Among the skardyn, there was rough, mocking laughter. One of them leaned close to the bars and, for the first time, spoke something intelligible.
"All fight gone from him. He good slave now..." The feral eyes surveyed the captives. "Who want to be next?"
The other skardyn laughed again.
FIFTEEN
The mageslayer towered over her. Iridi knew nothing of its kind save what she had gleaned from Krasus. By rights, she should have been fairly safe from its abilities, but this creature had been transformed into something more menacing.
She seized a rock and threw it. As the priestess expected, the missile flew through without pause.
The draenei had no choice. She summoned the staff even knowing that its power might be used against her.
The mageslayer moved in silence. That made it all the more unnerving. Iridi pointed the staff and focused.
A blue light erupted from the staff, striking the mageslayer—
And immediately after, flying back at the startled draenei.
Iridi was sent hurtling away. She released her grip on the staff, and quickly twisted in the air. A moment later, the priestess crashed into the ground.
Most would have been left unconscious or even dead, but the priestess's training enabled her to land rolling, then end up in a crouched position. Even then, though, Iridi was left disoriented. It took her a moment to locate the mageslayer, a moment she did not have.
A second burst of blue light almost crushed her into the floor. The draenei barely dodged out of the path. It did not seem right to her that the monster could send the staff's power back twice; that should have been an impossibility. She could only assume that this was another benefit of the transformation.
Skardyn in her vicinity ran off as if on fire. That none of these foul creatures—supposedly serving the same entity—desired to beanywhere near the mageslayer did not bode well.
Iridi suddenly noticed that the nether dragon sought her attention. The draenei summoned the staff back.
There...there... Zzeraku managed. That...
"That" was an altar whose base included what appeared to be carvings shaped like dragons. Resting on it was a cube of some bluish tint. There was something about the cube that made the draenei hesitant to draw near it.
The staff... the nether dragon struggled to continue. It might stir the cube... might begin the feeding...
Iridi had no idea what he meant by the last, only that the cube was possibly her only hope. She dismissed the staff again, then, as the mageslayer neared, performed an athletic leap over its very head.
What vaguely resembled a clawed appendage grabbed for her, barely missing. The mageslayer turned as the draenei landed. Its midsection had turned darker.
A black light shot out at her.
The priestess avoided being struck, but a skardyn seeking to flee from behind her moved too slow. The light enveloped it—and with a squeal, the skardyn went spinning into the nearest wall, striking so hard that Iridi could hear its bones crack. The dead skardyn slid in an ungainly lump to the floor.
Before the mageslayer could strike again, the draenei reached the altar. Praying that Zzeraku had not steered her terribly wrong. Iridi summoned the naaru staff.
The center of the mageslayer darkened again.
Iridi pointed the crystal at the cube.
Think... think of the creature... Zzeraku suddenly warned. Then use... the staff...
She did as told. Imagining the abomination in her mind.
The staff fed power into the cube. The cube flared bright—
An eerie, whistling sound filled the chamber. Iridi belatedly realized that it came from the mageslayer.
The monster lost all cohesion. As a swirling mass of energy, the mageslayer flew toward the draenei... then suddenly sank into the cube without a trace.
The priestess stood there disbelieving.
Beware! Zzeraku warned.
Some of the skardyn began recovering from their own surprise and fear enough to recall that there was still an intruder. They started for her.
She spun around. They were coming from all sides again. She raised the staff—
And suddenly there was a robed figure with red hair standing next to her. He wrapped his arms around the draenei before she could react.
"Damn it! You're not her!"
Before she could respond, the cavern chamber disappeared. Iridi cried out in frustration. "No!"
She was outside again. Outside the mount that she had so desperately tried to enter.
"No!" the priestess repeated. "No!"
"Be quiet!" The robed figure spun her around. For the first time, she saw that he was human. Under the thick, fiery hair, eyes of bright emerald green stared back at her. He was not unhandsome for one of his kind, although his nose had clearly been broken sometime far in the past. He had a strong jaw and angular features and a stubborn expression that well matched his red hair.
On the breast of his robe had been sewn an eye of gold on a field of violet. Below the eye were three daggers, also gold, that pointed downward.
Iridi recognized the symbol of Dalaran.
"You are the wizard Rhonin, mate of the high elf, Vereesa," she quietly declared.
"You know her? You know where she is? I tried to locate her and sensed some magical forces in play. Vereesa's always in the middle of such things...." He cursed at himself. I tried something and it failed. But at least you're safe."
"But I need to get back inside! I was trying to free the nether dragon—"
The spellcaster looked as if she were mad. "Why in the world would you do something that mad? I've heard from those who've seen what they can do! Destroy the creature, maybe, but free it?"
"I've seen into his mind. Zzeraku means no ill. He's done terrible things in the past, but he's changed now...."
"As simple as that, is it? And you're absolutely certain you read him true?"
"I am... and I will not back down on this. He must be freed and for many reasons...." The draenei dismissed her staff. "He is the key to whatever is going on. They're using Zzeraku to create some terrible creature...."
