Thrall Twilight of the Aspects

by Christie Golden

  But with any luck, Kirygosa would be long gone by then.

  She moved quickly but quietly, booted feet making only the barest whisper as she raced down the ramp. Fortunately, it was after sunset; she could at least hope to move in the shadows.

  Even after dark, though, the Twilight Father kept his minions busy. There were torches stuck in the snow, their orange-red glow chasing away the purple-blue shadows. Kirygosa reached the bottom level and flattened herself against one of the archway walls, looking about.

  If only she could simply change into her true shape and fly away! But they had seen to it that she could not. She fingered the chain on her neck that kept her locked in this form. She would need some kind of mount. They used all kinds here, but mostly as pack animals—just like those that, until recently, had drawn the wagon that had borne the inanimate body of the nightmare who now lay drowsing not too far from where Kirygosa hid in the shadows.

  But there were some that were personal mounts. A few of the higher-ranking members of the cult owned them. They had not been forced to slog across Northrend on foot, as most of the others had during the brutal trek to the temple. Over there, several of them were tethered a fair distance from the light provided by the torches. She saw a few wolves, thicker-coated horses, nightsabers, and even a few elk and one or two wyverns. Some of them would not permit anyone other than their riders to mount them.

  But some of them would.

  There was just one catch: in order to get to a wyvern, she would have to walk right past the sleeping Chromatus.

  She hesitated, the horror resurfacing. … If he awoke—

  Then you would be no better off than if you had gone to him docilely. But if you get past him—

  It was the only way. If she didn’t get past him, she yet had the dagger. She would use it on herself rather than submit to such an abomination.

  She tucked the dangling chain into her linen shirt, gripped the dagger—pitiful weapon though it would be against so great a creature—and stepped slowly forward.

  His breathing sounded like a small wind as it moved in and out of enormous, unnaturally animated lungs. In her human form, Kirygosa was as a mouse to a tiger, and yet somehow she thought the sound of her snow-muffled footfalls and rapidly beating heart would awaken him. He was not curled up but lay with his heads stretched out before him, his body moving slowly up and down with each breath.

  Kiry wanted to break into a run but did not. Instead, step by quiet step, she moved down the length of his enormous, mottlehued form. He smelled musky and rank, as if the stench of rot that had clung to him for so long could not be dispersed merely by the spark of life. Hatred suddenly formed in her belly, its heat warming her, giving her renewed determination.

  More than her life was at stake here. She had been kept prisoner by the Twilight Father long enough to learn things—things he was not aware that she knew. If she could reach Kalec and the blues with that information, she might be able to tell them something that could help them in their attack.

  Because they would, indeed, attack again. Kirygosa knew her people. And she wanted to be with them this time, not kept helpless and weak by a chain around her neck.

  Chromatus stirred.

  Kirygosa froze in mid-step, not breathing. Had he somehow sensed her sudden flush of hatred? Smelled it on her, perhaps? Or had she been careless and crunched a twig hidden beneath the snow?

  He shifted, lifting his massive bronze head and resettling it, heaving a great sigh. His tail lifted, thumped down. Then he was again still and the heavy breathing that denoted deep slumber renewed.

  Kirygosa closed her eyes briefly in relief and resumed her slow, careful movements past the sleeping chromatic dragon toward where the mounts were tethered. Her eyes flicked from the hulking, ugly form of Chromatus to the wyvern who would bear her to freedom.

  The wolves and nightsabers were too bonded to their riders for her to steal. The elk were not sufficiently tamed to carry riders, though they were native to this land and would have borne her swiftly if they had been. Besides, they and the other herbivores would be skittish at the smell of blood that still clung to her. The wyverns that the Horde used as its primary beasts for flying were surprisingly calm, she had found, and as there were so few of them gathered here at the temple, they were trained to accept anyone atop their backs.

  Anyone, that is, who knew how to manage them. Kirygosa once again chased away her fear, telling herself that she was lucky that there were still two available.

