Richard Knaak: The Well of Eternity

A feeling of dread swept over Rhonin, one he had felt before while crossing the sea toward the land of Khaz Modan. Then it had been with dwarven gryphon riders and the island they had flown over was Tol Barad, an accursed place overrun early on by the orcs. The island’s inhabitants had been slaughtered, their home ravaged, and the wizard’s highly attuned senses had felt their spirits crying out for vengeance.

Now he experienced the same kind of horrific, mournful cries again.

Rhonin shouted to the dragon, but either the wind swept away his voice or Korialstrasz chose not to hear him. The leathery wings adjusted, slowing their descent to a gentle decline.

They came to a halt atop a promontory overlooking a series of shadowed, ruined structures. Too small for a city, Rhonin assumed them to have once been a fort or perhaps even a walled estate. In either case, the buildings cast an ominous image that only reinforced the wizard’s concerns.

“How soon will we be moving along?” he asked Korialstrasz, still hoping that the dragon only intended to rest a moment before moving on to Kalimdor.

“Not until sunrise. We must pass near the Maelstrom to reach Kalimdor, and we will need our full wits and strength about us for that. This is the only island I have seen for some time.”

“What’s it called?”

“That knowledge is not mine.”

Korialstrasz settled down, allowing Rhonin to dismount. The wizard stepped just far enough from his companion to catch one last glimpse of the ruins before darkness enveloped them.

“Something tragic happened here,” Korialstrasz suddenly commented.

“You sense it, too?”

“Yes…but what it was I cannot say. Still, we should be secure up here and I have no intention of transforming.”

That comforted Rhonin some, but even still he chose to remain as near to the dragon as possible. Despite a reputation for recklessness, the wizard was no fool. Nothing would entice him down into those ruins.

His gargantuan comrade almost immediately went to sleep, leaving a much more wound-up Rhonin to stare at the night sky. Vereesa’s image filled his thoughts. The twins were due shortly and he hoped that he would not miss their coming because of this journey. Birth was a magic unto itself, one that Rhonin could never master.

Thinking of his family eased the mage’s tensions and before he knew it, he drifted off to slumber. There, Vereesa and the as-yet-unborn twins continued to keep him loving company even though the children were never quite defined as male or female.

Vereesa faded into the background, leaving Rhonin with the twins. They called to him, beseeched him to come to them. In his dreams, Rhonin began running over a countryside, the children ever more distant shapes on the horizon. What started as a game became a hunt. The once-happy calls turned fearful. Rhonin’s children needed him, but first he had to find them…and quickly.

“Papa! Papa!” came their voices.

“Where are you? Where are you?” The wizard pushed through a tangle of branches that only seemed to tangle more the harder he pushed. At last he broke through, only to find a towering castle.

And from above, the children called again. He saw their distant shapes reaching out to him. Rhonin cast a spell to make him rise up in the air, but as he did, the castle grew to match his efforts.

Frustrated, he willed himself up faster.

“Papa! Papa!” called the voices, now somewhat distorted by the wind.

At last he neared the tower window where the two waited. Their arms stretched, trying to cut the distance between Rhonin and them. His fingers came within a few scant inches of theirs…

And suddenly a huge form barreled into the castle, shaking it to its very base and sending both Rhonin and his children tumbling earthward. Rhonin sought desperately to save them, but a monstrous, leathery hand snatched him up and took him away.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

The wizard’s head pounded. Everything around him began swirling. The hand lost its hold and once more he plummeted.

“Rhonin! Wherever you are! Awaken!”

Below him, two shadowy forms hurried to catch him…his children now trying to save his life. Rhonin smiled at the pair and they smiled back.

Smiled back with sharp, vicious teeth.

And just in time, Rhonin did awaken.

Instead of falling, he lay on his back. The stars above revealed that surrounding him now was a roofless ruin of a building. The dank smell of decay assailed his nostrils and a horrific, hissing sound beset his ears.

He lifted his head—and looked into a face out of nightmare.

If someone had taken a human skull, dipped it in soft, melting wax and let that wax drip free, that would have come close to describing the gut-wrenching vision at which Rhonin stared. Add to that needle-shaped teeth filling the mouth, along with red, soulless orbs that glared hungrily at the wizard, and the picture of hellish horror was made complete.

It moved toward him on legs much too long and reached out with bony arms that ended in three long, curved fingers that gouged into the already ravaged stone. Over its macabre form it wore the ripped remnants of a once-regal coat and pants. It was so thin that at first Rhonin did not think it had any flesh at all, but then he saw that an almost transparent layer of skin covered the ribs and other visible areas.

The wizard scrambled back just as the monstrosity grabbed at his foot. The slime-encrusted mouth opened, but instead of a hiss or a shriek, there came a childlike voice.

“Papa!”

The same voice in Rhonin’s dream.

He shivered at such a sound coming from the ghoul, but at the same time the cry sent an urge through him. Again he felt as if his own children called to him, an impossibility.

An earth-shaking roar suddenly filled the ruined building, eradicating any urge to fling himself into the deadly talons of the fiend. Rhonin pointed at the creature, muttering.

A ring of fire burst to life around it. Now the pale monstrosity shrieked. It rose as high as its ungainly limbs would enable it, trying to climb over the flames.

“Rhonin!” Korialstrasz shouted from without. “Where are you?”

“Here! In here! A place no longer with a roof!”

As the mage replied, the gaunt creature suddenly leapt through the fire.

Flames licking its body in half a dozen places, it opened its maw far wider than should have been possible, wide enough to engulf Rhonin’s head.

Before the wizard could cast another spell, a huge shadow blotted out the stars and a great paw caught the ghoulish beast square. With another shriek, the still-burning horror flew across the chamber, crashing into a wall with such force the stones caved in around it.

A breath of dragon fire finished what Rhonin’s own spell had begun.

The stench almost overwhelmed the wizard. Holding one sleeve over his nose and mouth, he watched as Korialstrasz alighted.

“What—what was that thing?” Rhonin managed to gasp out.

Even in the dark, he could sense the leviathan’s disgust. “I believe…I believe it was once one of those who called this home.”

Rhonin eyed the charred form.“That was once human? How could that be?”

“You have seen the horrors unleashed by the Undead Scourge during the struggle against the Burning Legion. You need not ask.”

“Is this their work?”

Korialstrasz exhaled. Clearly he had been as disturbed as Rhonin by this encounter. “No…this is much older…and even more unholy an act than the Lich King ever perpetrated.”

“Kras—Korialstrasz, it entered my dreams! Manipulated them!”

“Yes, the others sought to do the same with me—”

“Others?”Rhonin glanced around, another spell already forming on his lips. He felt certain that the ruins swarmed with the fiends.