Rhonin grimaced. "It never ends, does it? Never any true peace for Azeroth... gods, I wish Krasus were here at least!"
It did not surprise the priestess to learn that the wizard knew the red dragon. With some trepidation, she said, "Krasus is also in Grim Batol... as a prisoner."
"That's not possible. Not him..."
"He sent me to safety just before he and a younger blue dragon —Kalec—were captured. There was a mageslayer—"
"That wouldn't stop him," Rhonin scoffed.
"There was something different about it, he indicated. It had been enhanced by those in Grim Batol."
A sound from the direction of the mountain made them both still. Rhonin took hold of her arm. "I should be able to do this one more time. Jumping into Grim Batol took more than even I thought."
"We're going back inside?"
He gave her a harsh laugh. "Not at the moment, not if you don't want to end up a part of the mount itself for the rest of eternity. No, I'm sending us somewhere safer... relatively speaking."
Rhonin's brow furrowed in concentration. Iridi started to protest again. Surely, he, of all people, understood the need to return to Grim Batol.
But it was too late. The air around the pair crackled... and both vanished once more.
Krasus floated in an oppressive darkness, the sense that it was seeking to crush him ever prevalent. He had heard stories of confinement in chrysalun chambers, horrible tales of dragons and other magical beings driven mad by years, decades, even centuries of entrapment. Time, after all, did not flow inside as it did in the true world. For all he knew, his friends and comrades were all long dead and whatever evil Sinestra had birthed in the pits of Grim Batol had wreaked havoc all over Azeroth.
No! That has not happened! Not yet! The dragon mage berated himself for such dire assumptions. Deathwing's consort intended to use his ma
gical essence to feed her abominations; therefore, there was still hope... at least for all save Kalec.
He mourned the blue's violent passing. The thing in the pit, the thing already so well-adapted at shielding itself from powerful dragons, had surely made a grisly meal out of Kalec. It infuriated Krasus that he had been unable to do anything to save his companion, infuriated him more that no one had been able to depend upon him. He had no idea what had happened to Iridi. In desperation, he had transported her to the one area that he knew of around Grim Batol—knowledge gleaned from those of his kind who had stood guard over the evil mount—where magic was difficult to use. There, she would have at least had a chance to recover and. If wise, abandon the area as soon as possible.
Krasus doubted that she had done so.
Not for the first time, the dragon mage tested the limits of his prison. It was ironic that, in here of all places, he was more at his full strength than anywhere else in and around Grim Batol. The chamber was a pocket universe in itself, one that drew upon the victim's own magic to keep the latter imprisoned. Yet, it also cut him off from Sinestra's spellwork and whatever truly kept him so weak in the mount.
But he could not just wait here until the black dragon freed him for her diabolical spells. Krasus was no ordinary prisoner; he was well aware of the history of chrysalun chambers, for were they not the work of dragons, after all?
Initially, the chambers had been designed for varied purposes depending on which dragonflight had created them, but first and foremost they had all been intended to trap creatures and beings of magical threat... demons, mad spellcasters, elementals, and the like. Those specifically created by the black flight had been intended for use against wild energies and the like that threatened the very earth itself.
Yet, that had changed forever after a newly-insane Neltharion, furious at his loss of the Demon Soul over the Well of Eternity, had sometime afterward altered those created by his flight for the foul purpose of trapping his imagined enemies. The other flights had quickly moved to locate the chambers and, in addition to those of the Earth-Warder, had supposedly forever sealed them away where they could not be found.
But over the centuries, a few had made their way back into the world... and perhaps this one had never even been uncovered before.
Krasus grew frustrated. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps his knowledge of the history of the foul boxes was not something that would serve him after all—
The dragon mage hesitated. Or would it? One particular point suddenly struck him. Chrysalun chambers required much effort, which was why there were thankfully so few. Even some of those had not been entirely stable. They had had faults...
It was a desperate hope, but the only hope he currently had. Krasus focused his mind and reached out.
But at first, all he sensed was his oppressive imprisonment. Krasus shuddered and briefly the hope that Sinestra would need him quickly for her experiment flashed through his mind. He immediately rejected the notion, but wondered, if he failed to escape, how long it would be before he prayed for it again.
Once more, Krasus concentrated. For the most part, it was his own magical essence he sensed, but gradually, he noticed another.
It was not of Azeroth in origin.
Hopes raised, Krasus fixed on it. There was something familiar about it. something that reminded him of—
Yes, that was it. This was, of course, the very chamber in which the nether dragon had surely been contained.
Whether or not that bettered his chances, the dragon mage could not say. The nether dragon's energies were like nothing that the creator of this hellish prison could have imagined.
Krasus probed deeper into the design. There were odd variations that could only be the work of the original caster, perhaps Neltharion or even his consort. Krasus grew less confident that there would be any advantage after all. Whoever had created this particular artifact had been eager to experiment.
