Thrall Twilight of the Aspects

by Christie Golden

  “Too, it is not as if the great Malygos died without leaving those of his brood behind,” Arygos had said. “I myself am a child of Malygos and his prime consort. It could well be that the ability to become an Aspect is in the blood. We must consider this to be of great importance.”

  “There is nothing that points to that,” Kalecgos had said. “Not all the Aspects were kin originally.” He disliked Arygos’s attitude and knew that the son of Malygos felt threatened by one he saw as an “upstart.” If there was division among the dragonflights, there was also division within the blue dragonflight. Malygos’s ghost yet lingered. There were those, like Arygos, who would prefer to follow in that Aspect’s footsteps and withdraw as much from the world as possible, and those who thought as Kalec did: that being in this world, connecting with the other races and flights, only served to strengthen and enrich the blue dragonflight.

  It had been a subtle division before the attack of the twilight dragons. But now it was a glaring, open schism, one Kalec did not like but was not naive enough to ignore.

  He disliked this whole new concept of a “vote,” of the title of Aspect simply being that: an empty title, without any of the real powers behind it. This was something that had been part of this world since before the memories of nearly anyone or anything, except perhaps the ancients. To turn it into a sort of contest, to reward the blue dragon who was most liked or could sway most of the flight—

  He shook his head angrily and moved away from the discussion. Arygos noticed and called out, “Kalecgos! Where are you going?”

  “To get some fresh air,” Kalec called over his shoulder. “It is too close in here for me.”

  The human, with his heavy armor, sank like a stone, although he struggled valiantly. He released the enormous sword, instead grabbing hold of Thrall’s robe with one gauntleted hand. They sank together. Thrall tried to bring a weapon down on the man’s arm, but his movements were slowed by the water. Instead, he seized the human’s hand and, utilizing his superior strength, bent back the fingers.

  Bubbles escaped from the human’s helm as he lost his grip on Thrall’s robe and reached out with his other hand, but Thrall kicked hard and swam out of reach.

  That was when he realized that this stream was much deeper than it had appeared. Much deeper than it could possibly be. He caught a glimmer out of the corner of his eye and turned his head.

  It was the glittering gold of a great bronze dragon’s scales—the same image he had seen in the water earlier. Thrall suddenly realized that the hot, burning sensation of his lungs craving air had ceased. This was somehow timeways magic, and he knew it and accepted it. He kept his eyes on the alluring scales and struck out toward them.

  The water about him shimmered, and he felt a strange, tingling warmth all along his body. The scales disappeared. He shot to the surface—

  —of the sea. As he glanced around, trying to orient himself, he recognized several ships. Or, at least, what was left of them.

  These were the vessels he, Grom Hellscream, and the other orcs had stolen from the humans in order to follow the advice of a strange prophet—a prophet who had urged them to depart the Eastern Kingdoms to come to Kalimdor.

  Thrall was slogging ashore with the rest of them now, glancing at the floating debris. He seized a crate and hauled it ashore. As he set it on the ground, someone called out to him.

  “Warchief!” How long, Thrall mused, had it been since he had answered to that title? Nonetheless he turned—only to see an orc striding up to …

  “Me,” Thrall said. “It’s me. …” Just as he had seen himself as an infant what seemed like a short while ago, he now realized that he was looking at another version of himself. He listened to the conversation, trying not to get caught staring at the Thrall of this timeway. This was much stranger than when he had simply seen his other versions during his vision quest. This time he was physically standing only a few feet away.

  “Our ship sustained heavy damage when we passed through the raging Maelstrom,” the orc reported.

  Again a strange twinge. The Maelstrom … the place he had left. The place where Deathwing had ripped through: the place the Earthen Ring was trying so desperately to heal. He shook his head in wonder at how much change a few years had wrought.

  “It’s unsalvageable,” the orc grunt continued.

  Thrall-of-this-timeway nodded. “I knew it. Can we confirm our location? Is this Kalimdor?”

