The Last Guardian

3 Settling In

“We’ll start you off slow,” said the elder wizard from across the table. “Take stock of the library. Figure out how you are going to organize it.”

Khadgar nodded over the porridge and sausages. The bulk of the breakfast conversation was about Dalaran in general. What was popular in Dalaran and what were the fashions in Lordaeron. What they were arguing about in the halls of the Kirin Tor. Khadgar mentioned that the current philosophical question when he left was whether when you created a flame by magic, you called it into being or summoned it from some parallel existence.

Medivh huffed over his breakfast. “Fools. They wouldn’t know an alternate dimension if it came up and bit them on the….So what do you think?”

“I think…” And Khadgar, suddenly realizing he was once again on the spot. “I think that it may be something else entirely.”

“Excellent,” said Medivh, smiling. “When given a choice between two, choose the third. Of course you meant to say that when you create fire, all you are doing is concentrating the inherent nature of fire contained in the surrounding area into one location, calling it into being?”

“Oh yes,” said Khadgar, then adding, “had I thought about it. For a while. Like a few years.”

“Good,” said Medivh, dabbing at his beard with a napkin. “You’ve a quick mind and an honest appraisal of yourself. Let’s see how you do with the library. Moroes will show you the way.”

The library occupied two levels, and was situated about a third of the way up the tower itself. The staircase along this part of the tower hugged the outside edge of the citadel, leaving a large chamber two floors high. A wrought iron platform created an upper gallery on the second level. The room’s narrow windows were covered with interwoven rods of iron, reducing what natural light the room had to little more than that of a hooded torch. On the great oak tables of the first level, crystalline globes covered with a thick patina of dust glowed with a blue-gray luster.

The room itself was a disaster area. Books were scattered opened to random pages, scrolls were unspooled over chairs, and a thin layer of dusty foolscap covered everything like the leaves on the forest floor. The more ancient tomes, still chained to the bookshelves, had been unshelved, and hung from their links like prisoners in some dungeon cell.

Khadgar surveyed the damage and let out a deep sigh. “Start me off slow,” he said.

“I could have your gear packed in a hour,” said Moroes from the hallway. The servant would not enter the library proper.

Khadgar picked up a piece of parchment at his feet. One side was a demand from the Kirin Tor for the master mage to respond to their most recent missive. The other side was marked with a dark crimson smear that Khadgar assumed at first was blood but realized was nothing more than the melted wax seal.

“No,” said Khadgar, patting his small pouch of scribe tools. “It’s just more of a challenge than I first anticipated.”

“Heard that before,” said Moroes.

Khadgar turned to ask about his comment, but the servant was already gone from the doorway.

With the care of a burglar, Khadgar picked his way through the debris. It was as if a battle had erupted in the library. Spines were broken, covers were half-torn, pages were folded over upon themselves, signatures had been pulled from the bindings entirely. And this was for those books that were still mostly whole. More portfolios had been pulled from their covers, and the dust on the tables covered a layer of papers and correspondences. Some of these were open, but some were noticeably still unread, their knowledge contained beneath their wax seals.

“The Magus does not need an assistant,” muttered Khadgar, clearing a space at the end of one table and pulling out a chair. “He needs a housekeeper.” He shot a glance at the doorway to make sure that the castellan was well and truly gone.

Khadgar sat down and the chair rocked severely. He stood up again, and saw that the uneven legs had shifted off a thick tome with a metallic cover. The front cover was ornate, and the page edges clad in silver.

Khadgar opened the text, and as he did so he felt something shift within the book, like a slider moving down a metal rod or a drop of mercury moving through a glass pipe. Something metallic unwound within the spine of the tome.

The book began to tick.

Quickly Khadgar closed the cover, and the book silenced itself with a sharp whirr and a snap, its mechanism resetting. The young man delicately set the volume back on the table.

That was when he noticed the scorch marks on the chair he was using, and the floor beneath it.

“I can see why you go through so many assistants,” said Khadgar, slowly wandering through the room.

