it was done quickly.

Or it had not been abandoned at all.

Torches were fired and the party descended the myriad stairs, with Lothar, Garona, and Khadgar in the lead. Once these walls were familiar, were home, the many stairs a daily challenge. Now, the wall-mounted torches, with their cool, frozen flame, had been extinguished, and the moving torches of the invaders cast myriad armed shadows against the wall, giving the halls an alien, almost nightmarish cast. The very walls seemed to hold menace, and Khadgar expected every darkened doorway to hold a deadly ambush.

There was nothing. The galleries were empty, the banquet halls bare, the meeting rooms as devoid of life and furnishings as ever. The guest quarters were still furnished, but unoccupied. Khadgar checked his own quarters: Nothing had changed there.

Now the torchlight cast strange shadows on the walls of the library, twisting the iron frames and turning the bookcases into battlements. The books were untouched, and even Khadgar’s most recent notes were still on the table. Had Medivh not thought enough of the library to take any of his volumes?

Tatters of paper caught Khadgar’s eye, and he crossed to the shelves containing the epic poetry. This was new. Fragments of a scroll, now smashed and torn. Khadgar picked up a large piece, read a few words, then nodded.

“What is it?” said Lothar, looking like he expected the books to come to life at any moment and attack.

“‘The Song of Aegwynn,’” said Khadgar. “An epic poem about his mother.”

Lothar grunted a note of understanding, but Khadgar wondered. Medivh had been here, after they had left. Yet only to destroy the scroll? Out of harsh memories of the Magus’s conflict with his mother? Out of revenge for Sargeras’s decisive loss to Aegwynn? Or did the act of destroying the scroll, the cipher used by the Guardians of Tirisfal, symbolize his resignation and final betrayal of the group?

Khadgar risked a simple spell—one used to divine magical presences—but came up with nothing more than the normal response when surrounded by magical tomes. If Medivh had cast a spell here, he had masked its presence sufficiently to beat anything Khadgar could manage.

Lothar noted the young mage tracing symbols into the air, and when he was done, said, “You’d best save your strength for when we find him.”

Khadgar shook his head and wondered if they were going to find the Magus.

They found Moroes, instead, at the lowest level, near the entrance to the kitchen and larder. His crumpled form was splayed in the middle of the hallway, a bloody rainbow arcing along the floor to one side. His eyes were wide and open, but his face was surprisingly composed. Not even death seemed to surprise the castellan.

Garona dodged into the kitchen, and returned a moment later. Her face was a paler shade of green, and she held something up for Khadgar to see.

A set of rose-colored lenses, smashed. Cook. Khadgar nodded.

The bodies seemed to make the troops more alert now, and they moved to the great vault-like entranceway, and out into the courtyard itself. There had been no sign of Medivh, and only a few broken clues of his passing.

“Could he have another lair?” Lothar asked. “Another place he would hide?”

“He was often gone,” said Khadgar. “Sometimes gone for days, then reappearing without warning.” Something moved along the balcony overlooking the main entrance—just a slight wavering of the air. Khadgar started and stared at the location, but it looked normal.

“Perhaps he went to the orcs, to lead them,” suggested the Champion.

Garona shook her head. “They would never accept a human leader.”

“He couldn’t vanish into thin air!” thundered Lothar. To the troops he shouted, “Form up! We’re going to head back!”

Garona ignored the Champion, then said, “He didn’t. Back into the tower.” She parted the troops like a boat cutting through a choppy sea.

She disappeared once more in the open maw of the tower. Lothar looked at Khadgar, who shrugged and followed the half-orc.

Moroes had not moved, his blood smeared across the floor in a quarter circle, away from the wall. Garona touched that wall, as if trying to feel something along it. She frowned, cursed, and slapped the wall, which gave a very solid response.

“It should be here,” she said.

“What should be?” asked Khadgar.

“A door,” said the half-orc.

“There’s never been a door here,” said Khadgar.

“There’s always been a door, probably,” said Garona. “You’ve just never seen it. Look. Moroes died here,” she stomped her foot next to the wall, “And then his body was moved, creating the smear of blood in the quarter-circle, to where we found it.”

Lothar grunted assent, and started to run his hands along the wall as well.

Khadgar looked at the apparently blank wall. He had passed it five or six times a day. There should be nothing but earth and stone on the far side. Still…

“Stand away,” the young mage said. “Let me try something.”

