Before the Storm

by Christie Golden

  Sylvanas turned her head to him slowly, considering his words.

  “If you authorize this experience—this reconnection with people they loved in life—and present it to them as something that you have generously granted them, perhaps they will be more amenable to accepting your solution: finding ways to keep the Forsaken as a race from going extinct.”

  “It is fraternizing with the enemy,” Sylvanas said. “Letting them interact with life and the living.”

  “Perhaps. But even so, it is only for a single day. Give them this hope, this moment with people they thought they’d never see again. Then—”

  “Then I hold the power to their happiness, at least in this aspect,” she finished. “Or they might decide they hate the living and be all the more devoted to their Dark Lady.” Either way Sylvanas would win.

  He nodded. “At the very least, it will demonstrate to them that you are listening to their concerns. I truly believe the Desolate Council to be ultimately harmless. They’re not radical traitors. Give them this chance, once. If you see benefits, you can determine if you wish to repeat it.”

  “You make a good argument.” She unfolded the crumpled missive and read it again. “It will be difficult for my archers to stay their hands with so many humans in front of them.”

  “They will obey you, my queen,” Nathanos said. It was the truth. Her dark rangers would never loose an arrow without her orders. And Sylvanas was not ready for a war with the Alliance, not over this, at least.

  She made her decision. “I will accept this invitation on behalf of the Forsaken. Return to the Undercity. Inform Vellcinda Benton that her queen is sympathetic toward her desire and will be visiting her to discuss this gathering in more detail. Have her begin compiling a list of those members of the council who have living relatives in Stormwind. Get their names and information. I will give that list to Anduin so that he can locate them and determine if they, too, wish to participate.”

  “There are more than just the council members who would like to be involved,” Nathanos said. “A great many attended the memorial service and are sympathetic to them.”

  But Sylvanas shook her head. “No. This needs to be a small number so I can control the situation. Council members only.”

  “As my queen wishes. If I may speak freely, I believe you have made a wise decision. From all that I have seen, I believe this will quell any rumblings of discontent.”

  “One way or another it will.” She smiled coldly. “It could also pave the way for claiming Stormwind. I had thought that an attack would be the only means to take it. But if the young king trusts us, we could one day soon pass through those magnificent gates to a friendly welcome.”

  Her thoughts once again went to the astonishing substance that was Azerite. What it could do. What it could create.

  What it could destroy.

  Shortly after Saffy had agreed (“of your own free will, now,” Grizzek had emphasized) to assist him in plumbing the potential of the magical, marvelous, miraculous Azerite, Gallywix had sent them a single large vat of the stuff along with a note: You two creative kids go crazy!

  The first experiments had covered the basic steps: identifying the material’s properties, testing it under various conditions. Exposed to sunlight and moonslight. Sealed away, exposed to air. Immersed in various liquids, including acid and other highly dangerous chemicals. That had been Grizzek’s favorite part so far.

  During one such experiment, Saffy noticed that the thick, tarlike substance of a deadly poison they’d smeared on a sample chunk had changed color.

  “Will you look at that,” she said. Quickly she grabbed a vial of the antidote and set it down within easy reach. Then, before Grizzek could even yelp in surprise, she’d extended a hand and touched the discolored poison.

  “Saffy, no!” He surged forward and grabbed her arm with one hand and the antidote with the other.

  “Hang on a minute,” Saffy said. “This stuff should be eating my skin away by now. But look. I’m fine.”

  They both stared at the poison on her hand, then at each other. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Saffy muttered. And she licked the stuff off her fingers.

  Grizzek uttered a strangled cry. Saffy smacked her lips. “Astounding! This highly poisonous, corrosive substance now tastes like sunfruit and cherries,” she said.

  “Maybe it always tasted like that,” Grizzek offered. His voice trembled a little.

  “No, it’s supposed to be completely tasteless.”