  “We traveled due west as you instructed. This should be it.”

  “Very well.”

  Still watching surreptitiously, Thrall thought back to this moment eight years past, recalled what had been uppermost on his mind.

  “Has there been any sign of Grom Hellscream or the other ships?” Thrall-of-this-timeway asked.

  “No, Warchief. Not since we got separated.”

  “Hmm. Prepare to move out. If our comrades did make it here, we should be able to find them along the coast.”

  Thrall turned back to look at the long, sandy stretch.

  And saw a glimmer of gold. It was brief, and vanished; it could have been nothing more than the haze of sunlight on sand. But Thrall knew better.

  The others were busy scouring the damaged vessels and bringing supplies ashore. Soon camp would be built. Thrall would leave that to his old self.

  He headed west, following the glimmering scales.

  This time he found a small hole in the earth the size of an animal burrow. And encircling it … the now-familiar glimmer of a timeways portal.

  Was Nozdormu truly trapped? Thrall wondered as he stepped forward. Or was he merely leading Thrall on some sort of chase? The hole grew to accommodate him. He fell, but even before he had a chance to be alarmed, he emerged on the other side of the portal, climbing out of it to see a huge black bird sitting in the grass before him. It cocked its head and fixed him with gleaming red eyes.

  The bird’s beak opened. “Greetings, son of Durotan. I knew you’d find your way.”

  Medivh! The great mage had come to Thrall in a dream, telling him to follow. Thrall had obliged, and Medivh had rewarded his persistence. Except hadn’t he been human during this conversation?

  Thrall tried to remember what he had said. “It was you I saw in the vision. Who are you? How do you know me?”

  The raven cocked its ebony head. “I know many things, young warchief, about you and your people. For instance, I know that right now, you are looking for Nozdormu.”

  Thrall’s jaw dropped.

  “You are out of time … in many ways. Know that I have seen the future and beheld the burning shadow that came to consume your world. And in glimpsing that future, I have seen others. I will tell you what I may, but you must do the rest.”

  Thrall suddenly laughed, wondering why he was at all surprised. This was, after all, Medivh. Whatever he was, jumping around in time was probably not beyond him.

  “Listening to you served me well once,” he said. “I cannot think but that it will serve me well again.”

  “Are you familiar with weaving, Thrall?”

  Surprised at the question, Thrall answered, “I … have seen loom work done, but it is most definitely not a skill I possess.”

  “You do not need to have the skill to understand it,” the raven-that-was-no-raven said. “The warp and the weft. Seeing the pattern. Guiding the shuttle. Understanding that something that did not exist before is being created, and that the loom is a miniature world. And being aware that to unravel part of the piece, all you need to do is pull on a single loose thread.”

  Thrall shook his head slowly. “Mage, you confound me. I have witnessed today the murder of my parents. Have fought against a mysterious assassin sent likely by the infinite dragonflight. And I am trying to find the Timeless One, who seems to be leading me on a fruitless hunt. And the best advice you can give is to think about weaving?”

  The bird gave what looked like a shrug, ducking its head and lifting its shoulders.

  “Listen to me, o
r do not. I know what you are chasing. Be careful you are chasing the right thing. This place is full of illusions. There is only one way you can find what you truly seek—only one way you can find yourself. Farewell, Go’el, son of Durotan and Draka.”

  The bird’s wings flapped, and in a few seconds it had flown completely out of sight.

  Thrall was at a loss. Words escaped his lips, and he was surprised at their content. “None of this makes sense, but the spirits tell me … that I should trust him.”

  Those were the exact same words he had said at the end of his actual first meeting with Medivh. And he realized with a start that the words were as true this time as they had been then. The spirits were telling him that he should trust the mage. He closed his eyes and opened to them, to the elements of earth, air, fire, water, and the last element, life, which was always in his heart.

  He still did not truly understand what the mage had been getting at. The words still seemed nonsense. But Thrall was calmer and knew that somehow, when the moment was right, he would understand.

