“Forged by the magic that was the essence of every dragon, created to first fight the demons of the Burning Legion, then to trap their own magical forces within!” The hooded spellcaster stepped toward Malygos. “And used by Deathwing to betray all other dragons just when the battle was done! Used by him against his very allies—”
“Cease this! The Demon Soul is lost, lost, lost, and the dark one is dead, slain by human and elven wizards!”
“Is he?” Stepping over what remained of the two phantasms, Krasus dismissed the image of the artifact and instead brought forth another. A human, a man clad in black. A confident young noble with eyes much older than his appearance indicated.
Lord Prestor.
“This man, this mortal, would be the new king of Alterac, Alterac in the heart of the Lordaeron Alliance, Malygos. Do you not find anything familiar about him? You, especially?”
The icy creature moved closer, peering at the rotating image of the false noble. Malygos inspected Prestor carefully, cautiously . . . and with growing horror.
“This is no man!”
“Say it, Malygos. Say who you see.”
The inhuman eyes met Krasus’s own. “You know very well! It is Deathwing!” A bestial hiss escaped the grotesque being that had once worn the majestic form of a dragon.“Deathwing . . .”
“Deathwing, yes,” Krasus returned, his own tone almost emotionless. “Deathwing, who has been twice thought dead. Deathwing, who wielded the Demon Soul and forever ended any hope of a return to the Age of the Dragon. Deathwing . . . who now seeks to manipulate the younger races into doing his treacherous bidding.”
“He will have them at war with one another. . . .”
“Yes, Malygos. He will have them at war with one another until only a few survive . . . at which point Deathwing will finish those. You know what a world he desires. One in which there is only he and his selected followers. Deathwing’s purified realm . . . with no room even for those dragons not of his ilk.”
“Nooo . . .”
Malygos’s form suddenly expanded in all directions, and his skin took on a reptilian cast. The coloring of that skin changed, too, from an icy white to a dark and frosty silver-blue. His limbs thickened and his visage grew longer, more draconic. Malygos did not complete the transformation, though, stopping at a point that left him resembling a horrific parody of dragon and insect, a creature of nightmare. “I allied myself with him, and for this my flight saw ruin. I am all that is left of mine! The Demon Soul took my children, my mates. I lived only with the knowledge that he who had betrayed all had perished, and that the cursed disk had been forever expunged—”
“So did we all, Malygos.”
“But he lives! He lives!”
The dragon’s sudden rage left the cavern quivering. Icy spears lanced the snowy floor, creating further tremors that rocked Krasus.
“Yes, he lives, Malygos, he lives despite your sacrifices. . . .”
The macabre leviathan eyed him closely. “I lost much—too much! But you, you who call yourself Krasus, you who once also wore the form of dragon, you lost all, too!”
Visions of his beloved queen passed quickly through Krasus’s mind. Visions of the days when the red flight of Alexstrasza had been ascendant washed over him. . . .
He had been the second of her consorts—but the first in loyalty and love.
The wizard shook his head, clearing away painful memories. The yearning to patrol the skies once more had to be quelled. Until things changed, he had to remain human, remain Krasus—not the red dragon Korialstrasz.
“Yes . . . I lost much,” Krasus finally replied, his control returned to him. “But I hope to regain something . . . something for all of us.”
“How?”
“I would free Alexstrasza.”
Malygos roared with mad laughter. He roared long and hard, far longer than even his madness warranted. He roared in mockery of all the wizard hoped to achieve.“That would serve you well—provided you could achieve such an impossible goal! But what good does that do me? What do you offer me, little one?”
“You know what Aspect she is. You know what she may do for you.”
The laughter ceased. Malygos hesitated, clearly not wanting to believe, yet desperate to do so. “She could not—could she?”
“I believe it may be possible. I believe enough of a chance exists that it would be worth your efforts. Besides, what other future do you have?”
The draconic features intensified, and the wizard’s host swelled incredibly. Now at last a beast five, ten, twenty times the size of Krasus stood before him, nearly all vestiges of the macabre creature Malygos had first been, gone. A dragon stood before Krasus, a dragon not seen since the days before humankind.
And with his return to his original form, so, apparently, returned some of Malygos’s misgivings, for he asked the one question that Krasus had both dreaded and waited for. “The orcs. How is it that the orcs can hold her? That I have always wondered, wondered, wondered . . .”
“You know the only way they could keep her as prisoner, my friend.”
The dragon reared his gleaming silver head back and hissed. “The Demon Soul? Those insignificant creatures have the Demon Soul? That is why you flashed that foul image before me?”
“Yes, Malygos, they have the Demon Soul and although I do not think that they know fully what they wield, they know enough to keep Alexstrasza at bay . . . but that is not the worst of it.”
“And what could be worse?”
Krasus knew that he had nearly pulled the elder leviathan close enough to sanity to agree to help in rescuing the Dragonqueen, but that what he told Malygos next might put to ruination those accomplishments. Nonetheless, for the sake of more than simply his beloved mistress, the dragon who masqueraded as one of the wizards of the Kirin Tor had to tell his one possible ally the truth. “I believe Deathwing now knows what I do . . . and will also not stop until the cursed disk—and Alexstrasza—are both his.”
10
For the second time in the past few days, Rhonin awoke among the trees. This time, however, the face of Vereesa did not greet him, which proved something of a disappointment. Instead, he awoke to a darkening sky and complete silence. No birds sang in the forest, no animals moved among the foliage.
A sense of foreboding touched the wizard. Slowly, cautiously, he lifted his head, glanced around. Rhonin saw trees and bushes, but nothing much more. No dragon, certainly, especially one so imposing and treacherous as—
“Aaah, you are awake at last. . . .”
Deathwing?
Rhonin looked to his left—a place he had already surveyed earlier—and watched with trepidation as a piece of the growing shadows around him detached, then coalesced into a hooded form reminiscent of someone he knew.
“Krasus?” he muttered, a moment later realizing this could not be his faceless patron. What moved before him wore the shadows with pride, lived as part of them.
No, he had been correct the first time. Deathwing. The shape might seem human, but, if dragons could possibly wear such forms, this could only be the black beast himself.
A face appeared under the hood, a man of dark, handsome, avian features. A noble face . . . at least on the surface. “You are well?”
“I’m in one piece, thank you.”