  “Yeah, whatever, just…just don’t do stuff like that, Saffy, okay?” She looked at him and saw that he had gone pale. He had been worried about her. Not just worried as in oh, I’m going to lose my lab partner worried but worried as in…

  Saffy couldn’t let herself think about that. They had work to do. Bringing old feelings back would only be a distraction. They’d always done better as lab partners, anyway.

  She returned her attention to her hand. “This is…important, Grizzy. Really important. Long term, who knows what this stuff can do? We’ve just seen that it can neutralize poison. Bet it can heal wounds, too. Maybe it can extend life.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What a gift! Come on, back at it! There’s so much else we need to know!”

  After they’d done everything they could to test Azerite in liquid form, next up were tests to determine if, once it had hardened, anything could break it.

  Nothing could.

  Not a sword, or a hammer, or a goblin shredder, or even a device Grizzek had named the Crunchola, which he demonstrated to Saffy. It was a modified shredder, but one of its mechanically operated limbs was outfitted with a grasping hand augmented by an energy beam.

  “The idea,” Grizzek explained, “is that the energy pulse increases the pressure, so it’s seven times as strong as the usual hand.”

  “That’s an odd number,” Saffy observed, perplexed.

  “It is!”

  It took her a second, then she said flatly, “I meant odd as in unusual. Why not ten or fifteen?”

  He shrugged. “Seven is supposed to be lucky.”

  She rolled her eyes. They scooped out a pail of liquid Azerite from the tightly sealed vat Gallywix had provided and placed it to harden in the open air. The substance slipped out easily once it set and was surprisingly light. The Crunchola, or “Crunchy,” as Grizzek, who seemed inexplicably fond of the thing, dubbed it, grasped the chunk of Azerite in its Lucky Seven energy-enhanced hand. Grizzek threw the switch. The Crunchola squeezed—tight—tighter—

  And then Grizzek shrieked in dismay as its four digits snapped. “Your hand!” he cried. “Crunchy, I’m so sorry!”

  Saffy looked at her notes and crossed off “TEST NUMBER 345: Crunchola” and wrote down “Azerite 1, Crunchola 0.”

  “One resource we do lack is a mage,” Saffy commented, peering at the unharmed, pail-shaped Azerite. “It would be fascinating to see how this is affected by magic!”

  “If you really want one to join us, I can ask Gallywix.” Grizzek didn’t sound so keen on it, and Saffy stiffened at the thought.

  “Maybe later. Right now we have a good rhythm going with just the two of us.” She was surprised that she was saying it, but it was undeniably true. The thought of a third party entering their lab felt wrong somehow.

  Grizzek seemed to brighten at her words. “Yeah, we do,” he said. He climbed out of the Crunchola, patting its arm sadly. “I’ll fix you up, buddy,” he promised. Then he took a deep breath and turned to Saffy.

  “Magic can be phase two,” Grizzek said. “Let’s exhaust our own resources and imagination first. Give Gally-boy a baseline for what we can do with pure science.”

  Saffy giggled. “Gally-boy?”

  Grizzek scratched his enormous nose and chuckled a little bit. “Yeah,” he said. “Silly, but the guy bugs me so bad.”

&n
bsp; “I think it’s perfect,” Saffy announced. Their eyes met, and Grizzek’s expression was unguarded.

  “Ya do?” he asked, surprised.

  “Yep,” she replied. “Pompous airbags sometimes need the occasional sharp poke. Deflation is better than exploding.”

  “For him or for us?”

  “Oh, for him, definitely. I don’t care if he explodes.”

  They laughed together, just as they had in the old days, in that narrow band where everything had been perfect and they’d been crazy about each other instead of being driven crazy by each other.

  Watch out, Saffy, the gnome reminded herself. Don’t jinx this. It’s all going too well for things to turn bad.

  “We’ve gathered a good baseline on the nature of the substance in isolation,” she said. “I’ll compile my notes, and then we can move on to see what happens when we try to shape it, or manipulate it, or combine it with other items.”