The Champion and half-orc stood back, and Khadgar pulled the energies together for a spell. He has used it before, on real doors and locked books, but this was the first time he tried to work it on a door he could not see. He tried to envision the door, figuring how large it would have to be to move Moroes’s body in the quarter circle, where the hinges would be, where the frame would be, and, if he wanted to keep it secure, where he would place the locks.

He envisioned the door, and flung a bit of magic into its unseen frame to unfasten those hidden locks. Half to his surprise, the wall shifted, and a seam appeared along one side. Not a lot, but enough to define the clear edges of a door that had not been there a moment before.

“Use your swords and pry it open,” snarled Lothar, and the squad surged forward. The stone door resisted their attempts for a few moments, until some mechanism within it snapped loudly and the door swung outward, nuzzling Moroes’s corpse as it did so, and revealed a stairway descending into the depths.

“He didn’t vanish into thin air,” said Garona grimly. “He stayed here, but went someplace no one else knew about.”

Khadgar looked at Moroes’s crumpled form. “Almost no one. But I wonder what else he has hidden.”

They moved down the stairs, and a sense grew within Khadgar. While the upper levels felt spookily abandoned, the depths beneath the tower had a palpable aura of immediate menace and foreboding. The rough-hewn walls and floor were moist, and in the light of the torches seemed to undulate like living flesh.

It took a moment for Khadgar to realize that as the stairs continued to spiral down, they now had reversed their direction, moving opposite to the tower above, as if this descent was a mirror of that above.

Indeed, where an empty meeting room would be within the tower, here was a dungeon bedecked with unoccupied iron chains. Where a banquet hall stood unused above the surface was a room strewn with detritus and marked with mystic circles. The air felt heavy and oppressive here, as it had in the tower in Stormwind, where Huglar and Hugarin had been slain. Here was where the demon that attacked them had been summoned.

When they reached the level that mirrored the library, they found a set of iron-shod doors. The stairs continued to spiral down into the earth, but the company was brought up short here, regarding the mystic symbols carved deeply into the wood and dabbed with brownish blood. It seemed as if the wood itself was bleeding. Two huge rings of iron hung from the wounded doors.

“This would be the library,” said Khadgar.

Lothar nodded. He had noted the similarities between the tower and this burrow as well. “See what he keeps here, if the books are all upstairs.”

Garona said, “His study is at the top of the tower, with his observatory, so if he is here, he should be at the very bottom. We should press on.”

But she was too late. As Khadgar touched the iron-shod doors, a spark leapt from his palm to the door, a signal, a magical trap. Khadgar had time to curse as the doors were flung open, back into the darkness of the library.

A kennel. Sargeras had no need for knowledge, so he turned the room over to his pets. The creatures lived within a darkness of their own making, and acrid smoke wafted out into the hallway.

There were eyes within. Eyes and flaming maws and bodies made of fire and shadow. They stalked forward, snarling.

Khadgar sketched runes in the air, pulling the energy together in his mind, to pull the doors closed again, as soldiers struggled with the great rings shut again. Neither spellcraft nor muscle could move the rings.

The beasts let out a harsh, choppy laugh, and crouched to spring.

Khadgar raised his hands to cast another spell, but Lothar batted them down.

“This is to waste your time and energy,” he said. “It is to delay us. Head down and find Medivh.”

“But they are…” started Khadgar, and the large demon-beast in the front leapt at them.

Lothar took two steps forward and brought up his blade to meet the leaping beast. As he pulled his blade upward, the runes etched deep into the metal blazed with a bright yellow light. For a half-second, Khadgar saw fear in the eyes of the demon-beast.

And then the arc of Lothar’s cut intersected with the demon-beast’s leap and the blade bit deep into the creature’s flesh. Lothar’s blade erupted from the creature’s back, and he neatly bisected the forward portion of its torso in two. The beast had only a moment to squeal in pain as the blade pulled forward through its skull, completing the arch. The smoldering wreckage of the demon-beast, weeping fire and bleeding shadow, fell at Lothar’s feet.

“Go!” thundered the Champion. “We’ll take care of this and catch up.”

Garona grabbed Khadgar, and pulled him down the stairs. Behind them, the soldiers had pulled their blades, as well, and the runes danced in brilliant flames as they drank deep of the shadows. The young mage and half-orc rounded the curve of the stairs, and behind them they heard the cries of the dying, from both human and inhuman throats.

