Jeff Grubb: The Last Guardian

Khadgar could breathe now, but the breath was short and tight. His joints burned, and his muscles ached. He saw his reflection in the obsidian floor….

And it was the old man of the vision looking back at him. Heavy, tired eyes surrounded by wrinkles and gray hair. Even his beard had turned white.

And Khadgar’s heart sank. Robbed of his youth, of his magic, he no longer felt like he would survive this battle.

“That was instructive,” said Medivh, turning back to Khadgar. “One of the negative things about this humaniform cell I am trapped in is that the human part keeps reaching out. Making friends. Helping people. It makes it so difficult to destroy them later on. I almost wept when I killed Moroes and Cook, did you know? That’s why I had to come down here. But it’s like anything else. Once you get used to it, you can kill friends as easily as anyone else.”

Now he stood a few paces in front of Khadgar, his shoulders straight, his eyes vibrant. Looking more like Medivh than at any time Khadgar had seen him. Looking confident. Looking at ease. Looking frighteningly, damnedly sane.

“And now you get to die, Young Trust,” said the Magus. “It seems your trust was misplaced after all.” Medivh raised a hand cupped with magical energy.

There was a throaty scream from the right. “Medivh!” bellowed Lothar, Champion of Azeroth.

Medivh looked up, and his face seemed to soften for a moment, though his hand still burned with the mystic power. “Anduin Lothar?” he said. “Old friend, why are you here?”

“Stop it now, Med,” said Lothar, and Khadgar could hear the pain the Champion’s voice. “Stop it before it is too late. I don’t want to fight you.”

“I don’t want to fight you either, old friend,” said Medivh raising his hand. “You have no idea what it’s like to do the things I’ve done. Harsh things. Necessary things. I don’t want to fight you. So lay down your weapon, friend, and let this be done.”

Medivh opened his palm and the bits of magic droned toward the Champion, bathing him in stars.

“You want to help me, don’t you, old friend,” said Medivh, the harsh smile once more on his face. “You want to be my servant. Come help me dispose of this child. Then we can be friends again.”

The spangling stars around Lothar faded, and the Champion took a slow, firm step forward, then another, then a third, and now Lothar charged forward. As he charged, the Champion raised his rune-carved blade high. He charged at Medivh, not at Khadgar. A curse rose in his voice, a curse backed by sorrow and tears.

Medivh was surprised, but just for a moment. He dodged backward and Lothar’s first cut passed harmlessly through the space the Magus had occupied a half-second before. The Champion checked the swing and brought it back in a solid blocking motion, driving the mage another step back. Then an overhand chop, driving back another step.

Now Medivh had recovered himself, and the next blow landed squarely on a shield of bluish energy, the yellow fires of the sword spattering harmlessly like sparks. Lothar tried to cut upward, then thrust, then chop again. Each attack was met and countered by the shield.

Medivh snarled and raised a clawed hand, mystic energy dancing in his palm. Lothar screamed as his clothes suddenly burst into flames. Medivh smiled at his handiwork, then waved his hand, tossing the burning form of Lothar aside like a rag doll.

“Just. Gets. Easier,” said Medivh, biting off the words and turning back to where Khadgar had been kneeling.

Except Khadgar had moved. Medivh turned to find the no-longer young mage right behind him, with the sword Lothar had provided drawn and pressed against the Magus’s left breast. The runes along the blade glowed like miniature suns.

“Don’t even blink,” said Khadgar.

A moment paused, and a bead of sweat trickled down Medivh’s cheek.

“So it comes to this,” said the Magus. “I don’t think you have the skill or the will to use that properly, Young Trust.”

“I think,” said Khadgar, and it seemed that his voice wheezed and burbled as he spoke, “that the human part of you, Medivh, kept others around despite your own plans. As a backup. As a plan for when you finally went mad. So your friends could put you down. So we could break the cycle where you cannot.”

Medivh managed a small sigh, and his features softened. “I never meant to really harm anyone,” he said. “I only wanted to have my own life.” As he spoke, he jerked his hand upward, his palm glowing with mystic energy, seeking to scramble Khadgar’s mind as he had Garona’s.

Medivh never got the chance. At the first flinch, Khadgar lunged forward, driving the thin blade of the runesword between Medivh’s ribs, into the heart.

Lothar left the former apprentice beneath the citadel, and Khadgar gathered up what was left of the physical remains of the Magus. He found a shovel and a wooden box in the stable. He put the skull and the bits of skin in the box with the tattered remains of “The Song of Aegwynn,” and buried them all deep in the courtyard in view of the tower. Perhaps later he would raise a monument, but for the time being it would be best to not let others know where the master mage’s remains were. After he had finished burying the Magus, he dug two more graves, human-sized, and laid Moroes and Cook to rest to one side of Medivh.

He let out a deep sigh, and looked up at the tower. White-stoned Karazhan, home of the most mighty mage of Azeroth, the Last Guardian of the Order of Tirisfal loomed above him. Behind him the sky was lightening, and the sun threatened to touch the topmost level of the tower.

Something else caught his eye, above the empty, entrance hall, along the balcony overlooking the main entrance. A bit of movement, a fragment of a dream. Khadgar let out a deeper sigh and nodded at the ghostly trespasser that watched his every move.

“I can see you, now, you know,” he said aloud.

Full Circle

The trespasser from the future looked down from the balcony at the no-longer young man of the past.

“How long have you been able to see me?” asked the trespasser.

“I have felt bits of you as long as I have been here,” said Khadgar. “From my first day. How long have you been there?”

“Most of an evening,” said the trespasser in his tattered red robes. “The dawn is coming up here.”

“Here as well,” said the former apprentice. “Perhaps that is why we can talk. You are a vision, but different than any I have seen before. We can see each other and converse. Are you future or past?”

“Future,” said the trespasser. “Do you know who I am?”

“Your form is different than when I last saw you, you are younger, and calmer, but yes, I know,” said Khadgar. He motioned toward the three heaps of turned earth—two large and one small. “I thought I just buried you.”

“You did,” said the trespasser. “At least you buried much of what was the worst about me.”

“And now you’re back. Or you will be back,” said Khadgar. “Different, but the same.”

The trespasser nodded. “In many ways, I was never here the first time around.”

“More is the pity,” said Khadgar. “So what are you in the future? Magus? Guardian? Demon?”

“Be reassured. I am a better being than I was,” said the trespasser. “I am free of the taint of Sargeras thanks to your actions this day. Now I may deal directly with the Lord of the Burning Legion. Thank you. There cannot be success without sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice,” said Khadgar, the words bitter in his mouth. “Tell me this then, ghost of the future. Is all that we have seen true? Will Stormwind truly fall? Will Garona slay King Llane? Must I die, in this aged flesh, in some nether-spawned land?”