The situation did not improve. Books were hanging open over the arms of chairs and metal railings. The correspondence grew deeper as he moved farther into the room. Something had made a nest in one corner of the bookshelf, and as Khadgar pulled it from the shelf, a small shrew’s skull toppled out, crumbling when it struck the floor. The upper level was little more than storage, books not even reaching the shelves, just piled in higher stacks, foothills leading to mountains leading to unattainable peaks.

And there was one bare spot, but this one looked like someone had started a fire in a desperate attempt to reduce the amount of paper present. Khadgar examined the area and shook his head—something else burned here as well, for there were bits of fabric, probably from a scholar’s robe.

Khadgar shook his head and went back to where he had left his scribe’s tools. He spilled out a thin wooden pen with a handful of metal nibs, a stone for sharpening and shaping the nibs, a knife with a flexible blade for scraping parchment, a block of octopus ink, a small dish in which to melt the ink, a collection of thin, flat keys, a magnifying lens, and what looked at first glance like a metallic cricket.

He picked up the cricket, turned it on its back, and using a specially-fashioned pen nib, wound it up. A gift from Guzbah upon Khadgar completing his first training as a scribe, it had proved invaluable in the youth’s perambulations among the halls of the Kirin Tor. Within was contained a simple but effective spell that warned when a trap was in the offing.

As soon as he had wound it one revolution, the metallic cricket let out a high-pitched squeal. Khadgar, surprised, almost dropped the detecting insect. Then he realized that the device was merely warning about the intensity of the potential danger.

Khadgar looked at the piled volumes around him, and muttered a low curse. He retreated to the doorway, and finished winding the cricket. Then he brought the first book he had picked up, the ticking one, over to the doorway.

The cricket warbled slightly. Khadgar set the trapped book to one side of the doorway. He picked up another volume and brought it over. The cricket was silent.

Khadgar held his breath, hoped that the cricket was enchanted to handle all forms of traps, magical and otherwise, and opened the book. It was a treatise written in a soft feminine hand on the politics of the elves from three hundred years back.

Khadgar set the handwritten volume to the other side of the doorway, and went back for another book.

“I know you,” said Medivh, the next morning, over sausage and porridge.

“Khadgar, sir,” said the youth.

“The new assistant,” said the older mage. “Of course. Forgive, but the memory is not everything it once was. Too much going on, I’m afraid.”

“Anything you need aid with, sir?” asked Khadgar.

The elder man seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “The library, Young Trust. How are things in the library?”

“Good,” said Khadgar. “Very good. I’m busy sorting the books and papers.”

“Ah, by subject? Author?” asked the master mage.

Fatal and non-fatal, thought Khadgar. “I’m thinking by subject. Many are anonymous.”

“Hmmmfph,” said Medivh. “Never trust anything that a man will not set his reputation and name upon. Carry on, then. Tell me, what is opinion of the Kirin Tor mages about King Llane? Do they ever mention him?”

The work proceeded with glacial slowness, but Medivh did not seem to be aware of the time involved. Indeed, he seemed to start each morning with being mildly and pleasantly surprised that Khadgar was still with them, and after a short summary of the progress the conversation would switch into a new direction.

“Speaking of libraries,” he would say. “What is the Kirin Tor’s librarian, Korrigan, up to?”

“How do people in Lordaeron feel about elves? Have any ever been seen there, in living memory?”

“Are there any legends of bull-headed men in the halls of the Violet Citadel?”

And one morning, about week into Khadgar’s stay, Medivh was not present at all.

“Gone,” said Moroes simply when asked.

“Gone where?” asked Khadgar.

The old castellan shrugged, and Khadgar could almost hear the bones clatter within his form. “He’s not one to say.”

“What’s he doing?” pressed Khadgar.

“Not one to say.”

“When will he be back?”

“Not one to say.”

“He would leave me alone in his tower?” asked Khadgar. “Unsupervised, with all his mystic texts?”

“Could come stand guard over you,” volunteered Moroes. “If that’s what you want.”

Khadgar shook his head, but said, “Moroes?”

“Ayep, young sir?”