They spiraled into the darkness, Garona holding a torch in one hand, dagger in the other. Now Khadgar noticed that the walls glowed with their own faint phosphorescence, a reddish hue like some nocturnal mushrooms deep within the forest. It was also growing warmer, and the sweat was beading along his forehead.

As they came to one of the dining halls, suddenly Khadgar’s stomach wrenched and they were somewhere else. It moved suddenly upon them, like a leading edge of a summer storm.

They were atop one of the larger towers of Stormwind, and around them the city was in flames. Pillars of smoke rose from all sides, spreading into a black blanket above that snared the sun. A similar blanket of blackness surrounded the city walls, but this was made of orcish troops. From their viewpoint Khadgar and Garona could see the armies spread out like beetles on the verdant corpse that had been Stormwind’s cropland. Now there were only siege towers and armed grunts, the colors of their banners a sickening rainbow.

The forests were gone as well, transformed into catapults that now rained fire down on the city itself. Most of the lower city was in flames, and as Khadgar watched, a section of the outer walls collapsed, and small dolls dressed in green and blue fought each other among the rubble.

“How did we get…?” started Garona.

“Vision,” said Khadgar bluntly, but he wondered if this was a random occurrence of the tower, or another delaying action by the Magus.

“I told the King. I told him, but he would not listen,” she muttered. To Khadgar she said, “This is a vision of the future, then? How do we get out of the vision?”

The young mage shook his head. “We don’t, at least for the moment. In the past these would come and go. Sometimes a good shock will break it.”

A flaming piece of debris, a fiery missile from a catapult, passed within bowshot of the tower. Khadgar could feel the heat as it fell to earth.

Garona looked around. “At least it’s just orc armies,” she said grimly.

“That’s good news?” said Khadgar, his eyes stinging as a column of smoke wafted over the tower.

“No demons in the orc armies,” noted the half-orc. “If Medivh was with them, we would see much worse as well. Maybe we convinced him to help.”

“I’m not seeing Medivh among our troops, either,” said Khadgar, forgetting who he was speaking to for the moment. “Is he dead? Did he flee?”

“How far in the future are we?” asked Garona.

Behind them, there was a rise of voices in argument. The pair turned away from the parapet and saw that they were outside one of the royal audience halls, now converted into a coordination center against the assault. A small model of the city had been laid out on the table, and toy soldiers in the shapes of men and orcs were scattered around it. There was a constant flow of reports coming in as King Llane and his advisors hunched over the table.

“Breech along the Merchant’s District Wall!”

“More fires in the lower city!”

“Large forces massing at the main gates again. It looks like spellcasters!”

Khadgar noted that none of the earlier courtiers were now present, replaced with grim-faced men in uniforms similar to their own. No sign of Lothar at the table, and Khadgar hoped he was on the front lines, carrying the battle to the foe.

Llane moved with a deft hand, as if his city was attacked on a regular basis. “Bring up the Fourth and Fifth Company to reinforce the breech. Get the militia to organize bucket brigades—take the water from the public baths. And bring up two squads of lancers to the main gate. When the orcs are about to attack, then launch a sortie against them. That will break the assault. Bring two mages over from the Goldsmith’s street; are they done there?”

“That assault has been turned,” came the report. “The mages are exhausted.”

Llane nodded and said, “Have them stand down, then, pull back for an hour. Bring the younger mages from the academy instead. Send twice as many, but tell them to be careful. Commander Borton, I want your forces on the East wall. That’s where I would hit next, if I were them.”

To each commander in turn, Llane gave an assignment. There was no argument, no discussion, no suggestions. Each warrior in turn nodded and left. In the end, all that was left was King Llane and his small model of a city that was now in flames outside his window.

The king leaned forward, resting his knuckles on the table. His face looked worn and old. He looked up and said to the empty air, “You can make your report now.”

The curtains opposite hissed against the floor as Garona stepped out. The half-orc at Khadgar’s side let out a gasp in surprise.

The future Garona was dressed in her customary black pants and black silk blouse, but wore a cloak marked with the lion’s head of Azeroth. She had a wild look in her eyes. The present Garona gripped Khadgar’s arm, and he could feel her nails dig into his arm.