  She approached the one she had chosen, murmuring softly. The lionlike head turned to her, eyes blinking with bored inquiry while his bat-like wings stretched and flexed. He was not saddled, and she could not spare the time. Any moment now, the alarm would be raised, and she needed to put as much space between her and the temple as possible before then.

  Kirygosa had watched wyverns being ridden but had never mounted atop one herself. Cautiously, she slipped a leg over the great beast. He grunted, turning to look back at her, obviously sensing at once that she was a novice rider.

  Kiry stroked him in what she hoped was a reassuring fashion, grasped the reins, and turned the wyvern’s head skyward. Obedient and well trained, he leaped up—and she gasped, draping her body atop him and clinging tightly. He evened out quickly, hovering, awaiting a command. She took the reins and guided him to the west, to Coldarra and the Nexus, and desperately hoped that that was where Kalecgos and her flight would still be gathered.

  She leaned close to the wyvern’s ear, summoning what faint magic of persuasion she could with the chain still about her neck, and he calmed.

  “We both know how to fly,” she whispered. “Teach me how to be a wind rider, my friend.”

  It was probably her imagination, but she thought he gave her an approving whuff.

  EIGHTEEN

  Thrall had not imagined he would be returning here again, especially so soon. But as he flew on the back of Narygos, Thrall felt that he was an entirely different person from who he had been the last time he had approached the Life-Binder.

  The thought of Aggra burned warm in his heart, a quiet, ember-fueled fire that both buoyed and calmed him. He had watched—and indeed, had played a vital role in—the blues’ rediscovering the true depths of their own hearts and spirits. They had received the Aspect they deserved: one of strength, and compassion, and wisdom, who truly had the best interest of the flight in mind.

  “The last time I saw her, she was there,” Thrall said, pointing. The dragon dove smoothly and flew toward the stone peak. As they drew closer Thrall saw, with more than a twinge of concern, that Alexstrasza was still here. She was as she had been then, sitting with her legs clasped to her chest, the image of pain. He wondered if she had moved at all since his last visit.

  “Set me down a distance away,” Thrall said. “I don’t think she wants to see anyone right now, and seeing me by myself might be easier.”

  “As you wish,” said Narygos, landing gracefully and lowering himself so that Thrall might dismount with more ease. Thrall turned and looked up at him. “I thank you for bearing me here,” he said, “but… perhaps you should not wait for me.”

  Narygos cocked his head. “If you do not succeed in convincing her—”

  “If I do not succeed in convincing her,” Thrall said with quiet earnestness, “then there is little point to my returning at all.”

  Narygos nodded, understanding. “Good luck, then, for all our sakes.” He gave Thrall a gentle, affectionate nudge with his huge head, then gathered himself and leaped skyward. Thrall watched him fade into the distance, then went to the Life-Binder.

  She heard him approach, as she had before. Her voice was raspy, almost unused-sounding.

  “You are either the bravest or the most foolish orc I have ever seen, to dare return to me a second time,” she said.

  He smiled a little. “Others have said similar things, my lady,” he said.

  “Others,” she said, lifting her head and piercing him with the i
ntensity of her gaze, “are not me.”

  Despite all he had seen and fought in this life, Thrall felt himself tremble at the quiet threat in that voice. He knew she was right. Should she decide to end him, he would not stand a chance.

  “You have come for more torment?” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she meant that he would torment her or vice versa. Probably both.

  “I hope to bring an end, or at least a mitigation, to yours, my lady,” he said quietly.

  Her anger held for another moment, then she looked away, once again resembling more a broken child than the most powerful of the Aspects.

  “Only death will do so, and perhaps not even then,” Alexstrasza said, her voice breaking.

  “I do not know enough to say yes or no to you,” Thrall said, “but I must try.”

  She sighed deeply. He looked at her carefully. She was thinner than she had been the last time he was here. Her cheekbones, angular to begin with, seemed to jut through her skin. Her eyes had dark hollows around them, and she looked as if a good wind would blow her away.

  Thrall knew better.