“These visions…” started the younger man.

“Blinders?” suggested the servant.

Khadgar shook his head again. “Do they show the future or the past?”

“Both, when I’ve noticed, but I usually don’t,” said Moroes. “Notice, that is.”

“And the ones of the future, do they come true?” said the young man.

Moroes let out what Khadgar could only assume was a deep sigh, a bone-rattling exhalation. “In my experience, yes, young sir. In one vision Cook saw me break a piece of crystal, so she hid them away. Months passed, and finally the Master asked for that piece of crystal. She removed it from its hiding place, and within two minutes I had broken it. Completely unintentionally.” He sighed again. “She got her rose quartz lenses the next day. Will there be anything else?”

Khadgar said no, but was troubled as he climbed the staircase to the library level. He had gone as far as he had dared so far in his organization, and Medivh’s sudden disappearance left him high and dry, without further direction.

The young would-be apprentice entered the library. On one side of the room were those volumes (and remains of volumes) that the cricket had determined were “safe,” while the other half of the room was filled with the (generally more complete) volumes that were noted as being trapped.

The great tables were covered with loose pages and unopened correspondence, laid out in two semiregular heaps. The shelves were entirely bare, the chains hanging empty of their prisoners.

Khadgar could sort through the papers, but better to restock the shelves with the books. But most of the volumes were untitled, or if titled, their covers so barely worn, scuffed, and torn as to be illegible. The only way to determine contents would be to open the books.

Which would set off the trapped ones. Khadgar looked at the scorched mark on the floor and shook his head.

Then he started looking, first among the trapped volumes, then among the untrapped ones, until he found what he was looking for. A book marked with the symbol of the key.

It was locked, a thick metal band holding it closed, secured by a lock. Nowhere in his searches had Khadgar come across a real key, though that did not surprise him, given the organization of the room. The binding was strong, and the cover itself was a metal plate bound in red leather.

Khadgar pulled the flat pieces of keys from his pouch, but they were all insufficient for the large lock. Finally, using the tip of his scraping knife, Khadgar managed to thread the sliver of metal through the lock, and it gave a satisfying “click” as he drove it home.

Khadgar looked at the cricket he kept on the table, and it was still silent.

Holding his breath, the young mage opened the heavy volume. The sour smell of decayed paper rose to his nostrils.

“Of Trapes and Lockes,” he said aloud, wrapping his mouth around the archaic script and over-vowelled words. “Beeing a Treateese on the Nature of Securing Devicees.”

Khadgar pulled up a chair (slightly lower as he had sawed off the three long legs to balance it) and began to read.

Medivh was gone a full two weeks, and by that time, Khadgar had claimed the library as his own. Each morning he rose for breakfast, gave Moroes a perfunctory update as to his progress (which the castellan, as well as Cook never gave any indication of curiosity about), then buried himself away within the vault. Lunch and supper were brought to him, and he often worked into the night by the soft bluish light from the glowing balls.

He adjusted to the nature of the tower as well. There were often images that hung at the corner of his eye, just a twinkling of a figure in a tattered cloak that would evaporate when he turned to look at it. A half-finished word that drifted on the air. A sudden coldness as if a door or window had been left open, or a sudden change of pressure, as if a hidden entrance had suddenly appeared. Sometimes the tower groaned in the wind, the ancient stones shifting on each other after centuries of construction.

Slowly, he learned the nature, if not the exact contents, of the books that were within the library, foiling the traps that were placed around the most valuable tomes. His research served him well in the last case. He soon became as expert at foiling spell mechanisms and weighted traps as he had been with locked doors and hidden secrets in Dalaran. The trick for most of them was to convince the locking mechanism (whether magical or mechanical in nature) that the lock had not been foiled when in reality it had been. Determining what set the particular trap off, whether it was weight, or a shifting bit of metal or even exposure to the sun or fresh air, was half the battle to defeating it.

There were books that were beyond him, whose locks foiled even his modified picks and dexterous knife. Those went to the highest level, toward the back, and Khadgar resolved to find out what was within them, either on his own or by threading the knowledge out of Medivh.

