snack?”
“If that was the case, Deathwing would have eaten him before. No. He clearly has some need of
Rhonin.”
Falstad grimaced. “You ask much! The gryphon's weary and will need to land soon!”
“Please! Just as far as you can! I cannot leave him like this! I have sworn an oath!”
“No oath would take you this far,” the gryphon rider muttered, but he nonetheless steered his mount
back toward Khaz Modan. The animal made noises of protest, but obeyed.
Vereesa said nothing more, knowing that Falstad had the right of it. Yet, for reasons unclear to her, she
could not even now abandon Rhonin to what seemed an obvious fate.
Rather than try to fathom her own mind, the ranger pondered the dwindling form of Deathwing. He had
to have Rhonin. It made too much sense in her mind.
But what would Deathwing—who hated all other creatures, who sought the destruction of orc, elf,
dwarf, and human—possibly want with the mage?
She remembered Duncan Senturus's opinion of wizards, one shared not only by the other members of
the Knights of the Silver Hand, but most other folk as well.A damned soul,Duncan had called him.
Someone who would just as readily turn to evil as good. Someone who might—make apactwith the most
sinister of all creatures?
Had the paladin spoken greater truth than even he had realized? Could Vereesa now be attempting to
rescue a man who had, in actuality, sold his soul to Deathwing?
“What does he want of you, Rhonin?” she murmured. “What does he want of you?”
Krasus's bones still ached and pain occasionally shot through his system, but he had at least managed to
heal himself sufficiently to return to the troubles at hand. However, he dared not tell the rest of the council
what had occurred, even though the information would have been relevant to their own tasks. For now,
among the Kirin Tor, the knowledge of Deathwing's human guise had to be his and his alone. The
success of Krasus's other plans quite possibly depended on it.
The dragon sought to be king of Alterac! On the surface, an absurd, impossible notion; but what Krasus
knew of the black dragon indicated that Deathwing had something more complex, more cunning, in mind.
Lord Prestor might be pushing to create peace among the members of the Alliance, but Deathwing
desired only blood and chaos . . . and that meant that this peace created by his ascension to that minor
throne would only be the first step toward formulating even worse disharmony later on. Yes, peace today
would meanwartomorrow.
If he could not tell the Kirin Tor, there were others to whom Krasus could speak. He had been rejected
by them over and over, but perhaps this time one would listen. Perhaps the wizard's mistake had been
asking their agents to come to him. Perhaps they would listen if he brought the terror to their very
sanctums.
Yes . . . then they might listen. Standing in the midst of his dark sanctum, his hood pulled forward to the point where his face completely
vanished within, Krasus uttered the words to take him to one of those whose aid he most sought. The
ill-lit chamber grew hazy, faded. . . .
And suddenly the mage stood in a cavern of ice and snow.
Krasus gazed around him, overawed by the sight despite previous visits here long, long ago. He knew in
whose domain he now stood, and knew that of all those whose aid he sought this one might take the
greatest umbrage at such a brazen intrusion. Even Deathwing respected the master of this chilling cavern.
Few ever came to this sanctum in the heart of cold, inhospitable Northrend, and fewer still departed from
it alive.
Great spires that almost appeared to be made of pure crystal hung from the icy ceiling, some twice, even
three times, the height of the wizard. Other, rockier formations jutted up through the thick snow that not
only blanketed much of the cavern floor, but the walls as well. From some inner passage light entered the
chamber, casting glittering ghosts all about. Rainbows danced with each brush of the spires by a slight
wind that somehow had managed to find its way inside from the cold, bleak land above this magical
place.
Yet, behind the beauty of this winter spectacle lay other, more macabre sights. Within the enchanting
blanket of snow, Krasus made out frozen shapes, even the occasional limb. Many, he knew, belonged to
the few great animals who thrived in the region, while a couple, especially one marked by a hand curled
in grisly death, revealed the fate of those who had dared to trespass.
