by William King
Maiev paused. Her cold laughter rang through the war-ravaged courtyard. “You serve Illidan. I mean to kill him. Of course we are not on the same side.”
“I am here to fight the Burning Legion, not other night elves.”
The point of the umbra crescent began to move from side to side, hypnotically. Vandel took a step back to give himself more room. “You have fallen for Illidan’s old lie,” Maiev said.
“It is not a lie. I have slaughtered demons by the hundred. I will slay more for as long as there is breath in me.”
“That will not be for much longer.” Maiev lunged, quick as a nightsaber. Vandel sprang clear and her blade passed through the spot where he had just stood. He fought down the urge to riposte. His demon urged him to attack. With an effort of will, he restrained himself.
“The Burning Legion seeks to destroy all who live. We need to stand united against it,” he said.
“You will be united with your demon master in death.” Maiev’s strike was like a thunderbolt. Vandel hurled himself backward but it caught his cheek, slicing it open. Blood ran down over his lips. It tingled on his tongue.
Vandel had had enough. He had tried reasoning with Maiev. He could try running but he doubted he would get far with his back to her. She was too strong and too fast. He needed to face her.
You need to kill her, said the demonic voice in the back of his mind. It is you or her. She will not let you live.
Vandel would have liked to deny it, but he knew the demon was speaking the truth, and that lent its argument force. He summoned fel energy and sent a bolt racing toward the night elf. She parried, dissipating it effortlessly. Vandel doubted anyone save Illidan or his highest lieutenants could have managed that feat. He realized that the objective here was not going to be killing Maiev. It was going to be staying alive in the face of her fury.
—
MAIEV’S EYES NARROWED. SO the demon’s true colors were revealed now. He had attempted to strike her down with his fel magic. For a moment she had almost believed the monster’s protestations. He had sounded sincere and had made no attempt to harm her, only to defend himself.
In the distance the summoning reached a crescendo. Her prey was going to escape. It was time to end this. She launched a ferocious physical attack on the altered elf. Her blade flashed almost too fast for the eyes to follow. Her assailant raised his blades to parry.
—
VANDEL DANCED THROUGH A razor-edged whirlwind. It was all he could do to keep out of the way of Maiev’s strikes. There was no chance of launching an attack of his own. She was simply too fast and too strong.
Already his muscles ached from parrying the fury of her assault. It felt as if his arms were going to be torn from their sockets simply from the effort of blocking her attacks. He could barely maintain the grip on his blades.
He backpedaled away from her as fast as he could. He was not worried about tripping over anything. His spectral senses allowed him to perceive everything around him. They also told him that he was running out of time. The demon within him howled its protests. It did not want to escape. It wanted to fight and kill. He allowed its power to flow into him. From the pores of his skin, darkness flowed, armoring his body with shadow. His arms grew stronger. His movements grew faster. He matched Maiev blow for blow, turning her blade with one of his, lashing out with the other. Metal shrieked as his weapon clawed its way along the vambrace of her armor.
He struck again and again, driving the warden back first one step and then another until he had regained all the ground he had lost to her initial attack. Maiev slashed at him and he leapt above her blade, bringing his dagger down on her helmet and knocking her off balance. As she fell, he aimed a bolt of fel energy at her. It ravened into her chest. The demon urged him on. Kill her. Kill her.
—
MAIEV TUMBLED TO THE GROUND. The impact of the Illidari’s blow had surprised her more than hurt her, but the burst of fel energy was painful even through her armor. The shadow-encased demon loomed above her, an aura of power playing around his hands.
Maiev drew on the light of Elune and used her power to blink, vanishing from where she lay.
—
VANDEL WATCHED THE BOLT of yellow-green energy crash down into the ground where Maiev had been but an instant before. He felt the displacement of air behind him and turned a moment too late to block her strike.
