The rising sun spread a more benevolent glow over the awakening forests, until it it was fully daylight. A mountain crested ahead, a solitary giant among the lesser foothills and a gray smudge against the rosy hues of dawn. Something jutted upward even from this high peak. At that moment, the sun caught it, and light flashed off its windows. No, more than sunlight; there was light, blue-white and beautiful, emanating from inside the topmost chamber.
“Karazhan!” Khadgar’s exclamation was not snatched by the wind, and all his enthusiasm, wonder, and trepidation was folded into the single word. Sour-feeling as he was, even Lothar could not begrudge him the moment. This, after all, would have been Khadgar’s home, had he accepted his charge.
Lothar’s eyes narrowed as the sun continued to illuminate the scene before them. Daylight was cruel to the place. The gray stone of the famous Tower of Karazhan had cracks that were visible even from this distance, and the closer they flew, the more Lothar realized that it was in a state of considerable disrepair. Ivy grew along the walls. The gardens and pasture, necessary to feed the Guardian and those who served him in so isolated a place, were tangled and overgrown. Some of the stables were even missing part of their roofs. His lips thinned. If the tower itself was so disheveled, what would this mean for its master? Six years was a long time to be silent.
As the gryphon wheeled gently, preparing to descend, Lothar saw a single, straight-backed figure, his face a pale smudge over the flowing tabard depicting the Eye of the Kirin Tor, awaiting them at the base of the tower. Despite his trepidation, he felt the tension in his chest ease a little.
The gryphon landed gently, and a grin stretched across the soldier’s face as he slipped from its back and strode toward the awaiting figure. Tall, thin but ropy with muscle, the man’s skin and hair were both pale. Lines seamed his face, but his eyes were young, and they twinkled with pleasure as the castellan reached to embrace his old friend.
Lothar pounded the ageless figure on the back. “Moroes, you ancient beast! Look at you! Unchanged!” It was no idle compliment. Moroes had looked old to him when he was but a youth. Now, he looked much younger. Lothar realized with a wry mental shrug it was because he had aged, and Moroes had not.
“Would I could say the same for you, Anduin Lothar,” Moroes replied. “You’re an old man! What, is that gray in your hair?”
“Perhaps there is,” Lothar allowed. There certainly would be, if his fears were confirmed. The thought sobered him. He turned to look at Khadgar. The boy’s eyes were as big as two eggs set in his young face.
“Follow me, gentlemen,” Moroes said. His old-young eyes lingered on Khadgar, but he asked no questions.
“Come on,” Lothar said to Khadgar, adding, almost reluctantly, “I think you’ll like this.” To Moroes, he said, “Where is everyone?” as they stepped inside.
Sorrow flitted over those ageless features. Moroes didn’t answer the question as he replied, “Many things have changed.”
One thing that had remained the same, though, was the room they entered—the library. As high as the walls rose, so it seemed did the rows of books that encircled a winding staircase in the middle of the large chamber. They lined what felt like every inch of the curving stone walclass="underline" shelf after shelf, tome upon tome, boxes innumerable filled with scrolls, every last one of them, Lothar knew, rare and precious and most likely unique. There were so many of them that ladders had been erected connecting to a reading terrace above them—which was also filled with books. And, as if books in shelves or on a terrace were not sufficiently excessive, there were stacks of books as tall as Lothar himself scattered about the floor. The knowledge that lay within them could never be absorbed by a single person in his or her lifetime.
At least, no ordinary single person.
More striking than the almost obscene glut of priceless knowledge, though, were the veins of magic that provided light to read them by.
They flowed upward and along the shelves, bright, glowing white rivulets that seemed to burst into bloom across the ceiling high above their heads. Khadgar looked like a boy in a pastry shop, ready to devour everything, and Lothar supposed he could hardly blame him.
“These lead to the Guardian’s font?” Khadgar asked, his gaze glued to the feathery tendrils of illumination. His voice shook ever so slightly.
Moroes’s eyes widened a fraction and he threw Lothar an inquisitive look, as if to say what sort of interesting tidbit have you brought me? “Indeed,” he answered. “Karazhan was built at a point of confluence—”
“—Where ley lines meet, I know,” Khadgar breathed. He shook his head, obviously almost overwhelmed. “The power that must be locked away here… the knowledge!” He laughed, a surprisingly innocent sound. “I didn’t know so many books even existed!”
Moroes looked even more intrigued. Lothar wasn’t ready to answer questions from the castellan until he’d asked a few of his own. “Where is he?” he inquired bluntly.
Moroes gave his old friend a knowing smile. He extended an index finger, and pointed it directly up.
Of course. “Wait here,” Lothar said to Khadgar, eyeing the winding staircase that went up… and up… and braced himself for the climb. He was certain the boy would obey this particular command. Mages. Ordinary youths Khadgar’s age would have been more excited about entering an armory. Lothar understood the value of books, but this boy was just as Medivh had been—hungering for knowledge as if it were meat and drink. For them, perhaps it was. He added, “Try not to touch anything,” but he harbored no illusions that this second instruction would be followed.
Moroes led the way. Lothar waited until they had made a few turns on the staircase and were safely out of Khadgar’s earshot. “He sees no one?”
Moroes shrugged. “The world’s been at peace.”
Again, an answer that wasn’t really one. “There were other obligations. The floods in Lordaeron. King Magni’s weddings.” He smiled a little. There had been a time when he, Medivh, and Llane would never have missed the opportunity for so much fine dwarven beer. The smile faded. “He was absent for all of them.”
“Yes,” Moroes confirmed. He was silent for a few steps, then, “I am glad you are here, Lothar. It will do the Guardian a world of good to see a friendly face beyond this old mug.”
“He could have seen it at any time over the last six years,” Lothar said.
“Yes,” Moroes said again, with that irritating avoidance of any information that could be of actual enlightenment.
Damn, Lothar had forgotten how high the tower was. “Tell me what you can, Moroes,” he said. “Let’s start with who left, and why.”
It was a good topic, and allowed Lothar to conserve his breath for the seemingly endless climb of the tight curve of the staircase. Moroes moved like a gnomish automaton, his pace regular, steady, and vexingly untiring.
The staff responsible for the care of guests were the first to be let go, Moroes informed Lothar; the maids, the footmen, much of the kitchen staff. Since he planned to have no more visitors, there was no need to have servants, Medivh had said. There was therefore also no need for extra steeds or hunting hounds. The master of Karazhan had let the grooms and kennel tenders have their pick of the beasts when they left, and the groundskeeping staff was cut to the bone. Even the animals were sent away; the inhabitants who remained relied on a few chickens for eggs and vegetables from the gardens.
And on it went. Lothar listened—he had to; he was becoming too winded to talk—with a growing sense of unease as Moroes continued the litany of those no longer present at the Tower of Karazhan. “The illustrators were the last to leave,” Moroes finished up. The illustrators. Not those who grew the food, or prepared it, or kept the tower in a state of repair. Lothar did not like the image of his old friend Moroes had created.