But still Krasus had to try. He inspected the magic foundation of the box, seeking some disruption from the nether dragon's incarceration that might have created a flaw. That flaw would be his best chance of escape. He needed to—
The dragon mage frowned suddenly. There was another variation in the spell matrix of the chrysalun chamber. It had not been forged by the same hand that had created all else. However, It made no sense... unless it had been caused by the nether dragon.
Krasus inspected it further.
His prison suddenly shifted, throwing him about. The darkness turned to gray, then black again. Krasus was sent spinning—
He reacted instinctively, his body contorting and his arms and legs stretching and bending at angles not conforming to his elven shape. Claws burst from his fingers. Scales covered his skin as his nose and mouth stretched forward into a long, sharp muzzle. Wings sprouted from his back as his robes faded to nothing.
Beating his massive wings. Korialstrasz slowed, then halted his flight. The red leviathan roared from the painful effort.
As he regained his equilibrium, Korialstrasz tried to make sense of what had happened. His simple probing of the area in question had turned his entire prison on its head.
Clearly, the nether dragon had come much closer to freedom than he had imagined. Unfortunately for the creature, he had nothad the cunning or knowledge to benefit from his very uniqueness.
But now Korialstrasz's hopes heightened. There was great risk, but risk was better than either eternity or awaiting his captor's summons. Sinestra would surely be well prepared for him when she opened the chamber again. It behooved the red to make his escape, if he could.
With much more delicacy, Korialstrasz surveyed the weakened area again, observing carefully how it weakened the overall matrix. It did not surprise him to quickly discover that the odd energies of a nether dragon could affect the matrix almost like a virus in a mortal body. The two forces were enough alike that now the essence of the former captive had restructured the original spellwork into a pattern never conceived by the chrysalun chamber's creator.
And where the spell matrix had been most affected, there the red dragon found what he felt was the weak link, the point where he needed to concentrate his efforts.
With the eye of one who had studied the workings of magic perhaps second only to the greatest of the blue dragons, Korialstrasz slowly picked his way through the aberration. He finally found the thread that he felt would, if removed carefully, cause the rest to become undone and, theoretically, open the way for him.
Already feeling claustrophobic, Korialstrasz began gingerly severing the link. Immediately he felt the entire chamber quiver. The darkness became slightly grayer again. The red dragon grew more bold in his work. Freedom was close—
The aberration completely disintegrated, not at all what he had wanted. The matrix became frayed, with the frayed area spreading. Korialstrasz quickly sought to rebuld it, but the damage was already more than he could overcome. The strain on the rest of the spellwork keeping the chamber intact increased a thousandfold.
The chamber collapsed, the grayness pressing in on the red dragon from all sides. Korialstrasz screamed, his prison's abrupt destruction unleashing new and terrible forces that threatened to rip him apart. Korialstrasz was caught in a maelstrom that grew to horrendous proportions. Try as he might, the dragon could donothing to keep from spinning toward it.
That this was all taking place in a container not even large enough on the outside to seemingly hold much more than an apple did in no manner assuage Korialstrasz. For him, it was as if Azeroth had been destroyed and the universe were about to join it. He had wanted to be free of the chrysalun chamber and he had gotten his wish...perhaps much to his eternal regret.
The great wings beat again and again, the strain of fighting against such powerful primal forces quickly bringing Korialstrasz to the point of exhausted panting. The eye of the maelstrom loomed before him, a swirling mass of gray, black, and crimson.
As he neared the eye, invisible forces pressed dow
n ever harder on the dragon. His bones felt as if ready to crush to powder, his flesh as if about to be squeezed to pulp. In all his long existence, he had never known such unendurable agony.
At that point, the dragon decided that there was but one thing he could do. It offered the potential for even greater suffering and a much worse death, but also the slightest of hopes.
Concentrating as best he could, Korialstrasz focused all his magic on protecting himself. The effort strained him more, and he nearly blacked out. Yet, in the end his spells held.
The red leviathan studied the maelstrom, seeking the exact center. It had to be exact. Anything else was certain suicide.
Beating his wings as hard as he could, Korialstrasz no longer fought against the maelstrom's pull, but rather embraced it. He soared forth, speeding into its maw and praying that whatever happened, it would happen swiftly.
And as he entered it, Korialstrasz screamed again...and again... and again—
SIXTEEN
Sinestra slept.
That she might do so even when her senses warned her that there were other intruders about spoke not of her exhaustion, but of her confidence. She was certain of her impending triumph, certain that any of the vermin seeking to prevent it would soon be either eradicated or serve her in some manner or another.
She slept, as she always did, for but only a few minutes at a time. There had been periods when she had gone more than a century without slumber. This was not normal for most of her kind, but Sinestra had only contempt for the others, even those of the black flight. In her mind, the only dragons worth existing in her imagined world were herself and her new children.
Still in her mortal form and lying atop a bed of stone, she slept alone in a vast chamber deeper than any other she currently used for her experiments. Down here, there was nothing to disturb her.
Down here, she could listen to the voice in her head far more clearly.
All goes as planned, it said over and over. All goes as planned and Dargonax grows larger.... The next generation will dwarf even him...and be a thousand times more powerful...
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