More unnerving evidence of the finality of any intruder's fate could even be found in the wondrous ice
formations, for in several dangled the frozen corpses of past uninvited visitors. Krasus marked among the
most common a number of ice trolls—massive, barbaric creatures of pale skin and more than twice the
girth of their southern counterparts. Death had not come kind to them, each bearing expressions of
agony.
Farther on, the mage noted two of the ferocious beastmen known as wendigos. They, too, had been
frozen in death, but where the trolls had revealed their terror at their horrible deaths, the wendigos wore
masks of outrage, as if neither could believe they had come to such straits.
Krasus walked through the icy chamber, peering at others in the macabre collection. He discovered an
elf and two orcs that had been added since his last sojourn here, signs that the war had spread even to
this lonely abode. One of the orcs looked as if he had been frozen without ever having realized what fate
had befallen him.
Beyond the orcs Krasus discovered one corpse that startled even him. Upon first glance, it seemed but a
giant serpent, a peculiar enough monster to find in such a frozen hell, but the coiled body suddenly altered
at the top, shifting from a cylindrical form to a nearly human torso—albeit a human torso covered with a
smattering of scales. Two broad arms reached out as if trying to invite the wizard to join the creature's
grisly doom.
A face seemingly elven but with a flatter nose, a slit of a mouth, and teeth as sharp as a dragon greeted
the newcomer. Shadowy eyes with no pupils glared in outrage. In the dark and with the bottom half of his
form hidden, this being would have passed for either elf or man, but Krasus knew him for what he
was—or rather, had been. The name began to form on the wizard's tongue unbidden, as if the sinister, icy
victim before him somehow drew it forth.
Na—” Krasus started.
“You are nothing, nothing, nothing, if not audaciousss,” interjected a whispering voice that seemed to
trail on the very wind.
The faceless wizard turned to see a bit of the ice on one wall pull away—and transform into something
nearly akin to a man. Yet the legs were too thin, bent at too awkward an angle, and the body resembled
more that of an insect. The head, too, had only a cursory resemblance to that of a human, for although
there were eyes, nose, and mouth, they looked as if some artisan had started on a snow sculpture, then
abandoned the idea as fruitless once the first marks for the features had been traced.
A shimmering cloak encircled the bizarre figure, one that had no hood, but a collar that rose into great
spikes at the back.
“Malygos . . .” Krasus murmured. “How fare you?”
“I am comfortable, comfortable, comfortable—when my privacy isss left to me.”
“I would not be here if I had any other choice.”
“There isss always one other choice—you can leave, leave, leave! I would bealone!”
The wizard, though, would not be daunted by the cavern's master. “And have you forgotten why you
dwell so silently, so alone, in this place, Malygos? Have you forgotten so soon? It is, after all, only a few
centuries since—”
The icy creature stalked around the perimeter of the cavern, ever keeping what passed for his eyes
locked on the newcomer. “I forget nothing, nothing, nothing!” came the harsh wind. “I forget the days of
darkness least of all. . . .”
Krasus rotated slowly so as to keep Malygos in front of him at all times. He knew no reason why the
other should attack, but at least one of the others had hinted that perhaps Malygos, being eldest of those
who still lived, might be more than a bit mad.
The stick-thin legs worked well on the snow and ice, the claws at the ends digging deep. Krasus was
reminded of the poles men in the cold climes used to push themselves along on their skis.
Malygos had not always looked so, nor did he even now have to retain such a shape. Malygos wore
what he wore because in some deep recess of his mind he preferred this over even the shape to which he
had been born.
“Then you remember what he who calls himselfDeathwingdid to you and yours.”
The outlandish face twisted, the claws flexed. Something akin to a hiss escaped Malygos.
“Iremember. . . .”
The cavern suddenly felt much more cramped. Krasus held his ground, knowing that to give in to
Malygos's tortured world might very well condemn him.
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