  “Oooh! We should do wearable items.”

  “Like rings or necklaces?”

  “Yeah! Gally-boy inadvertently gave me the idea. He used the first known chunk of this stuff as an ornament for his cane. We can experiment with it and figure out how to make amulets, rings, and other trinkets with it. Think we can mix it with other metals?”

  “We’ll find out!” That was her specialty. “But first I better compile these notes.”

  But Grizzek was shaking his head. “Nope. Those can wait. Go outside, clear your head.”

  “I never go outside.”

  “I know. But you oughta. Moons’ll be out here soon. Go on, scram. I’ll handle dinner.” It was not said unkindly.

  “Do you still burn things down when you cook?” she asked.

  “Not so much these days.” He made a shooing motion. With a shrug, Saffy ambled out to the beach. She was not alone, of course; Gallywix’s goons were stationed all around the enclave and even patrolled the beaches. But they kept their distance and didn’t bother her or Grizzek too much.

  He’d put out a chair, and there was a table. An umbrella was up as well, not that one needed it at this hour. As Saffy settled into the chair, she had to admit that the sky was absolutely glorious and the moonslight on the ocean was astonishingly soothing.

  Saffy usually took a while to wind down when her brain was percolating briskly. She heard the noise of something clattering behind her and turned to see Grizzek balancing a tray in one hand and lugging a chair with the other. He didn’t say anything as he plunked the tray down on the table and pulled up the chair.

  “Wine,” Saffy said, startled. “You poured wine.”

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “Had a bottle somewhere. Knew you liked the stuff.”

  He hadn’t really cooked, which was probably why the place was still standing. He’d just reheated some seafood stew she’d made for lunch and grabbed some bread. They ate in silence, listening to the sound of the sea. Saffy was thinking very, very hard, and not about Azerite, though that did want to sneak in around the corners of her pondering.

  “Grizzek,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “When I first came here, you called me by my nickname.” One of them, at least; they’d had several of them over the sliver of time when things were going well.

  Their marriage had been, well, as short as they were. They had been lab partners first, and that had gone well, but then they’d been stupid enough to fall in love with each other. The first month had been glorious, the very epitome of a great love story. And then it had fallen apart just like one of Grizzek’s faulty and poorly designed contraptions. Suddenly everything one did irritated the other beyond tolerance. Many things got thrown or broken, and once Saffy had found herself shouting so loudly that she lost her voice. That had been a horrible day. Grizzek had felt free to taunt her, and she couldn’t shoot back a pithy retort.

  But not even the unpleasantness of that dreadful time seemed to encroach on their collaboration now. They worked together almost seamlessly, listening to what the other said, offering suggestions, forming a true partnership. Saffy was loath to admit it, but the last few weeks working alongside Grizzek had been pretty good. Wonderful, actually. That in itself was almost as unbelievable as the strange material she and her former husband had been working with.

  She heard him sniffing and clearing his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I did call you Punkin. Sorry, I guess.”

  Saffy sipped her wine and thought some more. “It’s been good, these past few weeks.”

  “Yeah, it has.”

  “It reminds me of old times,” she said cautiously.

  “Me, too,” he said quietly.

  She wanted to ask a thousand questions. Do you still miss me? Why do you think we don’t hate each other anymore? Is the Azerite affecting how we feel about each other? Can we only be all right when we’re working? Would it be a mistake to try again?

  Instead, she said, “This Azerite…it’s pretty amazing. Could help a lot of people.”

  “You’re a genius, Saffy. An absolute genius. You’re going to make such things—”

  “And you, Grizzy,” Saffy said enthusiastically. “Your robots, and your launchers, and those little one-person airships—the Azerite’s going to help with all that, too!”

  “Ya think so?”

  “I know so!”

  “Saffy, we’re going to make this world sit up and take notice, you and me. The sky’s the limit.”