“Bad news, sire,” said Garona, approaching the King’s side of the table. “The various clans are working together in this assault, unified under the Blackhand the Destroyer. None of them will betray the others until after Stormwind has fallen. Gul’dan is bringing up his warlocks by nightfall. Until then, the Blackrock clan will be trying to take the Eastern Wall.” Khadgar heard a tremor in the half-orc’s voice.

Llane let out a deep sigh, and said, “Expected and countered. We will throw this one back, just like the others. And we will hold until the reinforcements come. As long as men with stout hearts are manning the walls and the throne, Stormwind will hold.”

The future-Garona nodded, and Khadgar now saw that large tears were pooling in the corners of her eyes. “The orc leaders agree with your assessment,” she said, and her hand dipped into her black blouse.

Both Khadgar and the real Garona shouted as one as the future-Garona pulled her long-bladed dagger and shoved it upward beneath the King’s left breast. She moved with a quickness and grace and left King Llane with nothing more than a puzzled expression on his face. His eyes were wide, and for a moment he hung there, suspended on her blade.

“The orc leaders agree with your assessment,” she said again, and tears were running freely down the sides of her wide face. “And have enlisted an assassin to remove that strong heart on the throne. Someone you would let come close. Someone you would meet with alone.”

Llane, King of Azeroth, Master of Stormwind, ally of wizard and warrior, slid to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” said Garona.

“No!” shouted Garona, the present Garona, as she slipped to the floor herself. Suddenly they were back in the false dining hall. The wreckage of Stormwind was gone and the corpse of the king with it. The half-orc’s tears remained, now in the eyes of the real Garona.

“I’m going to kill him,” she said in a small voice. “I’m going to kill him. He treated me well, and listened when I talked, and I’m going to kill him. No.”

Khadgar knelt down besides her. “It’s okay. It may not be true. It may not happen. It’s a vision.”

“It’s true,” she said. “I saw it and I knew that it was true.”

Khadgar was silent for a moment, reliving his own vision of the future, beneath a red-hued sky, battling Garona’s people. He saw it and knew it was true as well. “We have to go,” he said, but Garona just shook her head. “After all this, I thought I found someplace better than the orcs. But now I know, I’m going to destroy it all.”

Khadgar looked up and down the stairs. No idea how Lothar’s men were doing with the demons, no idea what lay at the base of the underground tower. His face formed a grim line, and he took a deep breath.

And slapped Garona hard across the face.

His own palm bled from striking a tusk, but the response on Garona was immediate. Her teary eyes widened and a mask of rage hardened on her expression.

“You idiot!” she shouted, and leapt on Khadgar bearing him over backward. “You never do that! You hear me! Do that again and I’ll kill you!”

Khadgar was sprawled on his back, the half-orc on top of him. He didn’t even see her draw the dagger, but now its blade was resting against the side of his neck.

“You can’t,” he managed with a harsh smile. “I had a vision of my own future. I think its true as well. If it is, then you can’t kill me now. Same thing applies to you.”

Garona blinked and rocked back on her haunches, suddenly in control again. “So if I am going to kill the King…”

“You’re going to get out of here alive,” said Khadgar. “So am I.”

“But what if we’re wrong,” said Garona. “What if the vision is false?”

Khadgar pulled himself to his feet. “Then you die knowing that you’ll never kill the King of Azeroth.”

Garona sat for a moment, her mind working over the possibilities. At length she said, “Give me a hand up. We have to move on.”

They continued to spiral downward, through false analogs of the tower levels above. Finally they reached the level that would be the uppermost level, of Medivh’s observatory and lair. Instead the stairs spilled out on a reddish plain. It seemed to be poured out of cooling obsidian, dark, reflective puzzle pieces floating on fire beneath their feet. Khadgar instinctively jumped back, but the footing seemed solid and the heat, while sweltering, was not oppressive.

In the center of the great cave was a simple collection of iron furniture. A work bench and stool, a few chairs, a gathering of cabinets. For a moment it looked oddly familiar, then Khadgar realized that it was set up in an exact duplicate to Medivh’s tower room.

Standing among the iron furniture was the broad-shouldered form of the Magus. Khadgar strained to see something in his manner, in his bearing, that would betray him, that would reveal this figure to not be the Medivh he had come to know and trust, the older man who had shown his faith and encouraged his work. Something that would declare this to be an imposter.

There was nothing. This was the only Medivh he had ever known.

“Hello, Young Trust,” said the Magus and flames ignited along his beard as he smiled. “Hello, Emissary. I’ve been expecting you both.”