He doubted the latter, and wondered if the master mage had used the library as anything else than a dumping ground for inherited texts and old letters. Most mages of the Kirin Tor had at least some semblance of order to their archives, with their most valuable tomes hidden away. But Medivh had everything in a hodgepodge, as if he didn’t really need it.

Except as a test,thought Khadgar. A test to keep would-be apprentices at bay.

Now the books were on the shelves, the most valuable (and unreadable) ones secured with chains on the upper level, while the more common military histories, almanacs, and diaries were on the lower floor. Here were the scrolls as well, ranging from mundane listing of items bought and sold in Stormwind to recordings of epic poems. The last were particularly interesting since a few of them were about Aegwynn, Medivh’s claimed mother.

If she lived over eight hundred years, she must have been a powerful mage indeed, thought Khadgar. More information about her would likely be in the protected books in the back. So far these tomes had resisted every common entreaty and physical attempt to sidestep their locks and traps, and the detecting cricket practically mewled in horror whenever he attempted to unlock them.

Still, there was more than enough to do, with categorizing the loose pieces, reassembling those volumes which age had almost destroyed, and sorting (or at least reading) most of the correspondence. Some of the later was in elven script, and even more of it, from a variety of sources, was in some sort of cipher. The latter type came with a variety of seals upon it, from both Azeroth, Khaz Modan, and Lordaeron, as well as places that Khadgar could not locate in the atlas. A large group communicated in cipher with each other, and with Medivh himself.

There were several ancient grimoires on codes, most of them dealing with letter replacement and cant. Nothing compared to the code used in these ciphers. Perhaps they used a combination of methods to create their own.

As a result, Khadgar had the grimoires on codes, along with primers in elven and dwarven languages, open on the table the evening that Medivh suddenly returned to the tower.

Khadgar didn’t hear him as much as felt his sudden presence, the way the air changes as a storm front bears across the farmland. The young mage turned in his chair and there was Medivh, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, his robes billowing behind him of their own volition.

“Sir, I…” started Khadgar, smiling and half-rising from his chair. Then he saw that the master mage’s hair was in disarray, and his lambent green eyes were wide and angry.

“Thief!” shouted Medivh, pointing at Khadgar. “Interloper!” The elder mage pointed at the younger and began to intone a string of alien syllables, words not crafted for the human throat.

Despite himself, Khadgar raised a hand and wove a symbol of protection in the air in front of him, but he might as well have been making a rude hand gesture for all the effect it had on Medivh’s spell. A wall of solidified air slammed into the younger man, bowling over both him and the chair he sat in. The grimoires and primers went skating along the surface of the table like boats caught in a sudden squall, and the notes danced away, spinning.

Surprised, Khadgar was driven back, slammed into one of the bookshelves behind him. The shelf itself rocked from the force of the blow, and the youth was afraid it would topple, spoiling his hard work. The bookcase held its position, though the pressure on Khadgar’s chest from the force of the attack intensified.

“Who are you?” thundered Medivh. “What are you doing here?”

The young mage struggled against the weight on his chest and managed to speak, “Khadgar,” he gasped. “Assistant. Cleaning library. Your orders.” Part of his mind wondered if this was why Moroes spoke in such a shorthand fashion.

Medivh blinked at Khadgar’s words, and straightened like a man who had just been woken from a deep sleep. He twisted his hand slightly, and at once the wave of solidified air evaporated. Khadgar dropped to his knees, gasping for air.

Medivh crossed to him and helped him to his feet. “I am sorry, lad,” he began. “I had forgotten you were still here. I assumed you were a thief.”

“A thief that insisted on leaving a room neater than he found it,” said Khadgar. It hurt a little when he breathed.

“Yes,” said Medivh, looking around the room, and nodding, despite the disruption his own attack had caused. “Yes. I don’t believe anyone else had ever gotten this far before.”