  Guide me, he asked of the elemental spirits. I wish to help, I truly do, but I cannot seem to find this great being I was sent to find. I see images of him, hints, but each time I only fall further into my own life’s situation and am no nearer to reaching him.

  He opened his eyes.

  Nozdormu was before him. Or rather, a translucent image of him was. The great dragon had opened his mouth and was saying something, but Thrall heard nothing.

  “What is it you wish, Timeless One?” he cried. “I am trying to find you!”

  Nozdormu extended a foreleg, palm turned up, and beckoned to Thrall. The orc raced forward—

  And there it was, coming faster each time: the twinkle of sunlight on Nozdormu’s bronze scales. This was not yet the place in time that Thrall was supposed to be, it would seem.

  He recalled something that Cairne had once said to him long, long ago. Destiny … it will find you in time. …

  Then where is the right time? Thrall wanted to shout. He was sick, soul sick, of chasing this mysterious illusion, who seemingly appeared only to tease and trick and plunge Thrall into yet another timeway.

  Each time he followed the image of the Timeless One, it led him to a different point in his life. Some were pleasant to relive; others, far from it. But each one was a significant moment, a profound place in time. And in every one of these moments Thrall saw Nozdormu. Thrall was alert for the reappearance of the mysterious assassin, but there seemed to be no sign of the persistent human. Thrall hoped that the bastard had drowned, sunk with the weight of that oddly familiar armor in a stream that was much more than a stream. But hope that another encounter would not happen did not make him any less alert.

  Thrall realized that he had gone for far too long without food or sleep when he stepped through another portal into a twilit forest. It was familiar … too familiar.

  “Hillsbrad again,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his face. Well, at least he knew his way around. The forest had changed since he had last been here—how long ago? His rumbling belly and weary body told him it had been almost a day. The trees were older-seeming, which made him think that years had passed since—since he had seen his parents fall. And the season was different. It was full-on summer. That meant plentiful game and berries and fruit to be harvested, so at least he would not starve while awaiting whatever past moment he was to experience to show itself.

  He quickly rigged a snare to catch rabbits and then went foraging for a time, enjoying the quiet, long twilight. One noose was successful. Thrall expertly built a small fire to roast the small animal—though many orcs enjoyed raw meat, he preferred his cooked—and then stretched out by the fire for some desperately needed sleep.

  He awoke some time later, instantly alert. He did not move; something cold and metallic was pressing against his throat.

  “Stupid, filthy orcs,” came a voice. It was female, and rough somehow, as if it had not been used in some time. “If it weren’t for the money you’re about to bring me, I’d kill you where you lie.”

  Money? She must be talking about some kind of bounty. Was there one on his head now, in Alliance lands, and had she identified him so readily in the darkness? No, she would have said so, not made a general, all-encompassing statement against orcs.

  “I will not harm you,” Thrall said, keeping his voice as calm as possible. It was a blunderbuss barrel she had pressed to his neck. He calculated the odds that he could move swiftly enough to seize it and direct it away from him before she fired, and suspected he couldn’t.

  “Oh, I know you won’t, because I’ll blow your brains out. Now: Get up, move slowly. You’re worth more to me alive than dead, but don’t think I wouldn’t settle for a lesser bounty if you give me any trouble.”

  He obeyed, moving slowly as she had ordered, keeping his hands where she could see them.

  “Over by that tree, to your left, then turn around and face me,” she ordered.

  Thrall complied, turning slowly—

  And gasped.

  The woman in front of him was thin, almost gaunt. Her short, close-cropped hair was pale. She appeared to be in her early thirties and wore practical pants, boots, and shirt. The moonlight made her face look haggard, casting shadows beneath her cheekbones and under her eyes, but Thrall did not think sunlight would be any kinder. She might have been beautiful once. In fact, Thrall knew she had been.

  “Taretha,” he breathed.

  NINE

  Taretha’s eyes narrowed as she aimed the blunderbuss straight at his broad chest. “I won’t miss,” she said. “How do you know my name?”

