“What I do think is—”
He would never know what she thought, for they were interrupted by a sudden terrible sound—the cries of blue dragons in despair and anguish. More than a dozen dragons were emerging from the Nexus, flying and diving about erratically. One of them abruptly swerved from his fellows, heading straight for Kalecgos. Kalec leaped to his feet, blood draining from his face. Kiry stood beside him, hand to her mouth.
“Lord Kalecgos!” Narygos cried. “We are ruined! All is lost!”
“What has happened? Slow down, speak calmly, my friend!” said Kalec, although his own heart lurched within his chest at the sheer panic and terror emanating from Narygos. The other dragon was usually calm and had been one of the more open-minded blues during the tense time when Kalec and Arygos were vying for the role of Aspect. To see him so distraught alarmed Kalecgos.
“The Focusing Iris! It is gone!”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“It has been stolen!”
Kalec stared at him, sick with horror, his mind reeling. Not only was the Focusing Iris an item of immense arcane power, but it was also deeply precious to the blues. It had belonged to them for as long as anyone could remember. Like many such items, it was neither good nor evil in itself but could be turned to both benevolent and sinister purposes. And it had been used so. In the past, it had diverted the arcane energy of Azeroth and to animate a hideous creature that should never have drawn breath.
To think it was now lost to them, lost and being controlled by those who might use its power—
“This is exactly why we moved it,” Kalecgos murmured. Not two days ago, in an effort to avoid this very circumstance, Kalecgos, along with several others, had recommended moving the Focusing Iris out of the Eye of Eternity and into a secret hiding place. He recalled his argument to the blues: “Many of our secrets are already known, and more of our flight leaves each day. There will be those who will be emboldened by this. The Nexus has been violated before, and the Focusing Iris used for dark purposes. We need to keep it safe… and if much of Azeroth knows by now that the Nexus hosts this artifact, then it is certain that one day, it will again be vulnerable.”
And that day had come, but not how Kalec had anticipated. The blues had decided that a small group would bear it into the Frozen Sea, off the coast of Coldarra, where it would be safely—he had thought—ensconced in enchanted ice. It would be securely hidden, a simple chunk of frozen water that was in reality so much more.
Kalec struggled for calm. “What makes you think it’s been stolen?” Please, he thought, begging what power he did not know, please, let this be simple confusion.
“We have heard nothing from Veragos or the others, and the Focusing Iris is not where it should be.”
Some of the blues, those who had spent the most time with the artifact over the long centuries, were particularly attuned to it. Kalecgos had asked them to sense its progress. By this point, the Focusing Iris should have been on the bottom of the ocean, heavily warded, and those who had borne it there should have been back. There were other possibilities not nearly as dire, but Kalecgos was already in his dragon form and flying quickly to the Nexus, with Kirygosa and Narygos right behind him.
Because he knew—how, he did not understand—that the other possibilities were nothing but false hopes. And that two of the worst disasters to befall the blue dragonflight had happened while he had been first its Aspect and then its leader for only a few brief months.
Kalecgos landed inside the cold, cavernous interior of the Nexus to utter chaos.
Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Every line of their massive reptilian bodies screamed fear and anger. Some sat hunched and unnaturally still, and these alarmed Kalecgos even more. How few of them were left, he thought; how few had stayed, and no doubt these few wished they, too, had departed ere this doom had come upon them.
Retaining his true form, he called for silence. Only a handful obeyed. The rest continued to shout among themselves.
“How could this have happened?”
“We should have sent more; I told you we should have sent more!”
“This was a fool’s idea in the first place. Had it remained here, we could have watched it every moment!”
Kalecgos slammed his tail on the ground. “Silence!” he bellowed, the single word ringing through the chamber.
The flight ceased talking at once, all heads whipping around to regard their leader. Kalec saw in several of their expressions a faint flicker of hope that this was some kind of mistake and that he would somehow make everything right. Others fixed baleful, sullen eyes on him, clearly blaming him for what had transpired.
Once he had their full attention, Kalecgos began to speak. “Let us first determine what we know to be true, not engage in wild speculation,” he said. “The blue flight does not surrender to fears born of a fevered imagination.”
Some of them lowered their heads at that, their ears drooping slightly in shame. Others bridled. Kalec would deal with them later. He had to establish the facts.
“I sensed it first,” said Teralygos. He was one of the oldest of the blues who had chosen to stay. Once, he had sided with Kalec’s rival, Arygos. Since the revelation of Arygos’s betrayal and his subsequent death, however, Teralygos and most of the others had maintained their loyalty to Kalec, even after his Aspect abilities had been lost.
“Long have you been a guardian of our home, Teralygos, and great are the thanks all of us owe you,” Kalec said, his voice full of respect. “What did you sense?”
“The path that Veragos and the others were to take was not arrow straight,” Teralygos said. Kalec nodded. It had been decided that it would be too obvious to see several blue dragons bearing a mysterious object, flying straight for their goal. Instead, they had opted to travel in bipedal form. It was slower and more roundabout but would attract much less notice from any hostile forces. And if they were indeed attacked while on the ground, it would be the work of a blink of an eye to shift from humanoid-seeming to their true forms. Five dragons should have been more than a match for anyone who might be skulking about, thinking to ambush what appeared to be a simple caravan.
And yet…
“I knew every twist and turn of the route,” Teralygos said, continuing. “I and others—Alagosa and Banagos—we followed each step our brothers and sisters took. And until barely an hour ago, all was well.”
His voice, raspy with age, cracked on the last word. Kalec kept his gaze fastened on Teralygos but felt Kirygosa’s head brush against his shoulder in a gentle reassurance.
“What happened then?”
“Then they halted. Before this, progress had not ceased for a moment. And after a pause, they began to move again, but not west, not to the Frozen Sea… southwest, at a speed far faster than the Iris had been moving before.”
“Where was it when it stopped?”
“At the shores of the sea. Now it has traveled far to the south. And the farther it travels from me,” Teralygos said miserably, “the less I can sense it.”
Kalecgos looked at Kirygosa. “Take someone with you and go to the shoreline. Be careful. Find out what happened there.”
She nodded, spoke to Banagos and Alagosa, and a moment later all three were airborne, broad wingbeats carrying them out of the Nexus. By air, it was a short distance away. They would not be gone long.
He hoped.
“Oh no,” Kirygosa whispered. She hesitated for a moment, hovering, trying to anticipate any possible lurking threat. She sensed nothing. The enemy was long gone. Only what they had wrought remained.
She folded her wings and dropped gracefully to the ground, bending her long, sinuous neck in grief.