“I’ve sorted by type,” said Khadgar, still bent over and grasping his knees. “Histories, including epic poems, to your right. Natural sciences on your left. Legendary material in the center, with languages and reference books. The more powerful material—alchemic notes, spell descriptions, and theory go on the balcony, along with some books I could not identify that seem fairly powerful. You’re going to have to look at those yourself.”

“Yes,” said Medivh, now ignoring the youth and scanning the room. “Excellent. An excellent job. Very good.” He looked around, seeming like a man just getting his bearings again. “Very good indeed. You’ve done well. Now come along.”

The master mage bolted for the door, pulled himself up short, then turned. “Are you coming?”

Khadgar felt as if he had been hit by another mystic bolt. “Coming? Where are we going?”

“To the top,” said Medivh curtly. “Come now or we’ll be too late. Time is of the essence!”

For an older man Medivh moved swiftly up the stairs, covering them two at a time at a brisk pace.

“What’s at the top?” gasped Khadgar, finally catching up at a landing near the top.

“Transport,” snapped Medivh, then hesitated for a moment. He turned in place and his shoulders dropped. For a moment it looked like the fire had burned out of his eyes. “I must apologize. For back there.”

“Sir?” said Khadgar, his mind now spinning with this new transformation.

“My memory is not what it once was, Young Trust,” said the Magus. “I should have remembered you were in the tower. With everything, I assumed you must have been a…”

“Sir?” interrupted Khadgar. “Time is of the essence?”

“Time,” said Medivh, then he nodded, and the intensity returned to his face. “Yes, it is. Come on, don’t lollygag!” And with that the older man was up on his feet and taking the steps two at a time.

Khadgar realized that the haunted tower and the disorganized library were not the only reason people left Medivh’s employ, and hastened after him.

The aged castellan was waiting for them in the tower observatory.

“Moroes,” thundered Medivh as he arrived at the top of the tower. “The golden whistle, if you please.”

“Ayep,” said the servant, producing a thin cylinder. Dwarven runes were carved along the cylinder’s side, reflecting in the lamplight of the room. “Already took the liberty, sir. They’re here.”

“They?” started Khadgar. There was the rustle of great wings overhead. Medivh headed for the ramparts, and Khadgar looked up.

Great birds descended from the sky, their wings luminescent in the moonlight. No, not birds, Khadgar realized—gryphons. They had the bodies of great cats, but their heads and front claws were those of sea eagles, and their wings were golden.

Medivh held out a bit and bridle. “Hitch yours up, and we’ll go.”

Khadgar eyed the great beast. The nearest gryphon let out a shrieking cry and pawed the flagstones with its clawed forelegs.

“I’ve never…” started the young man. “I don’t know…”

Medivh frowned. “Don’t they teach anything among the Kirin Tor? I don’t have time for this.” He raised a finger and muttered a few words, touching Khadgar’s forehead.

Khadgar stumbled back, shouting in surprise. The elder mage’s touch felt as if he were driving a hot iron into his brain.

Medivh said, “Now you do know. Set the bit and bridle, now.”

Khadgar touched his forehead, and let out a surprised gasp. He did know now, how to properly harness a gryphon, and to ride one as well, both with saddle and, in the dwarven style, without. He knew how to bank, how to force a hover, and most of all, how to prepare for a sudden landing.

Khadgar harnessed his gryphon, aware that his head throbbed slightly, as if the knowledge now within had to jostle that already within his skull to make room.

“Ready? Follow!” said Medivh, not asking for a response.

The pair launched themselves into the air, the great beasts straining and beating the air to allow them to rise. The great creatures could take armored dwarves aloft, but a human in robes approached their limits.

Khadgar expertly banked his swooping gryphon and followed Medivh as the elder mage swooped down over the dark treetops. The pain in his head spread from the point where Medivh had touched him, and now his forehead felt heavy and his thoughts muzzy. Still, he concentrated and matched the master mage’s motions exactly, as if he had been flying gryphons all his life.

The younger mage tried to catch up with Medivh, to ask where they were going, and what their goal was, but he could not overtake him. Even if he had, Khadgar realized, the rushing wind would drown out all but the greatest shouts. So he followed as the mountains loomed above them, as they winged eastward.