  For a wild moment Thrall was totally confused. And then he understood. He must have stumbled into one of the wrong timeways—one of the ones that the bronze dragonflight was trying to repair. Because, painful as it was, he knew that Taretha Foxton, his only friend in childhood, had never lived beyond her midtwenties.

  “This is going to sound very strange, but please, I urge you to believe me,” he said, trying to sound as calm—and as sane—as possible.

  An eyebrow lifted. “You speak well … for a stinking greenskin.”

  It hurt to hear Taretha, who had always thought of him as a brother, use such ugly words to Thrall, but he did not react.

  “It is because I was educated—by humans,” he said. “I was raised by Lord Aedelas Blackmoore to be a gladiator. He made sure I learned how to read and write, the better to understand war strategy. Your mother, Clannia, saved my life, Taretha. She nursed me when I was an infant. My name … is Thrall.”

  The gun wavered, but only for an instant. Thrall could tell by the way she handled it that Taretha was no stranger to firearms.

  “That’s a lie,” she said. “That orc died after a few days.”

  Thrall’s mind reeled. So he had existed in this timeway … but had died in infancy. It was all so hard to take in. He tried again.

  “Have you heard about dragons, Taretha?”

  She snorted. “Don’t insult me. Of course I have. What do they have to do with an orc I’m rapidly losing patience with?”

  She was so harsh, so bitter. Still, Thrall pressed on. “Then perhaps you know that there is one group of dragons called the bronze dragonflight. Their leader is Nozdormu. They make sure that time unfolds the way it is supposed to. In another timeway, as I told you, I survived and became a gladiator, just as Blackmoore wanted. You sneaked me notes, hidden in books. You became my friend.”

  “Friend to an orc?” Disbelief made her voice climb higher. “Not likely.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Most unlikely. And most wonderful. You remembered the baby your mother nursed, and you were fond of him—of me. And you hated what they did to me. I have only just met you, yet I say I already know something about you. I believe that you do not like violence done to beings who cannot defend themselves.”

  The gun wavered a second time, and her eyes flickered away for just an instant before she turned her gaze upon him aga
in. Hope filled Thrall’s heart. Whatever had befallen her to make the gentle young woman he had known so tough and hard, he could tell that she was still Taretha underneath it all. And if she was still Tari, maybe he could reach her. Could help her, somehow, some way, in this timeway, in a way he had been unable to in his own.

  “You helped me escape,” he continued. “I freed my people from the internment camps. I defeated Blackmoore and razed Durnholde. And later, humans and orcs and others united to defeat an attack on our world from a demonic force called the Burning Legion. All of this was because of you, Tari. My timeway owes so much to you.”

  “It’s a nice story, and much cleverer than any I would have expected from an orc,” Taretha said. “But it’s a lie. The world is certainly not that way here. And that’s the only world I know.”

  “What if I could prove it to you?” he said.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “But—if I could?”

  Taretha was still wary, but he could tell she was growing curious. “How?” she asked.

  “You did meet the infant orc,” Thrall said. “You remember what color his eyes were?”

  “Blue,” she said at once. “No one had ever seen an orc with blue eyes before or since.”

  Thrall pointed to his face. “My eyes are blue, Taretha. And I, too, have never known of any other orc with blue eyes.”

  She snorted. “Like I’d come close enough to look into your eyes at night,” she said. “Nice try.” She jerked her head to the left. “Start walking, greenskin.”

  “Wait! There is one more thing … to prove to you I’m telling the truth.”

  “I’ve had enough of this,” she said.

  “In the bag,” he persisted. “Look in the bag. There’s a small pouch in it. In that pouch … I think you’ll find something you’ll recognize.”

  He prayed he was right. The small pouch contained only a few items. His totems. The acorn, of course—the gift of the ancients. A makeshift altar, with representations of each of the elements. And … something precious. Something that had been lost to him but had been found again … something that he would keep with him until the day he died.