The Last Guardian (11 page)

The key to his incantation, it seemed, would be a simple spell of farseeing, a divination that granted sight

of distant objects and far-off locations. A book of priestly magic had described it as an incantation of holy vision, yet it worked as well for Khadgar as it did for their clerics. While that priestly spell functioned over space, perhaps with modification it could function over time.

Khadgar reasoned that this would normally be impossible given the flow of time in a determinant, clockwork universe.

But it seemed that within the walls of Karazhan, at least, time was an hourglass, and identifying bits of disjointed time was more likely. And once one hooked into one grain of time, it would be easier to move that grain to another.

If others had attempted this within the walls of Medivh’s Tower, there was no clue within the library, unless it was within the most heavily guarded or unreadable of the tomes located on the iron balcony.

Curiously, the notes in Medivh’s own hand were uninterested in the visions, which seemed to dominate other notes from other visitors. Did Medivh keep that information in another location, or was he truly more interested in matters beyond the walls of the citadel than the
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activities within it?

Refitting a spell for a new activity was not as simple as changing an incantation here, altering a motion there. It required a deep and precise understanding of how divination worked, of what it revealed and how. When a hand-motion changes, or the type of incense used is deleted, the result is most likely complete failure, where the energies are dissipated harmlessly. Occasionally the energies may go wild and out of control, but usually the only result of a failed spell is a frustrated spellcaster.

In his studies, Khadgar discovered that if a spell fails in a spectacular fashion, it indicates that the failed spell is very close to the final intended spell. The magics are trying to close the gap, to make things happen, though not always with the results intended by the caster. Of course, sometimes these failed magic-users did not survive the experience.

During the process, Khadgar was afraid that Medivh would return at any time, wafting back into the library, looking for the well-read epic poem or some other bit of trivia. Would he tell his master what he was trying? And if he did, would Medivh encourage him, or forbid him from trying to find out?

After five days, Khadgar felt he had the spellmaking complete. The framework remained that of the farseeing, but it was now empowered with a random factor to allow it to reach through and search out the discontinuities that seemed to exist within the tower. These bits of misplaced time would be a little brighter, a little hotter, or simply a little odder than the immediate surroundings, and as such attract the full force of the spell itself.

The spell, if it functioned, should in addition tune in the vision better. This would collect the sounds at the other end and remove the distortion, concentrating them in the same fashion as an elderly person cupping a hand to the ear to hear better. It would not work for sounds beyond the central location as well, but should clarify what individuals were saying in addition to what the caster was seeing.

The evening of the fifth day, Khadgar had completed his calculations, the neat rows and orders of power and casting laid out in a simple script. Should something go horribly wrong, at least Medivh would figure out what had happened.

Medivh, of course, kept a fully equipped pantry of spell components, including a larder of aromatic and thaumaturgic herbs, and a lapidarium of crushed semi-precious stones. Of these Khadgar chose amethyst to lay out his magical circle, in the library itself, crisscrossing it with runes of powered rose quartz. He reviewed the words of power (most of them known to the young mage before he left Dalaran) and worked through the motions (almost all of them original). Dressed in conjuration robes (more for luck than effect), he stepped within the casting circle.

Khadgar let his mind settle and become calm. This was no quickly-cast battle spell, or some offhand cantrip. Rather this was a deep and powerful spell, one that, if within the Violet Citadel, would set off the warning abjurations of other mages and bring them flying to him.

He took a deep breath, and began to cast.

Within his mind, the spell began to form, a warm, hot ball of energy. He could feel it congeal within him, as rainbow ripples moved across the surface. This was the core of the spell, usually quickly dispatched to alter the real world as its caster saw fit.

Khadgar fitted the sphere with the attributes he desired, to seek out the bits of time that seemed to haunt the tower, sort through them, and bring together a single vision, one that he could witness spread before him. The ideas seemed to sink with the imaginary sphere in his mind, and in return the sphere seemed to hum at a higher pitch, awaiting only release and direction.