Her blade scythed in from the right and cut his arm. Pain blazed through it. Blood flowed. He hurled himself back and realized then that the attack had been a feint. Her blade crunched into his skull. He rolled away even as it made contact, but agony lanced through him. Darkness encroached on his field of vision.
The last thing he saw was Khariel. A disappointed look was on his little boy’s face. He was never going to be avenged now.
“Thus will your master fall, too,” he heard Maiev say. Then the darkness took him.
—
AKAMA ENTERED THE REFECTORY. Racks made from the bones of monsters flanked the doorway. A massive altar stood upon a plinth at the rear of the room. The flickering light of eldritch energies sent shadows skittering across the floor of the desecrated space. His allies had already slaughtered most of the opposition within and now confronted the shade that Illidan had drawn from Akama’s own spirit. It looked like the Broken’s shadow, if his shadow had been granted form in three dimensions and evil life. It was perfect in its way, a miracle of dark magic, a testament to the evil genius of Illidan, its creator.
The massive form of the stolen part of his soul loomed over the adventurers from Azeroth. Sensing Akama’s presence, it moved toward him, tendrils of dark energy lashing out from it, smashing into him. His allies attacked it head-on, hammering at it with spells, charging in with their swords. He wrestled with the pain, kept himself on his feet. He gritted his teeth, even though he wanted to scream. He studied the weave of the magic attacking him. It led all the way back to the shade.
The adventurers from Azeroth had done everything Akama had asked. They had opened the way into the refectory. They had slain the renegade Ashtongue forces guarding the place and then, one by one, had killed the channelers casting the spell that held the shard of his dark soul. Now the thing was free and it was coming for him. It intended to kill him if it could, to take possession of his body and, through him, all of the Ashtongue.
He gazed at it with something like wonder. How many in their lives got to look upon everything that was evil in themselves? How many confronted all the darkness within?
To anyone else, it looked merely like his evil shadow. He saw that it was made up of every bit of wickedness that had ever been in him. Every mean and petty deed, from the smallest to the largest. Looking at it, he could see when he was a child coveting his brother’s toys. He saw himself gloating over the untimely death of a rival for the leadership of his people. He saw the shadow that lurked behind his every outward show of piety and goodness. He saw the vanity and the egoism and the lust and the greed for glory. He saw all his demons, all that had driven him to become what he was.
Illidan had freed him of that, in a way. He had taken part of his strength, too, for in that darkness had been many of the things that had driven him to master magic, forged him to become leader of his people. He had always thought of himself as humble, but looking on this monster, he saw that humility had been a mask he wore, all the better to fool those who had followed him.
He wanted to tell himself that these visions were part of the shade’s attack on him, that it was attempting to undermine his will, to drive him to his knees, to force the rest of his soul from his body so that it could take residence. He knew that such was not the case. This shadow was part of him. He needed to reclaim it, for it held a great part of his strength, and only when he had reintegrated it would he have the power to do what was needed.
The shade was weakening under the onslaught of its attackers, Akama’s allies from Azeroth.
Akama understood the spell now and unraveled it. He drew i
ts energies into himself. The vortex he created brought the spirit home. It fell into him. For a moment, he shuddered in dark ecstasy; then he put the chains in place around his own evil, binding it to him, integrating it into his being. He felt strength return. He felt power and pride and ambition flow into him. He was once more truly Akama.
It was done. He took a deep breath and allowed the strength to surge back into his body. A crowd of Ashtongue entered the refectory and gazed up at him.
“Hail Akama!” they shouted.
—
THE STEADY PULSE OF the portal-opening spell vanished.
Maiev sprang over her fallen foe. She had no more time to waste. Even now she might be too late. She needed to find Illidan before he fled forever. She rushed past the smoldering stone form of some gigantic dead infernal.
She raced into the enormous structure. Dead satyrs and other demons sprawled all around a massive hall. Ashtongue moved in groups. They stared at her. There was no menace in their gazes, but no warmth, either. They clearly knew who she was. She wondered whether they would dare attack her. There was only one way to find out.
