“We need to wake him up!” Tyrande declared. “You heard what he said! You saw Auberdine!”
Broll peered closely at their new companion. “We couldn’t wake him now even with both our abilities combined. He’s deep asleep.”
“He is our only clue to Malfurion!” The high priestess reached down as if to shake the human, then hesitated. Her expression suddenly calmed. “Forgive me …”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Broll looked over the man. “He wears an outfit that once saw courts, but other than that, there’s nothing I can identify.”
“He seems a most unlikely mage to me.”
The druid nodded. “That I’ll agree… and no mage could’ve done what he did.” The former gladiator snorted. “No human or dwarf and not even many night elves, for that matter… unless I’m powerfully mistaken what just happened to us.”
She frowned. “What else could it have been but magic? Odd magic, but certainly that! He took all of us—” Tyrande paused. “Not Jai …”
Broll had already considered the hippogryph. “He sleeps, my lady. Jai is part of Auberdine now.”
The high priestess looked sad. “Poor creature… so many poor creatures …” Steeling herself, she asked, “And what of this one, then? If not a magic spell, then how did he take us out of Auberdine and deposit us here?”
“There’s only one way.” Broll’s tone could not hide his own disbelief at what he was saying. “I think… I think that for perhaps a single moment… he took us into and out of the Emerald Dream.”
8
LUCAN
Something different moved near Malfurion’s enshrouded location, something both familiar… and not.
The archdruid wondered what new torture the Nightmare Lord intended now. The agony of his continual transformation still assailed him, but Malfurion had managed to keep that one part of his mind shielded off from it. He knew that his captor was aware of this and sought to break down that shield and so expected that this was to be the next effort.
Malfurion was not certain of his own ability to hold off anymore.
To do what he had done and still suffer his torments had taken so very, very much out of him. The Nightmare Lord knew well how to torture him, striking through just who and what the archdruid loved or feared the most.
The shape was huge, though not so much as the shadow of a gigantic tree that was all Malfurion knew of his foe. The new shape moved with a confidence and sinuousness that disturbed the night elf. He wished that the thick, unsettling mist surrounding his tiny prison would just for a moment disperse so that he could see the thing better and understand what new evil it brought with it.
I am here… came a voice in his head. However, it was not the Nightmare Lord, but rather the new shape. Nor was it talking to Malfurion; he simply heard it as it reached out to another.
And that other came forth. The shadow of the tree bent over Malfurion’s own twisted form, the Nightmare Lord’s branches reaching like tendrils toward the newcomer.
There was silence. Malfurion realized that his captor spoke to the shape, but unlike the latter, the Nightmare Lord kept his desires hidden from his prisoner. The night elf wondered why that was necessary.
The new shadow let out a mocking laugh. Yes… it shall be done so… what a jest it will be…
The archdruid would have frowned if he could. This was not a new torture for him — at least not directly. Rather, his tormentor had some task for this other shadow.
Understanding that brought resolve to Malfurion. He let his pain focus his powers. He was still in the Emerald Dream — or Nightmare now — and although his efforts thus far to pierce the mist and see how the realm had been changed by the evil that had swept over it had failed, perhaps… perhaps Malfurion could manage enough for something more focused.
The veil would not part. The shape continued to be nothing more than that. Still, the archdruid concentrated, using the same methods needed to peer into oneself for the meditation that preceded the dreamform leaving the body. Sensing all there was to this unsettling visitor became Malfurion’s all. He had tried this with the Nightmare Lord and failed, but if they did not expect him to try again on the newcomer…
Too curious a vermin you are!
Malfurion’s mind was struck by a mental force so great it momentarily stunned him. That had the curious effect of lessening his agony — if but for a second.
I go… the shape said to the night elf’s unheard tormentor. The archdruid managed to refocus enough to see the shape dwindle in the thick mist.
The shadow tree that was the Nightmare Lord’s presence here now twisted back to loom over Malfurion. Too much spirit still, but not for long… so much effort costs, does it not? How fares your mortal cloak, my friend?
The night elf understood immediately. He felt the weakness that originated not from his dreamform but his actual body increase.
His attempt to learn more had cost him valuable power.
The shadow branches draped over his eyes, almost as if they desired to pluck them out. Yet Malfurion was aware that his eyes were perhaps the safest part of his dreamform. The evil that held him wanted him to see, even if there was nothing to see… or perhaps because there was nothing.
You wish to see? Why you only had to ask, my friend… it is the least I can do for one who gives so much to our desires…
The branches stretched forward, separating into two sets that in turn acted as monstrous hands that pushed away the mist…
revealing for the first time what the emerald realm had become.
Malfurion would have screamed if he could, albeit not because of pain.
The branches receded. The mist closed about the trapped archdruid once more.
The mocking voice filled his head. The glee in it was like daggers that constantly thrust at the night elf’s mind. And we are indebted to you for so much of this, Malfurion Stormrage… so much…
The shadow tree vanished. The voice stilled. For the moment Malfurion was being left to dwell on the horror that he had seen. It was but the latest torture designed to break that part of him that had not yet surrendered.
But what his captor did not know was that the night elf had also learned something that he desired to know. Two significant things, in fact. One was the identity of the Nightmare Lord’s servant. The answer should have been obvious, but due to Malfurion’s constant suffering, it had taken the creature’s own abrupt anger to reveal him.
A green dragon indeed served the evil… but not just any green dragon… He prayed that Ysera knew, lest she be caught by surprise. If the mistress of the Emerald Dream was captured, then all was truly lost.
And the second thing, which had come with the unveiling of Malfurion’s true surroundings, served to verify a choice that the archdruid had made long ago.
If there was a chance at all of him saving Ysera and the Emerald Dream, then Malfurion would have to die.
Despite what they had seen, despite what that potentially meant for them, Tyrande and Broll knew that they also had to sleep. The shocking struggle in Auberdine had taken more out of them than they had realized.
They had no idea as to where they were in conjunction to either Auberdine or Ashenvale, but the druid had told her that he thought that they were closer to their goal. Unfortunately, she was now without Jai, which meant that they could not fly. As powerful as Broll’s storm crow form was, it could not carry her and their intriguing companion.
Tyrande continued to study the slumbering human. He appeared a harmless figure and she sensed no overwhelming magical presence around him, even though, as not only high priestess of Elune but one who had through the centuries studied the various magics, she should have noticed something. There was that about him that bespoke of some kind of magic, but it was very subtle, almost as if an inherent part of his most basic being and not enhanced by any study of the mystical arts.