  He sat down beside her on the stone. She did not move. “When last we spoke,” he continued, “I asked you to come with me to the Nexus. To speak with the blues. To help them.”

  “I have not forgotten. Nor have I forgotten my response.”

  It doesn’t matter. None of it. It doesn’t matter if everything is interconnected. It doesn’t matter how long this has been going on. It doesn’t even matter if we can stop it.

  The children are dead. Korialstrasz is dead. I am dead in all ways but one, and that will soon happen. There is no hope. There is nothing. Nothing matters.

  “I have not forgotten it, either,” Thrall said. “But others do not know, or believe, that it does not matter, and stubbornly persist in continuing. Such as the blue dragons. They have chosen their new Aspect: Kalecgos. And they have a new foe: a chromatic dragon named Chromatus.”

  The faintest flicker of surprise had crossed her face at the mention of Kalecgos, but her eyes dulled again at the name of Chromatus.

  “For each victory, a defeat,” she murmured.

  “I fell during that battle,” Thrall said bluntly. “Quite literally. I tumbled off Kalec’s back and landed in the snow. I nearly gave in to death and despair. But something happened. Something that made me want to move my frozen limbs, claw my way out of the snow—and survive a surprise attack by an old, old enemy.”

  She didn’t move. She appeared to be ignoring him completely. But at least she had not roused to anger and attempted to kill him, as she had last time. And that meant that she just might be listening.

  Ancestors, I pray I am doing the right thing. I act with my heart, and that is the best I can do.

  He extended a hand. She turned her head slightly at the movement and gazed at it dully. He moved it toward her, indicating she should take it. She slowly turned her head back to staring at the horizon.

  Gently, Thrall reached down and took her hand himself. Her fingers were limp and unresponsive. He folded his strong green hand about them carefully.

  “I had a vision,” he said, keeping his voice soft, almost as if he were trying not to startle a shy forest animal. “Two, actually. It is… such a gift to be granted one such. To be blessed with two, especially one entrusted to share with another… was an honor unlooked for.”

  The words were spoken with true modesty. Even though he knew his powers were growing, his connections to the elements deepening, he was still humbled by the grace that was being bestowed upon him. “One was for me. And this one… was for me to share with you.”

  He closed his eyes.

  The egg was hatching.

  It was a dispassionate environment in which to witness a birth, a makeshift laboratory set up under a huge tent. Outside, the storm raged as the little whelp struggled against its confining shell.

  It had many to watch its arrival. One appeared to be a human, wrapped in a hooded cloak that concealed his face. The others wore robes that marked them instantly as members of the Twilight’s Hammer cult. They all looked on gleefully, their gazes locked on the emerging infant.

  Standing beside the human, a slender chain trailing from his hand to her throat, was an attractive human female with blue-black hair. Unlike the others, she watched with a stricken expression on her face, one hand on her abdomen, the other curled tightly into a fist.

  “Kirygosa!”

  The name was whispered sharply by Alexstrasza. Her voice intruded, but only to Thrall’s ears. The vision unfolded exactly as it had the first time. He felt a pang at the name. So—this was what had truly happened to Arygos’s sister, who had been thought lost. Lost indeed, but not dead, not yet. Her face told him everything he needed to know.

  The tiny being heaved and shoved, and a piece of the egg fell away. Its mouth opened as it gasped for breath.

  It was hideous.

  It was blue and black and purple, with grotesque splotches here and there of bronze, red, and green. One of its forelegs ended in a stump. It only had one eye, mottle-hued and bruised-looking, with which to regard its audience.

  Kirygosa let out a single harsh sob, then turned away.

  “No, no, my dear, do not avert your eyes. Behold what we have made of your plain blue child,” gloated the human. He extended a gloved hand and gathered the chromatic whelp into his palm. The thing lay limply, tiny chest heaving. One of its wings was fused to its side.

  The cloaked man walked a few paces away and placed it on the earth. “Now, small one, let us see if you can grow bigger for us.”

