Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (28 page)

T
he blue and white world blurred in Arthas’s dream vision. The cold, pure colors shifted, changed to the warm hues of wood and fire-and torchlight. He had done as he said he would; he had remembered his life, all that had gone before, had again walked the path that had taken him to the seat of the Frozen Throne and this deep, deep dreaming state.

But the dream was not over, it would seem. He again sat at the head of the long, beautifully carved table that took up most of this illusionary Great Hall.

And the two who had such an interest in his dream were still there, watching him.

The orc on his left, elderly but still powerful, searched his face, and then began to smile, the gesture stretching the image of the white skull painted on his face. And on his right, the boy—the emaciated, sickly boy—looked even worse than Arthas remembered him looking when he had entered the dream of remembrance.

The boy licked cracked, pale lips and drew breath as if to speak, but it was the orc whose words shattered the stillness first.

“There is so much more,” he promised.

Images crowded Arthas’s mind, interweaving and lying atop one another into glimpses of the future and past entangled. An army of humans on horseback, carrying the flag of Stormwind…fighting alongside, not against, a Horde raiding party mounted atop snarling wolves. They were allies, attacking the Scourge together. The scene shifted, changed. Now the humans and orcs were attacking one another—and the undead, some crying out orders and fighting with minds that were clearly their own—were standing shoulder to shoulder with the orcs, strange-looking bull-men, and trolls.

Quel’Thalas—undamaged? No, no, there was the scar he and his army had left—but the city was being rebuilt….

Faster now the images poured into his mind, dizzying, chaotic, disordered. It was impossible to tell the past from the future now. Another image, that of skeletal dragons raining destruction down on a city Arthas had never seen before—a hot, dry place crowded with orcs. And—yes, yes it was Stormwind itself that was now coming under attack from the undead dragons—

Nerubians—no, no, not nerubians, not Anub’arak’s people, but kin to them, yes. A desert race, these were. Their servants were mammoth creatures with the heads of dogs, golems made of obsidian, who strode across the shining yellow stands.

A symbol appeared, one Arthas knew—the
L
of Lordaeron, impaled by a sword, but depicted in red, not blue. The symbol changed, became a red flame on a white background. The flame seemed to spark to a life of its own and engulfed the background, burning it away to reveal the silvery waters of a vast expanse of water…a sea…

…Something was roiling just beneath the ocean’s surface. The hitherto-smooth surface began to churn wildly, seething, as if from a storm, although the day was clear. A horrible sound that Arthas only dimly recognized as laughter assaulted his ears, along with the screaming of a world wrenched from its proper place, hauled upward to face the light of day it had not seen in uncounted centuries….

Green—all was green, shadowy and nightmarish, grotesque images dancing at the corner of Arthas’s mind only to dart away before they could be firmly grasped. There was a brief glimpse, gone now—antlers? A deer? A man? It was hard to tell. Hope hung about the figure, but there were forces bent on destroying it….

The mountains themselves came to life, taking giant strides, crushing everything luckless enough to cross their paths. With each mammoth footfall, the world seemed to tremble and shake.

Frostmourne. This at least he knew, and intimately. The sword whirled end over end, as if Arthas has tossed it into the air. A second sword rose to meet it—long, inelegant but powerful, with the symbol of a skull embedded in its fearsome blade. A name—“Ashbringer,” a sword and yet more than a sword, as was Frostmourne. The two clashed—

Arthas blinked and shook his head. The visions, tumbled, chaotic, heartening, and disturbing—were gone.

The orc chuckled, the painted skull on his face stretching with the gesture. He had once been named Ner’zhul, had once had the gift of true visioning. Arthas did not doubt that all he had seen, though imperfectly understood, would indeed come to pass.

“So much more,” the orc repeated, “but only if you continue to walk this path fully.”

Slowly, the death knight turned his white head to the boy. The ill child met him with a gaze that was astonishingly clear, and for a moment, Arthas felt something inside him stir. Despite everything—the boy would not die.

And that meant…

The boy smiled a little, and some of the sickness dissipated as Arthas struggled for words. “You…are me. You are both…me. But you…” His voice was soft, tinged with wonder and disbelief. “You are the little flame that burns inside me still, that resists the ice. You are the last vestiges of humanity—of compassion, of my ability to love, to grieve…to care. You are my love for Jaina, my love for my father…for all the things that made me what I once was. Somehow Frostmourne didn’t take it all. I tried to turn away from you…and I couldn’t. I—can’t.”

The boy’s sea-green eyes brightened and he gave his other self a tremulous smile. His color improved, and before Arthas’s eyes, some of the pustules on his skin disappeared.

“You understand, now. Despite all, Arthas, you have not abandoned me.” Tears of hope stood in those eyes and his voice, though stronger now than it had been, quavered with emotion. “There must be a reason. Arthas Menethil…much harm have you done, but there is goodness in you yet. If there was none…I would not exist, not even in your dreams.”

He slipped off the chair and slowly walked toward the death knight. Arthas stood as he approached. For a moment, they regarded each other, the child and the man he had become.

The boy extended his arms, as if he were a living, breathing child asking to be picked up and held by a loving father. “It doesn’t have to be too late,” he said quietly.

“No,” Arthas said quietly, staring raptly at the boy. “It doesn’t.”

He touched the curve of the boy’s cheek, slipped a hand beneath the small chin and tilted up the shining face. He smiled into his own eyes.