How long they flew Khadgar could not say, He may have dozed fitfully on gryphon-back, but hands held the reins firm, and the gryphon kept pace with its brother-creature. Only when Medivh suddenly jinked his gryphon to the right did Khadgar shake himself out of his slumber (if slumber it was) and followed the master mage as his course turned south. Khadgar’s headache, the likely product of the spell, had almost completely dissipated, leaving only a ragged ache as a reminder.

They had cleared the mountain range and Khadgar now realized they were flying over open land. Beneath them the moonlight was shattered and reflected in myriad pools. A large marsh or swamp, Khadgar thought. It had to be early in the morning now, the horizon on their right just starting to lighten with the eventual promise of day.

Medivh dropped low and raised both hands over his head. Incanting from gryphon-back, Khadgar realized, and though his mind assured him that he knew how to do this, steering the great beast with his knees, he felt in his heart that he could never be comfortable in such a maneuver.

The creatures dropped farther, and Medivh was suddenly bathed in a ball of light, both limning him clearly and catching Khadgar’s gryphon as a trailing shadow. Beneath them, the young mage saw an armed encampment on a low rise that jutted from the surrounding swamp. They passed low over the camp, and beneath him Khadgar could hear shouts and the clatter of armor and weapons being hastily grabbed. What was Medivh doing?

They passed over the encampment, and Medivh pulled into a high, banking turn, Khadgar following him move for move. They returned over the camp, and it was brighter now—the campfires that had previously been banked were now fed fresh fuel, and blazed in the night. Khadgar saw it was a large patrol, perhaps even a company. The commander’s tent was large and ornate, and Khadgar recognized the banner of Azeroth flapping overhead.

Allies, then, for Medivh was supposedly closely connected to both King Llane of Azeroth and Lothar, the kingdom’s Knight Champion. Khadgar expected Medivh to land, but instead the mage kicked the sides of his mount, pulling the gryphon’s head up. The beast’s great wings beat the dark air and they climbed again, this time rocketing north. Khadgar had no choice but to follow, as Medivh’s light dimmed and the master mage took the reins again.

Over the marshlands again, and Khadgar saw a thin ribbon beneath, too straight for a river, too wide for an irrigation ditch. A road, then, plowed through the swamp, connecting bits of dry land that rose out of the fen.

Then the land rose to another ridge, another dry spot, and another encampment. There were also flames in this encampment, but they were not the bright, contained ones of the army’s forces. These were scattered throughout the clearing, and as they neared, Khadgar realized they were wagons set alight, their contents strewn out among the dark human forms that were tossed like children’s dolls on the sandy ground of the campsite.

As before, Medivh passed over the campsite, then wheeled high in the air, banking to make a return pass. Khadgar followed, the young mage himself leaning over the side of his mount to get a better look. It looked like a caravan that had been looted and set ablaze, but the goods themselves were scattered on the ground. Wouldn’t bandits take the booty and the wagons? Were there any survivors?

The answer to the last question came with a shout and a volley of arrows that arched up from the brush surrounding the site.

The lead gryphon let out a shriek as Medivh effortlessly pulled back on the reins, banking the creature clear of the flight of arrows. Khadgar attempted the same maneuver, the warm, false, comforting memory in his head telling him that this was the correct way to turn. But unlike Medivh, Khadgar was riding too far forward on his mount, and he had insufficient pull on his reins.

The gryphon banked, but not enough to avoid all the arrows. A barbed arrow pierced the feathers of the right wing, and the great beast let out a bleating scream, jerking in flight and desperately attempting to beat its wings to get above the arrows.

Khadgar was off-balance, and was unable to compensate. In a heartbeat his hands slipped loose of the reins, and his knees slipped up from the sides of the gryphon. No longer under tight control, the gryphon bucked, throwing Khadgar entirely free of its back.

Khadgar lashed out to grab the reins. The leather lines whipped at his fingertips and then were gone into the night, along with his mount.

And Khadgar plummeted toward the armed darkness below.