It seemed to Khadgar like a bowshot fired against a boat, as small and as ineffective. Yet Sargeras staggered under the blow, taking a half-step backward and dropping his huge spear. It struck the ground like a meteorite hitting the earth, and the snow rippled beneath Khadgar’s feet. He fell to one knee, but looked up at the demon lord.
When Aegwynn’s spell had struck, there was a darkness spreading. No, not a darkness, but rather a coolness, the heated bronze flesh of the titan-demon dying and being replaced with a cold, inert mass. It radiated from the center of its chest like a wildfire, leaving consumed flesh behind it.
Sargeras regarded the growing devastation with surprise, then alarm, then fear. He raised a hand to touch it, and it spread to that limb as well, leaving an inert mass of rough, black metal behind. Now Sargeras starting chanting himself, pulling together what energies he possessed to reverse the process, to staunch the flow, to put out the consuming fire. His words grew hotter and more passionate, and his unaffected skin flicked with renewed intensity. He was glowing like a sun, shouting curses as the dark coolness reached where his heart should have been.
And then there was another flash, this one as intense as the one that consumed the demon horde, centered on Sargeras himself. Khadgar looked away, looked at Aegwynn, who watched as the fire and darkness consumed her foe. The brightness of the light dimmed the day itself, and long shadows stretched out behind the mage.
And then it was over. Khadgar blinked as his eyes regained their sight. He turned back to the vale and there was the titanic Sargeras, inert as a thing made of wrought iron, the power burned out of him. Beneath his weight, the heated arctic ground started to give way, and slowly his dead form fell forward, remaining whole as it mashed into the ground. The air around them was still.
Aegwynn laughed. Khadgar looked at her, and she looked drained, both by exhaustion and by madness. She rubbed her hands and chuckled and started to walk down toward the toppled titan. Khadgar noticed that she no longer rested delicately atop the drifts, but now had to slog her way down the hill.
As she left him, the library began to return. The snow began to sublimate in thick clouds of steam, and the shadowy forms of the shelves, the upper gallery, and the chairs slowly made themselves visible.
Khadgar turned slightly, back toward where the table should have been, and everything was back to normal. The library reasserted its reality with a firm suddenness.
Khadgar let out a chill breath and rubbed his skin. Cool, but not cold. The spell had worked well enough, in generalities if not particulars. It had called the vision, but not the desired one. The question was what went wrong, and what was the best way to fix it.
The young mage reached for his scribe’s pouch, pulling from it a blank sheet of parchment and tools. He fitted a metal nub to the end of his stylus, melted some of the octopus ink in a bowl, and quickly began to note everything that happened, how he cast the initial spell, to Aegwynn sinking deeper in the snow as she walked away.
He was still working an hour later when there was a cadaverous cough at the doorway. Khadgar was so wrapped up in thought that he did not notice until Moroes coughed a second time.
Khadgar looked up, mildly irritated. There was something important he was about to write, but it was eluding him. Something that was just at the corner of his mind’s eye.
“The Magus is back,” said Moroes. “Wants you up at the observatory level.”
Khadgar looked at Moroes blankly for a moment, before the words gained purchase in his mind. “Medivh’s back?” he managed at last.
“That’s what I said,” groaned Moroes, each word given grudgingly. “You’re to fly to Stormwind with him.”
“Stormwind? Me? Why?” managed the younger mage.
“You’re the apprentice, that’s why,” scowled Moroes. “Observatory, top level. I’ve summoned the gryphons.”
Khadgar looked at his work—line upon line of neat handwriting, delving into every detail. There was something else that he was thinking about. Instead he said, “Yes. Yes. Let me gather my things up. Finish this.”
“Take your time,” said the castellan. “It’s only the Magus that wants you to fly with him to Stormwind Castle. Nothing important.” And Moroes faded back into the hallway. “Top level,” came his disembodied voice, almost as an afterthought.
Stormwind! thought Khadgar, King Llane’s castle. What would be important enough for him to have to go there? Perhaps a report of the orcs?
Khadgar looked at his writing. With the news that Medivh was back, and that they would leave soon, his thoughts were disrupted, and now his mind was on the new task. He looked at the last words he wrote on the parchment.
Aegwynn has two shadows,it said.
Khadgar shook his head. Whatever course his mind was following was gone now. He carefully blotted the excess ink to make sure it did not smear, and set the pages aside. Then he gathered his tools, and quickly headed for his quarters. He would have to change into traveling clothes if he was going gryphon-back, and would need to pack his good conjuring cloak if he was going to meet royalty.
7
Stormwind
Up until then, the greatest buildings that Khadgar had ever seen had been the Violet Citadel itself, on Cross Island outside the city of Dalaran. The majestic spires and great halls of the Kirin Tor, roofed by thick slate the color of lapis lazuli, which gave the citadel its name, had been a point of pride for Khadgar. In all his travels through Lordaeron and into Azeroth, nothing, not even Medivh’s Tower, came close to the ancient grandeur of the citadel of the Kirin Tor.
Until he came to Stormwind.
They had flown through the night, as before, and this time the young mage was convinced he had slept while guiding the gryphon through the chill night air. Whatever knowledge Medivh had placed in his mind was still operating, for he was sure with his ability to guide the winged predator with his knees, and felt quite at home. The part of his brain where the knowledge resided felt no pain this time, but rather a slight thrumming, like the mental tissue had healed over, leaving scar tissue, taking the knowledge within but still recognizing it as a separate part of him.
He woke as the sun crested the horizon behind him, and panicked momentarily, causing the great flier to bank slightly, dragging it away from following in Medivh’s wake. Ahead of him, sudden and brilliant in the morning sun, was Stormwind.
It was a citadel of gold and silver. The walls in the morning light seemed to glow with their own radiance, burnished like a chalice under a castellan’s cleaning. The roofs glittered as if crafted from silver, and for a moment Khadgar thought they were set with innumerable small gems.
The young mage blinked and shook his head. The golden walls became mere stone, though polished to a fine luster in some places, intricately carved in others. The roofs of silver were merely dark slate, and what he thought were gemstones merely collected dew rainbowing back the dawn.
And yet Khadgar was still astounded by the city’s size. As great if not greater than anything in Lordaeron, and seen from this great height, it spread out before him. He counted three full sets of walls ribboned around the central keep, and lesser barriers separating different wards. Everywhere he looked, there was more city beneath him.
Even now, in the dawn hours, there was activity. Smoke rose from morning fires, and already people were clotting in the open marketplaces and commons. Great wains were lumbered out of the main gates, loaded with farmers heading for the neat, ordered fields that spread out from the city’s walls like skirts, stretching almost to the horizon.
Khadgar could not identify half the buildings. Great towers could have been universities or granaries, as far as he could tell. A surging river cascade had been harnessed by massive waterwheels, but to what purpose he could not guess. There was a sudden flame far to his right, though whether from a foundry, a captive dragon, or some great accident was a mystery.