“But it is.”

Frostmourne descended. The boy cried out, his shocked, betrayed, anguished cry—that of the wind raging outside—and for a moment Arthas saw him standing there, the blade buried in his chest almost as big as he was, and felt one final tremor of remorse as he met his own eyes.

Then the boy was gone. All that remained of him was the bitter keening of the wind scouring the tormented land.

It felt…marvelous. It was only with the boy’s passing that Arthas truly realized how dreadful a burden this last struggling scrap of humanity had been. He felt light, powerful, purged. Scoured clean, as Azeroth would soon be. All his weakness, his softness, everything that had ever made him hesitate or second-guess himself—it was all gone, now.

There was only Arthas, Frostmourne, all but singing at having claimed the final piece of Arthas’s soul, and the orc, whose skull-face was split with triumphant laughter.

“Yes!” the orc exhilarated, laughing almost maniacally. “I knew you would make this choice. For so long you have wrestled with the last dregs of goodness, of humanity in you, but no longer. The boy held you back, and now you are free.” He now got to his feet, his body still that of an old orc, but moving with the ease and fluidity of the young.

“We are one, Arthas. Together, we are the Lich King. No more Ner’zhul, no more Arthas—only this one glorious being. With my knowledge, we can—”

His eyes bulged as the sword impaled him.

Arthas stepped forward, plunging the glittering, hungering Frostmourne ever deeper into the dream-being that had once been Ner’zhul, then the Lich King, and was soon to be nothing, nothing at all. He slipped his other arm around the body, pressing his lips so close to the green ear that the gesture was almost intimate, as intimate as the act of taking a life always was and always would be.

“No,” Arthas whispered. “No
we
. No one tells me what to do. I’ve got everything I need from you—now the power is mine and mine alone. Now there is only I. I am the Lich King. And I am ready.”

The orc shuddered in his arms, stunned by the betrayal, and vanished.

The teacup shattered as it fell from Jaina’s suddenly nerveless hands. She gasped, momentarily unable to breathe, the cold of the damp, gray day knifing through her. Aegwynn was there, her gnarled hands closing on Jaina’s.

“Aegwynn—I—what happened?” Her voice was thick, anguished, and tears suddenly filled her eyes as if she was grieving terribly for the loss of…
something
….

“It’s not your imagination,” Aegwynn said grimly. “I felt it, too. As for what—well, I’m sure we’ll find out.”

Sylvanas started as if the mammoth demon in front of her had struck her. Which, of course, he would never dare do. Varimathras narrowed his glowing eyes.

“My lady? What is it?”

Him.

It was
always
him.

Sylvanas’s gloved hands clenched and unclenched. “Something has happened. Something to do with the Lich King. I—felt it.” There was no longer a link between them, at least not one in which she was under his control. But perhaps something lingered. Something that warned her.

“We need to step up our plans,” she told Varimathras. “I believe that time has suddenly become a precious commodity.”

For so long, he had felt nothing. He had stayed on the throne, immobile, waiting, dreaming. The ice had come to cover him as he sat still as stone, but not a prison, no, a second skin.

He had not known then what he was waiting for, but now he did. He had taken the final steps on a journey begun so long ago, begun the day that darkness had first brushed his world in the form of a weeping, young Stormwind prince mourning his father. The path had led across Azeroth, to Northrend, to this Frozen Throne and open sky. To the searching of his deepest self, and the choices to murder both the innocent that held him back and the parts of himself that had shaped him.

Arthas, the Lich King, alone in his glory and power, slowly opened his eyes. Ice cracked from them at the gesture and fell in small shards, like frozen tears. A smile formed beneath the ornate helm that covered his white hair and pale skin, and more ice fell from his awakening, slowly shifting form, fragments of an icy chrysalis that was no longer needed. He was awake.

“It’s begun.”

Award-winning author Christie Golden has written over thirty novels and several short stories in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Golden launched the TSR Ravenloft line in 1991 with her first novel, the highly successful
Vampire of the Mists,
which introduced elven vampire Jander Sunstar. To the best of her knowledge, she is the creator of the elven vampire archetype in fantasy fiction.

She is the author of several original fantasy novels, including
On Fire’s Wings, In Stone’s Clasp,
and
Under Sea’s Shadow
(currently available only as an e-book) the first three in her multi-book fantasy series “The Final Dance” from LUNA Books.
In Stone’s Clasp
won the Colorado Author’s League Award for Best Genre Novel of 2005, the second of Golden’s novels to win the award.

Among Golden’s other projects are over a dozen
Star Trek
novels and the well-received
StarCraft
Dark Templar trilogy,
Firstborn, Shadow Hunters,
and the forthcoming
Twilight.
An avid player of Blizzard’s MMORPG
World of Warcraft
, Golden has written several novels in that world (
Lord of the Clans, Rise of the Horde
) with three more in the works. She has also written two Warcraft manga stories for Tokyopop, “I Got What Yule Need” and “A Warrior Made.”

Golden is currently hard at work on three books in the major nine-book
Star Wars
series “Fate of the Jedi,” in collaboration with Aaron Allston and Troy Denning. Her first book in the series,
Omen,
is slated for publication in July of 2009.

Golden lives in Colorado with her husband and two cats. She welcomes visitors to her website, www.christiegolden.com.