And there he suddenly stood: a male human. His clothing bespoke of better times but he had clearly been put through a long decline of station. He stared back at them with eyes hollow from what seemed to be a lack of sleep. The human was more haggard looking than any of the group they had found in the tavern.
Somehow, though, he kept moving.
“By Nordrassil!” blurted Broll.
The human had not only kept moving, but before the eyes of both night elves, he had also just vanished.
“A mage,” Tyrande snarled. “He is the cause, then, not a victim
…”
“I don’t know, my lady.” Broll could explain no further, but there had been something in the manner of the man’s disappearance that had felt… familiar.
The druid focused on what he had seen. The human had looked at them, then he had started to take a step…
“He walked through something… walked into something,” Broll muttered to himself. And when it had happened, the druid had sensed… what?
“Vanished, walked into or through some portal — what does it matter?” argued Tyrande, her aspect even grimmer. She quickly stepped back to the hippogryph and seized from the side of the saddle her glaive. “He may be the key to Malfurion …”
Before Broll could stop her, the high priestess darted toward the spot where the human had stood. Broll could not deny that perhaps the stranger was the culprit, as Tyrande had said, but even he knew that more caution was needed, especially if their quarry was indeed a spellcaster.
Arriving at the human’s last location, Tyrande held the glaive ready while murmuring a prayer. The light of Elune surrounded her, then spread for several yards in every direction.
But of the human, there was no sign.
Broll joined her. “Great lady, I—”
She grimaced at him. “I am not Queen Azshara. Please do not call me by such titles as ‘great’ and such—”
More moans — the fright in them so very distinct — pierced the thick mist as sharply as the light of Elune had.
“We must wake them somehow!” Broll growled. “There must be some way …”
Jai let out a warning. Suspecting that the human had reappeared, both night elves turned at the sound —
And there, obscured by the mysterious fog, several figures lurched toward them as the mist carried forth a haunting, collective moan.
Broll experienced a rising anxiety. He suddenly felt the need to run or cover. He wanted to roll into a ball and pray that the shadowy figures would not hurt him. A nervous sweat covered the druid.
What’s happening to me? he managed to ask himself. Broll was not prone to fear, but the urge to surrender was powerful. He looked to Tyrande and saw that the hand in which she held the glaive was shaking, and not due to the weapon’s weight. The high priestess’s mouth was set tight. Even Jai revealed hints of stress, the powerful hippogryph’s breathing growing more and more rapid.
Tyrande looked to the left. “They are over there, too!”
“And to our right,” Broll added. “If we look behind us, I’ll wager they’ll be there as well.”
“I will not be sent to my knees crying like some frightened child!”
Tyrande abruptly declared to the half-seen shapes. Her hands shook harder despite her words and served to fuel Broll’s own swelling anxiety.
From above the high priestess emanated a silver light that wrapped over both night elves and the hippogryph. It spread toward the shadows, illuminating the first staggering shape.
And in the moonlit glow, they beheld a thing that was rotted and decayed. It stared with blank, unseeing eyes and a face twisted in pain even in undeath — a face that Broll suddenly registered as identical to the night elf lying on the tavern floor.
But if the face was that of the sleeper, the form was not. Rather, it was the shadowy outline of a thing Broll hoped never to see again. The night elf wore in body the semblance of a demon of the Burning Legion.
As the mob closed in, a second being was revealed, bearing the tormented face of the human, but his form, too, was otherwise that of a demon.
“They’ve—” Broll muttered to himself. “They’ve returned …”
“No… it cannot be them!” Tyrande murmured. “No satyrs…
please… no satyrs …”
The two night elves remained frozen. They wanted to defend themselves, but the monstrous figures converging on them had left the pair with minds in such turmoil that their bodies were paralyzed.
At that moment a new figure stepped out right in front of the druid and his companions — the ragged human they had been chasing. He stumbled toward them, his eyes looking past.
Broll blinked his eyes, trying to adjust them, but it seemed the mist had thickened — or had his eyes gone out of focus? The fiendish forms with the faces of Auberdine’s unfortunate inhabitants were once again simply murky shapes. Suddenly, the druid had the sensation of being near to the ground… and, feeling around with his hands, discovered he was on his knees. He realized then that he had been dreaming; that the demons he had seen had existed only in his subconscious.
“By the Mother Moon!” he heard Tyrande growl, but only as a faint echo. “What—?”
The hollow-eyed human who had stepped out of nothing finally spoke through the unnatural darkness. “Don’t fall asleep again…
Don’t sleep …” he whispered. Broll felt an arm drape over his shoulder and then he and Tyrande, kneeling alongside one another, were held together weakly by the haggard human who crouched behind them.
The world faded. It did not vanish. It faded, as if it were more memory than substance.
And, in addition, it took on a deep green hue.
There was no Auberdine. Merely a landscape barely seen. Broll tried to focus his thoughts enough to comprehend where they were, but then the landscape shifted as if they were racing along it at a pace impossible for any mortal creature.
Just as suddenly, their new surroundings lost their greenish hue.
Distinct features popped up all around them. It was again night and though there was mist, it was not nearly so thick as in Auberdine.
Broll discovered he was moving. This revelation made him react by trying to control his movement when apparently he should not have done so. The druid fell forward.
The ground was hard but, fortunately, covered by some vegetation. Broll managed to land on one knee. Next to him, Tyrande had better fortune, continuing on for several steps until able to control her own actions.
It was the high priestess who first managed to speak. On legs that were clearly unsteady but able to hold her, she surveyed their surroundings. “Where — where are we? This is not Auberdine!”
It was not Auberdine and, at first glance, it was nowhere with which the druid was familiar. He shook his head, trying to better focus. Some things that had just happened were beginning to make sense… not the sense he desired, though.
“Not Auberdine …” rasped the cause of their confusion. The bedraggled human stumbled by Broll. He looked from the druid to the high priestess, his expression beseeching. “You woke me enough for that… I managed to walk …”
Rising, Broll took hold of the man by the arm. While the stranger in no physical manner reminded him of Varian Wrynn, his distress stirred the night elf’s memories of his friend. Whatever this human suffered, it was at least as terrible as Varian’s long loss of memory.
“What did you do?” Broll asked. “Did you really take us through—”
The stranger pressed against him, the eyes burning into Broll’s.
“I’m so tired! I can’t stay awake! Please don’t let me sleep—” He let out a guttural sound, then collapsed unconscious against the night elf.
Taken by surprise, Broll had to quickly adjust his hold. He gently lowered the human to the ground.