“Bring me a vision,” said the young mage. “Bring me a vision of the young Medivh.”

With the sound of an egg imploding the magic was gone from his mind, seeping into the real world to carry out his bidding. There was a rush of air, and as Khadgar looked around, the
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library began to transform, as it had before, the vision moving slowly into his space and time.

Only when it suddenly got colder did Khadgar realize he had called up the wrong vision.

It moved through the library suddenly, a cold draft as if someone had left a window open. The breeze went from a draft to a chill to an arctic blast, and despite his own knowledge that it was merely illusion, Khadgar shivered to his core.

The walls of the library fell away as the vision took hold with an expanse of white. The chill wind curled around the books and manuscripts and left a blanket of snow as it passed, thick and hard.

Tables, shelves, and chairs were obscured and then eliminated with the swirls of thick heavy flakes.

And Khadgar was on a hillside, his feet disappearing at his knees into a bank of snow, but leaving no mark. He was a ghost within this vision.

Still, his breath frosted and curled upward as he looked around him. To his right was a copse of trees, dark evergreens loaded down by the passing snowstorm. Far to his left was a great white cliff. Khadgar thought it some chalky substance, and then realized that it was ice, as if someone had taken a frozen river and uprooted it. The ice river was as tall as some of the mountains on Dalaran, and small dark shapes moved above it. Hawks or eagles, though they would have to be of immense size if they were truly near the icy cliffs.

Ahead of him was a vale, and moving up the vale was an army.

The army melted the snow as it passed, leaving a smudged mark of black behind it like a slug’s trail. The members of the army were dressed in red, wearing great horned helms and long, high-backed black cloaks. They were hunters, for they wore all manner of weapons.

At the head of the army, its leader bore a standard, and atop the standard rode a dripping, decapitated head. Khadgar thought it some great green-scaled beast, but stopped himself when he realized it was a dragon’s head.

He had seen a skull of such a creature in the Violet Citadel, but never thought that he would see one that had recently been alive. How far back had his vision truly thrown him?

The army of giant-things were bellowing what could have been a marching song, though it could just as easily have been a string of curses or a challenging cry. The voices were muddled, as if they were at the bottom of a great well, but at least Khadgar could hear them.

As they grew closer, Khadgar realized what they were. Their ornate helmets were not helms, but rather horns that jutted from their own flesh. Their cloaks were not garments but great batlike wings that jutted from their backs. Their red-tinged armor was their own thick flesh, glowing from within and melting the snow.

They were demons, creatures from Guzbah’s lectures and Korrigan’s hidden pamphlets.

Monstrous beings that exceeded even the orcs in their blood-thirst and sadism. The great, broad-bladed swords were clearly bathed in crimson, and now Khadgar could see that their bodies were spattered with gore as well.

They were here, wherever and whenever here was, and they were hunting dragons.

There was a soft, distorted sound behind him, no more than a footfall on a soft carpet. Khadgar turned, and he realized that he was not alone on the hillock overlooking the demon hunting party.

She had come up from behind him unawares, and if she saw him, she paid him no mind. Just as the demons seemed a blight incarnate on the land, so, too, did she radiate her own sense of power. This was a brilliant power that seemed to fold and intensify as she glided along atop the surface of the snow itself.

She was real, but her white leather boots left only the faintest marks in the snow.

She was tall and powerful and unafraid of the abomination in the valley below. Her garb was as white and unspoiled as the snow around them, and she wore a vest made of small silver scales. A great white hooded fur cape with a lining of green silk billowed behind her, held at her throat by
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a large green stone which matched her eyes. She wore her blond hair simply, held in place by a silver diadem, and seemed less affected by the cold than the ghostly Khadgar.

Yet it was her eyes that held his attention—green as summer forest, green as polished jade, green as the ocean after a storm. Khadgar recognized those eyes, for he had felt the penetrating gaze of similar eyes, but from her son.