  Slowly, her heart beating as fast as a rabbit’s, Sapphronetta Flivvers slid her hand across the table. And felt Grizzek’s big green callused paw close around it. Gently, protectively, as if it was the most precious thing in the world.

  And Saffy smiled.

  * * *

  —

  In between kisses and canoodling, the reunited, reinvolved pair got a staggering amount of research done. They mixed the Azerite with a variety of different metals and even used it as paint. They made pendants, rings, bracelets, and earrings. And they made armor. It was ugly, goblin-designed stuff, but it wasn’t meant to be pretty. It survived three solid minutes of bombardment from the reconstructed Lightning Blast 3000. The only damage was a slight melting of the metal.

  All of this had required only a small amount of Azerite.

  Then Saffy decided to go full gnomish alchemist. She began to experiment with potions. With a single drop of one on Grizzy’s completely smooth green pate, he grew a luxurious mane of thick, glossy black hair that flowed down his back.

  “Aaaah!” he yelped. “Cut it off, cut it off!”

  When a drop of poison was mixed with heated Azerite, a result similar to the earlier experiment in which Saffy had licked off poison was achieved. When she poured the mixture on a struggling plant, the palm tree doubled in size.

  “That’s a high ratio of Azerite to poison,” she mused. “Let’s see what happens when we switch the proportions.”

  “Careful there, Punkin,” Grizzek said worriedly. “I only just found ya again.”

  Saffy’s heart warmed, turned over in her chest, and turned to mush. Figuratively, of course. She went over and kissed him soundly. “I’ll take every precaution and then some.”

  He hovered anxiously as she prepared the poison, then offered to be the one to mix it with the Azerite. “Oh, Grizzy, you’re so sweet! But you don’t know exactly how much I used.”

  Sticking out her tongue in order to concentrate better, Saffy poured the precise amount of Azerite into the beaker of poison. There was no visible change to the substance as she swirled it gently to mix the contents. Then she took a deep breath and poured a single drop on the plant.

  The reaction was immediate.

  The plant went from the almost absurdly healthy, vibrant emerald green color to first sickly yellow, then black. It drooped, completely dead.

  They stared at it, then at each ot
her. They said nothing. Saffy tried it on another plant. But this time, before the poison’s effects had visually manifested, she clipped a segment. The pair of scientists pressed their heads close together as they watched the section rot right before their eyes, as if every fragment that made up the plant had been targeted instantly.

  Saffy spoke first. “Let’s increase the amount of Azerite.”

  As she was doing so, Feathers flew into the room and circled their heads. “Big ugly guests! Big ugly guests!” it squawked.

  They looked at each other, wide-eyed. “I hope it’s not Gallywix,” Grizzek muttered. “Hopefully it’s just the goons. I’ll get rid of ’em. Be right back.”

  Saffy’s eyes followed him as he left. She had never before regarded “just the goons” as a hopeful phrase, but the alternative would be far worse. They weren’t prepared to demonstrate anything to the leader of the Bilgewater Cartel goblins yet, and to say that what they’d just witnessed made her uneasy was as much of an understatement as saying the Sword of Sargeras was a knife stuck in the ground.

  She took a moment to jot down her notes, cataloging the precise ratios, then doubled the amount of Azerite in the deadly mixture. She’d just poured a dollop onto another plant with almost identical results when Grizzek returned. His normally healthy emerald green coloring had paled to a sickly chartreuse.

  “You don’t look good, Grizzy,” Saffy murmured.

  “Well,” he said heavily, “I got good news, and I got bad news. The good news is that that was indeed just the goons.”

  Saffy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Thank goodness for small favors,” she said.

  “Bad news is Gallywix wants a demonstration in two weeks. And,” Grizzek added heavily, “he wants us to focus on weapons.”

  Parqual Fintallas stood with the other members of the Desolate Council for what, he hoped, would be its most productive meeting yet. This time, he stood a step lower than he usually did, as did all the members.