  One of the cultists stepped forward, bowing obsequiously. The human extended his hands. One held an imperfectly glimpsed artifact glowing with pale violet energy. The fingers of the other hand fluttered in conjuration. He spoke an incantation, and a strand of white arcane energy shot out from the artifact. It wrapped itself around the whelp, a rope of magic, and began to pull golden life energy from the small dragon. It squeaked in pain.

  “No!” screamed Kirygosa, lunging forward. The man jerked on the chain, hard. Kirygosa dropped to her knees, hissing in agony.

  The whelp grew. It opened its mouth and let out a small, squeaking cry as its body spasmed. Thrall could almost hear bones creaking and skin stretching as the mage drained its life energy, aging it quickly. At one point, the squeak deepened into a croak, and then into a sharp cry. One wing beat frantically; the other, still fused to its side, simply quivered.

  The chromatic whelp collapsed.

  The human sighed. “It almost made it to drake size,” he said thoughtfully. He stepped forward and nudged the corpse with a toe. “Better, Gahurg. Better. The Aspect blood in her does seem to render her children stronger than most, better able to withstand modification. But still, not perfect. Take it away. Dissect it, learn from it, and do even better next time.”

  “As you desire, Twilight Father,” Gahurg said. Four other cultists stepped forward and began to haul the chromatic dragon away.

  “What are you doing to my children?”

  Kirygosa’s voice had begun low, deep in her chest, but it built to a furious shout. Again, heedless of the pain she must have known would come, she launched herself at the man known as the Twilight Father.

  “Oh, dear one,” whispered Alexstrasza. Thrall knew she, too, now saw the marks on Kirygosa’s body where she had been bled or experimented upon. Oddly enough, the pained empathy in Alexstrasza’s voice gave Thrall hope. Better the hurt and the horror than the dull emptiness.

  “I am making perfection,” said the Twilight Father, again tugging on the chain.

  She winced in torment, then found her breath. “I am glad I must watch only one clutch of my eggs sacrificed to your obscenity,” Kirygosa spat. “My mate is dead. I will give you no more.”

  “Ah, but you are still a daughter of Malygos,” said the Twilight Father, “and who is to say that fate—or I—might not find another mate for you, hmm?”

  The scene shifted. Thr
all’s eyes were still closed, the vision still playing in his mind. He could feel Alexstrasza’s hand, her fingers now winding around his, but the sensation was somehow distant, like a sound heard from far away. He knew what they would see next, and he knew that it would either destroy her, or enable her to save herself.

  Either way, he would be there with her.

  The place was a sanctuary. Thrall had known instantly what it needs must be, even though he had never beheld the Ruby Sanctum with his own eyes. It bore damage from what was obviously a recent attack, but the beautiful forest, with bright meadows and softly rustling trees crisscrossed by gently meandering rivulets, was already healing itself. As the Dragonqueen’s true home, the heart of the red dragonflight, should do.

  A large male dragon lay in the shade of one of the trees. He seemed awkward in his relaxation, as if he did not often permit himself to so indulge, and continued to watch the clusters of dragon eggs through half-closed eyes.

  Her gasp was pure, raw, filled with longing and pain.

  “Korialstrasz,” whispered the Life-Binder. “Oh, my love… Thrall, must I see this?”

  So distraught was she that she did not command or order, merely pleaded brokenly. For whatever reason—despair or hope, he did not know—the great Life-Binder, Alexstrasza, had seemingly placed herself firmly in Thrall’s hands.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, making his deep voice as gentle as possible. “Endure but a moment, and all will be revealed to you.”

  And then, in an instant, he was alert and on all four paws, sniffing the air, ears swiveling to catch the slightest sound. A heartbeat later Korialstrasz was airborne, moving swiftly and gracefully, eyes scanning the ground.

  His eyes widened, then narrowed, and with a bellow of protective rage he folded his wings and dove. An instant later Thrall and Alexstrasza saw what Krasus had seen: several intruders of all races, uniform only in that they wore the dark maroon and black robes of the Twilight’s Hammer cult.