She marched over to the nearest of them. “Where is Akama?” she demanded in her most commanding tone.
The Ashtongue looked at her. There was something different in his manner. In the past, the Broken had usually been obsequious. Even the ones guarding her would never meet her gaze. This one did, as did all his companions. They did not look at her as if they were afraid. They looked at her as if they were her equals.
“He is deeper within the temple. He seeks to put an end to the Betrayer.”
“Good,” she said. “I shall go and help him.”
Wearily Illidan emerged into his council chamber. The demon hunters were away. He had done all he could. He wished he could have gone with them, but he had needed to remain behind as one mystical pole of the portal, to hold the way open.
Now it was only a matter of waiting. Holding open that portal had taken almost all his strength and all the power within the soul siphon.
Lady Malande looked at him. “The Ashtongue have betrayed us. Our servants have turned against us. The gates are open.”
“They must have planned this all along,” said Gathios the Shatterer.
Illidan reached out with his sorcerous senses. The binding spell he had maintained on Akama’s shade was gone. Akama had freed himself and, in doing so, had freed his people. The old Broken had been more cunning than he thought. One more miscalculation. Illidan had been too busy with the portal to Argus and his demon hunters to pay attention to Akama. Still, he would find a way to make the leader of the Broken pay.
“I sensed a portal opening,” said High Nethermancer Zerevor. “I thought you had escaped, oh lord.”
His expression held a complex mix of emotions: gladness that his overlord was still there, puzzlement as to why. If he wanted an explanation, he was doomed to disappointment.
Illidan sensed events closing in all around him. Things were unwinding. He was trapped by fate, his plans half complete. He thought of the vision the naaru had shown him. He doubted now that the creature was of the Light. Perhaps it had been part of the trap Kil’jaeden set for him. It had lulled him into a false sense of security at a critical time. Everything he had worked for so long to achieve had come undone.
Perhaps his demon hunters would fail. Perhaps he had only sent them to their doom. He resigned himself to the fact that he would never know. All he could do now was stand his ground. He would not give his enemies the satisfaction of his surrender. He would never be imprisoned again.
He regarded his councilors. They still looked to him for leadership. “Defend this place,” he said. “Guard the way into the summit of the temple. There is a spell I will cast. It may turn the battle our way. We will yet overthrow our enemies. We are not defeated yet.”
—
AKAMA STEPPED OVER THE CORPSE of High Nethermancer Zerevor. Ahead of him loomed the sealed gateway to the summit of the temple. It had been a swift, hard-fought battle to get to this point. They had left a trail of broken bodies and shattered sentinels through the perfumed gardens and palatial apartments the blood elves occupied. Now ahead of him lay the great black door beyond which Illidan worked his evil magic. What new fiendish spell was he casting?
The adventurers from Azeroth waited to see what he would do.
Akama said, “This door is all that stands between us and the Betrayer. Stand aside, friends.”
He studied the spell sealing the way to the summit. It was a thing of fantastic intricacy, composed over multiple interlocking weaves of force. It would take a sorcerer a lifetime to unravel it. Fortunately, he did not need to do so. He merely needed to shatter it.
He drew upon all his strength and launched it at the doorway. Somehow that fragile-looking structure resisted. He increased the amount of power, his spell rending and clawing at the seal with all the energies he commanded. It was still not enough. His shoulders slumped. He had come so far, risked so much.
“I cannot do this alone…” Frustration forced the words from Akama’s lips.
He sensed the presence of others of his people. Powerful spirits, familiar and mighty ghosts, unleashed to stalk through the Temple of Karabor by the events of the day.
“You are not alone, Akama,” said one of the spirits. It wore the form of his onetime companion, the seer Udalo.
“Your people will always be with you!” The other spirit had taken the shape of Seer Olum. Akama was struck with awe.
