Jeff Grubb: The Last Guardian

“Don’t,” she growled at him, “say a word.”

“You look very good in it,” he said. “It goes with your eyes.”

Garona snorted. “Lothar said the same thing. He tried to convince me by saying that you were wearing the outfit, too.And that he wanted to make sure that none of the others shot me thinking I was someone else.”

“Others?” said Khadgar, and looked around. In the morning light, it was clear that there were other flights of gryphons on other towers. Around six, including theirs, the gryphons’ wings pink with the unrisen sun. He was unaware that there were this many trained gryphons in the world, much less Stormwind. Lothar must have gone to talk to the dwarves. The air was cold and sharp as a dagger thrust.

Lothar hurried up to them, and adjusted Khadgar’s sword so he could ride gryphon-back with it.

“His Majesty,” grumbled Lothar, “has an abiding faith in the strength of the people of Azeroth and the thickness of the walls of Stormwind. It doesn’t hurt that he also has good people who take care of things when he’s wrong.”

“Like us,” said Khadgar, grimly.

“Like us,” repeated Lothar. He looked at Khadgar hard and added, “I had asked you how he was, you know.”

“Yes,” said Khadgar. “And I told you the truth, or as much of it as I understood it at the time. And I felt loyal to him.”

“I understand,” said Lothar. “And I feel loyal to him as well. I want to make sure what you say is true. But I also want you to be able to do what needs to be done, if we have to do it.”

Khadgar nodded. “You believe me, don’t you?”

Lothar nodded grimly. “Long ago, when I was your age, I was tending to Medivh. He was in his coma, then, that long sleep that denied him much of his youth. I thought it was a dream, but I swore there was another man opposite me, also watching over the Magus. He seemed to be made of burnished brass, and he had heavy horns on his brow, and his beard made of flames.”

“Sargeras,” said Khadgar.

Lothar let out a deep breath. “I thought I had fallen asleep, that it was a dream, that it could not be what I thought it was. You see, I too felt loyal to him. But I never forgot what I saw. And as the years passed I began to realize that I had seen a bit of the truth, and that it may come to this. We may yet save Medivh, but we might find that the darkness is too deeply rooted. Then we will have to do something sudden, horrible, and absolutely necessary. The question is—Are you up to it?”

Khadgar thought for a moment, then nodded. His stomach felt like ice. Lothar raised a hand. On his command, the other flights of gryphons strained aloft, springing to life as the first rays of the dawn crested the earth’s rim, the new sunlight catching their wings and turning them golden.

The chill feeling in the pit of Khadgar’s stomach did not ebb on the long flight to Karazhan. Garona rode behind him, but neither spoke as the land fled beneath their wings.

The land had changed beneath their wings. Great fields were little more than blackened wreckage, dotted by the remnants of toppled foundations. Forests were uprooted to feed the engines of war, creating huge scars in the landscape. Open pits yawned wide, the earth itself wounded and stripped to reach the metals beneath. Columns of smoke rose up along the horizon, though whether they were from battlefields or forges Khadgar could not say. They flew through the day and the sun was ebbing along the horizon now.

Karazhan rose like an ebon shadow at the center of its crater, sucking in the last dying rays of the day and giving nothing back. No lights shone from the tower nor from any of the hollow windows. The torches that flamed without consuming their source had been extinguished. Khadgar wondered if Medivh had fled.

Lothar kneed his gryphon down, and Khadgar followed, quickly setting down, and slipping from the back of the winged beast. As soon as he touched the ground, the gryphon shot aloft again, letting out a shrieking cry and heading north.

The Champion of Azeroth was already at the stairs, his huge shoulders tensed, his heavy frame moving with the quiet, agile grace of a cat, his blade drawn. Garona slunk forward as well, her hand dipping into her tabbard and coming up with her long-bladed dagger. The heavy blade from Stormwind clattered against Khadgar’s hip, and he felt like a clumsy creature of stone compared to the other two. Behind him, more gryphons landed and discharged their warriors.

The observatory parapet was empty, and the upper level of the master mage’s study deserted but not empty. There were still tools scattered about, and the smashed remnants of the golden device, an astrolabe, rested on the mantel. So if the tower was truly abandoned, it was done quickly.

Or it had not been abandoned at all.

Torches were fired and the party descended the myriad stairs, with Lothar, Garona, and Khadgar in the lead. Once these walls were familiar, were home, the many stairs a daily challenge. Now, the wall-mounted torches, with their cool, frozen flame, had been extinguished, and the moving torches of the invaders cast myriad armed shadows against the wall, giving the halls an alien, almost nightmarish cast. The very walls seemed to hold menace, and Khadgar expected every darkened doorway to hold a deadly ambush.

There was nothing. The galleries were empty, the banquet halls bare, the meeting rooms as devoid of life and furnishings as ever. The guest quarters were still furnished, but unoccupied. Khadgar checked his own quarters: Nothing had changed there.

Now the torchlight cast strange shadows on the walls of the library, twisting the iron frames and turning the bookcases into battlements. The books were untouched, and even Khadgar’s most recent notes were still on the table. Had Medivh not thought enough of the library to take any of his volumes?

Tatters of paper caught Khadgar’s eye, and he crossed to the shelves containing the epic poetry. This was new. Fragments of a scroll, now smashed and torn. Khadgar picked up a large piece, read a few words, then nodded.

“What is it?” said Lothar, looking like he expected the books to come to life at any moment and attack.

“‘The Song of Aegwynn,’” said Khadgar. “An epic poem about his mother.”

Lothar grunted a note of understanding, but Khadgar wondered. Medivh had been here, after they had left. Yet only to destroy the scroll? Out of harsh memories of the Magus’s conflict with his mother? Out of revenge for Sargeras’s decisive loss to Aegwynn? Or did the act of destroying the scroll, the cipher used by the Guardians of Tirisfal, symbolize his resignation and final betrayal of the group?

Khadgar risked a simple spell—one used to divine magical presences—but came up with nothing more than the normal response when surrounded by magical tomes. If Medivh had cast a spell here, he had masked its presence sufficiently to beat anything Khadgar could manage.

Lothar noted the young mage tracing symbols into the air, and when he was done, said, “You’d best save your strength for when we find him.”

Khadgar shook his head and wondered if they were going to find the Magus.

They found Moroes, instead, at the lowest level, near the entrance to the kitchen and larder. His crumpled form was splayed in the middle of the hallway, a bloody rainbow arcing along the floor to one side. His eyes were wide and open, but his face was surprisingly composed. Not even death seemed to surprise the castellan.

Garona dodged into the kitchen, and returned a moment later. Her face was a paler shade of green, and she held something up for Khadgar to see.

A set of rose-colored lenses, smashed. Cook. Khadgar nodded.

The bodies seemed to make the troops more alert now, and they moved to the great vault-like entranceway, and out into the courtyard itself. There had been no sign of Medivh, and only a few broken clues of his passing.