This was Aegwynn. Medivh’s mother, the powerful near-immortal mage that was so old as to become a legend.

Khadgar also realized where he must be, and this was Aegwynn’s battle against the demon hordes, a legend saved only in fragments, in the cantos of an epic poem on the library shelf.

With a pang Khadgar realized where his spell had gone wrong. Medivh had asked for that scroll before leaving, the last time Khadgar had seen him. Had the spell misfired, passing through a vision of Medivh himself most recently into the very legend that he was checking?

Aegwynn frowned as she looked down on the demonic hunting party, the single line dividing her eyebrows showing her displeasure. Her jade eyes flashed, and Khadgar could guess that a storm of power was brewing within her.

It did not take long for that anger to be released. She raised an arm, chanted a short, clipped phrase, and lightning danced from her fingertips.

This was no mere conjurer’s bolt, nor even the harshest strike of a summer thunderstorm. This was a shard of elemental lightning, arcing through the cold air and finding its ground in the surprised demonic armor. The air split down to its most basic elements as the bolt cleaved through it, and the air smelled sharp and bitter in its passing, the air thundering in to replace the space the bolt had briefly filled. Despite himself, despite knowing that he was phantom, despite knowing that this was a vision, despite all this and the fact that the noise was muted by his ghostly state, Khadgar grimaced and recoiled at the flash and metallic tolling of the mystic bolt.

The bolt struck the standard bearer, the one bearing the severed head of the great green dragon.

It immolated the demon where he stood, and those around it were blasted from their feet, falling like hot coals in the snow. Some did not rise again.

But the majority of the hunting party were outside the spell’s effect, whether by accident or design. The demons, each one larger than ten men, recoiled in shock, but that lasted only a moment. The largest of them bellowed something in a language that sounded like broken metal bells, and half of the demons took wing, charging Aegwynn’s (and Khadgar’s) position. The other half pulled out heavy bows of black oak and iron arrows. As they fired the arrows, they ignited, and a rain of fire descended upon them.

Aegwynn did not flinch, but merely raised a hand in a sweeping motion. The entire sky between her and the fiery rain erupted in a wall of bluish flame, which swallowed the orange-red bolts as if they had simply fallen into a river.

Yet the bolts were merely to provide cover for the attackers, who burst through the blue wall of fire as it dissipated and dropped on Aegwynn from above. There had to be at least twenty of them, each a giant, darkening the skies with their huge wings.

Khadgar looked at Aegwynn and saw that she was smiling. It was a knowing, self-confident smile, and one that the young mage had seen on Medivh’s face, when they had fought the orcs.

She was more than confident.

Khadgar looked down the valley to where the archers had been. They had abandoned their useless missiles but now were gathered together, chanting in a low, buzzing tone. The air warped around them, and a hole appeared in reality, a dark malignancy against the pristine white. And from that hole dropped more demons—creatures of every description, with the heads of animals, with flaming eyes, with wings of bats and insects and great scavenging birds. These demons joined the choir and the rift opened farther, sucking more and more of the spawn of the Twisting Nether into the cold northern air.

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Aegwynn paid the chanters and reinforcements no mind, but rather coolly concentrated on those dropping on her from above.

She passed her hand, palm up. Half of those that flew were turned to glass, and all of them were knocked from the sky. Those that had been turned to crystal shattered where they struck with discordant chords. Those that were still living landed with a heavy thump, and rose again, their ichor-splattered weapons drawn. There were ten left.

Aegwynn placed her left fist against her upright right palm, and four of the survivors melted, their ruddy flesh melting off the bones as they slumped into the snow banks. They screamed until their decaying

throats filled with their own desiccated flesh. There were six left.

Aegwynn clutched at the air and three more demons exploded as their interiors turned into insects and ripped them from the inside out. They didn’t even have time to scream as their forms were replaced by swarms of gnats, bees, and wasps, which boiled out toward the forests. There were three left.