William King - Illidan

Illidan resisted the urge to join in the fray. Opening the portal had drained a good deal of his power; he was husbanding what was left in case any unexpected threat emerged.

Ahead of him loomed the tallest tower, the great archive of the dreadlords. Within this building lay all the countless secrets the nathrezim had obtained during their service to Sargeras.

Hulking felguard flanked an entrance that shimmered and vanished, closing off the tower to intruders. Tattooed fighters dragged the demons down, then stood before where the doorway once was, baffled. What had been an empty archway mere heartbeats before was now a wall of stone.

“Blast it,” Illidan ordered. There was no doubt an easier way of opening the doorway, but he did not have time to uncover the magical key. The demon hunters raised their hands and sent fel flame licking toward the barrier. Hundreds of bolts smashed, scoured, and scratched the stone, but still it withstood the assault.

“Concentrate on one area!” Illidan shouted, and all the bolts converged at the center of the stone, drilling through it until finally the rock splintered and collapsed into a heap of rubble.

Illidan sprang over it and glimpsed a long ramp leading down into the depths below the tower. So far all was as he recalled from his memories of Gul’dan’s visions. He smiled to himself as a score of Illidari sprang over the stones and fanned out into the interior of the building, scouting the way ahead.

“Down,” Illidan ordered them, and they took the ramp leading down. Strange lights moved in the floor, as if triggered by their steps. The air pulsed with sorcery, currents of energy woven into potent spells by the magic of the nathrezim. Power shimmered in the air and thrummed beneath his hooves. Complex engines of magic all around drew on the energy that permeated everything on this strange world.

He was close now. So close.

“Die, desecrator!” the mo’arg servitor shouted as he sprang forward to attack. The demon raised the barrel of his odd weapon. Magical flame sputtered.

Illidan decapitated the squat, armored creature with a casual backhand stroke of his warglaive as he entered the central archive of the dreadlords. Over everything loomed glittering towers built of countless obsidian disks layered together like stacks of coins. Each one of those disks was a record. One of them was what he sought.

He turned to the demon hunters who stood in the entrance of the huge chamber, waiting his command. “Do not enter. Hold this doorway, no matter what happens in the next five minutes.”

They nodded acquiescence, and Illidan turned once more to face the stacks. He crossed his arms on his chest and wove a spell. Tendrils of magic flashed from his hands to the towers of stacked disks. As they connected, he caught flashes of imagery, splinters of knowledge.

This was the monument of the dreadlords, the heart of their world. It recorded every triumph, every conquest, and every plot. Nathrezim schemed to have their names imprinted here. It was the living memory of their race.

Here were records of innumerable campaigns fought on countless worlds. Here were the names of long-forgotten traitors who had betrayed their homes to the Legion and were in turn betrayed by the demons. Here was knowledge of every portal the Legion had ever passed through, the names and locations of every world it had ever burned.

There was a system to it. It was organized almost chronologically, the oldest disks on the bottom of each stack. The stacks closest to the center were the oldest of these.

Illidan sent tendrils of energy racing to the middle. What he wanted would be located very near the core. The images that flashed into his mind reeked of age. He was looking at things that were old even as demons reckoned time.

A sense of urgency pushed at him. Somewhere in the distance, gates were opening. The nathrezim were responding to the invasion of their homeworld.

He became aware of the sounds of fighting. They came from what seemed like a great distance, but he knew this was because of the spell linking him to the archive. His forces were engaged with enemy reinforcements flooding in from the city above. He prayed they could hold them until his work was completed. He needed to finish quickly, or this library would become a trap and his army would be overwhelmed by the massed strength of the nathrezim.

He took a deep breath and slowed his pulse. It would not do to make a mistake here, so close to the culmination of everything he had planned for. He could not afford to fail.

There—he found the first ward, a complex spell, almost undetectable. It had been set to warn of anyone tampering with these records and rewriting history. He was not concerned with any such subtlety. He just needed the specific record he was searching for, and then he would be gone. He smashed the spell aside and felt an immediate response as defensive runes flared to life. He sensed portals opening around him.

An enormous felguard shimmered into being among the stacks. A pulse of magical energy, loud as thunder and clear as a bell to anyone with the senses to hear it, rang out. From the distance came multiple responses.

The nathrezim would know exactly where he was now. He stepped forward as the felguard aimed a blow at him. His warglaive lashed out and cut the demon in half. More felguard materialized around him. Illidan cut them down, but more and more materialized with every heartbeat.

He gazed around him with his spectral sight, looking for the pattern of the defenses, finding them inscribed around the base of each pillar of disks. Each was connected to one of three master sigils around the central pillar.

He aimed one of his warglaives at the nearest and threw. His weapon whirled through the air and scoured the stone, breaking part of the spell. The blade bounced off the pillar and returned to his hand. The onrush of felguard slackened as the portals connected to the destroyed rune collapsed.

Illidan sprang forward, moving around the pillar as the demons pursued him. Ahead lay another glowing sigil in the floor. He cut down two felguard, slid forward, powering himself with his wings, and defaced the rune with his blades, then moved toward the last of the master wards.

The remaining felguard bunched around the third glowing sigil. He sprang into the air, gained height, and swooped down on them. His blades sang as he chopped through the demonic ranks, ducking their axe strokes, evading their attempts to grip him.

He drove his blade right into the center of the runic pattern, disrupting it. A massive backwash of energy pushed him into the air. The demons howled their frustration, but the gateways through which they had come collapsed. Now he had to deal with only those who had already passed through. There would be no more reinforcements.

Once more he dived amid the demons, scattering them with the force of his flying charge. His blades decapitated some and left others limbless. He came to rest beside the central pillar. He stood next to his goal for all these long centuries.

Extending one hand, he invoked his spell of seeking once more. Images flooded his mind as tendrils of force touched the disks. One in particular, the Seal of Argus, drew him. Potent images overlaid it, the aura of beings he had encountered in the past and would never forget: Archimonde and Kil’jaeden, the two mightiest lieutenants of Sargeras, true master of the Burning Legion.

Their psychic stench was so strong, it threatened to overwhelm even his prepared mind. He felt the brutal fury of Archimonde and the subtle, intricate mind of Kil’jaeden. Even though he knew they were not present, it was all he could do to keep from lashing out as if surrounded by deadly foes.