I had not thought to see you so soon, old friend. The seer had been one of Akama’s closest allies, until Vashj’s naga discovered that Olum was plotting to depose the Betrayer. Olum had asked Akama to slay him in order to keep up the appearance that the Ashtongue were loyal to Illidan. Akama had sadly complied.
The spirits added their strength to his own. Slowly at first, the binding spell began to come apart, shredded by the torrent of power thrown at it, power backed by the will of an entire people freed from chains.
The spell collapsed. The ghosts began to fade. Akama said, “I thank you for your aid, brothers. Our people will be redeemed!”
Had Akama the time to reflect, he would have wept with joy. Olum’s sacrifice had allowed him to get to this door, and his spirit had returned to help him open it. It was a good omen. But triumph warred with dread within Akama’s soul. Soon he and his allies would have to face the Betrayer. Even after all this time, all his scheming, and all his planning, Akama was not certain that he was prepared for that.
—
ILLIDAN FELT THE SEAL give way on the gateway to the Black Temple’s summit. Akama had grown powerful indeed to tear it down so quickly. He had learned a great deal during his time within Illidan’s service, including how to work counterspells against his master’s magic. Illidan remained crouched down, wings wrapped around his body, taking these last few moments to draw what power he could to himself before the final conflict of his life was upon him.
—
FILLED WITH TREPIDATION, Akama entered the summit. Even now victory was far from certain. The Betrayer might find some way of turning things around even as Akama’s people threw the gates of the temple open to welcome the Aldor and the Scryers and their allies.
Illidan crouched down on the far side of the summit. In the center was a great grill, shielding a central well that went all the way down into the heart of the Temple of Karabor. The Betrayer held a skull in his hands as if contemplating a reminder of his own mortality. He was utterly still, immobile as one dead. Surely he could not have taken his own life.
Akama studied the aura swirling around his former master. No. He yet lived. Titanic swells of energy rose within him. He was merely gathering his strength.
All around, Akama’s allies checked their weapons nervously. Illidan seemed to be waiting for all his enemies to enter. It was as if he wanted them all in one place and had no fear of their superior numbers. Given the powers on which he could call, Akama thought his lack of c
oncern might be justified.
Where are his mutated soldiers? Akama wondered. All through the battle in the temple, Akama had looked for the demon hunters to appear, but there was no sign of their presence. Nor was there any sign of the great portal Akama had sensed being opened. He had expected Illidan to flee through it. In truth he would have half welcomed it, because it would have averted this final, likely fatal confrontation.
It spoke volumes of the Betrayer’s confidence that he gave the intruders time to prepare themselves. Akama pushed the thoughts aside and began to draw on his own powers.
—
ILLIDAN STUDIED THE FORCES arrayed against him. It felt strange to see so many enemies within the heart of the Black Temple. It was even stranger in its way to see Akama standing beside them. He still could not believe the old Broken had the nerve to do such a thing. He had eluded all the traps and escaped all the shackles Illidan had prepared for him. And now he was here, surrounded by these outsiders he had brought to fight for him.
Anger filled Illidan’s heart. He stared hard at Akama, letting his contempt show on his face. “Akama. Your duplicity is hardly surprising. I should have slaughtered you and your malformed brethren long ago.”
Akama recoiled from the venom in Illidan’s voice. He took a moment to gather himself and said, “We have come to end your reign, Illidan. My people and all of Outland shall be free!”
“Boldly said. But I remain…unconvinced.”
“The time has come! The moment is at hand!”
Illidan glared at the Broken and his pathetic allies. “You are not prepared.”
A massive warrior emerged from the pack, garbed in heavy plate, protective spells woven around him. Illidan saw the network of defensive magic that connected him to the Azerothian casters.
Illidan leapt forward and struck a powerful blow with his warglaive. The warrior raised a shield to block it. Illidan took advantage of the opening to slash at his neck with the left-hand blade. Blood spurted from the warrior’s throat, but healing magic surged in, drawing the blood back and knitting torn flesh and severed veins.