Jeff Grubb: The Last Guardian

Khadgar thought of two questions at once, hesitated, then asked, “How many other ‘assistants’ have there been?”

Moroes looked out over the gallery railing, and his eyes grew unfocused. Khadgar wondered if the servant was thinking or had been derailed by the question. The gallery below was sparsely furnished with a heavy central table and chairs. It was surprisingly uncluttered, and Khadgar surmised that Medivh did not hold many banquets.

“Dozens,” said Moroes at last. “At least. Most of them from Azeroth. An elfling. No, two elflings. You’re the first from the Kirin Tor.”

“Dozens,” repeated Khadgar, his heart sinking as he wondered how many times Medivh had welcomed a young would-be mage into his service.

He asked the other question. “How long did they last?”

Moroes snorted this time, and said, “Days. Sometimes hours. One elf didn’t even make it up the tower stairs.” He tapped the blinders at the side of his wizened head. “They see things, you know.”

Khadgar thought of the figure at the main gate and just nodded.

At last they arrived at Khadgar’s quarters, in a side passage not far from the banquet hall. “Tidy yourself up,” said Moroes, handing Khadgar the lantern. “The jakes is at the end of the hall. There’s a pot beneath the bed. Come down to the kitchen. Cook will have something warm for you.”

Khadgar’s room was a narrow wedge of the tower, more suitable to the contemplations of a cloistered monk than a mage. A narrow bed along one wall, and an equally narrow desk along the other with a bare shelf above. A standing closet for clothes. Khadgar tossed his rucksack into the closet without opening it, and walked over to the thin window.

The window was a slim slice of leaded glass, mounted vertically on a pivot in the center. Khadgar pushed on one half and it slowly pushed open, the solidifying oil in the bottom mount oozing as the window rotated.

The view was from still high up the tower’s side, and the rounded hills that surrounded the tower were gray and bare in the light of the twin moons. From this height it was obvious to Khadgar that the hills had once been a crater, worn and weathered by the passage of the years. Had some mountain been pulled from this spot, like a rotted tooth? Or maybe the ring of hills had not risen at all, but rather the rest of the surrounding mountains had risen faster, leaving only this place of power rooted in its spot.

Khadgar wondered if Medivh’s mother was here when the land rose, or sank, or was struck by a piece of the sky. Eight hundred years was long even by the standards of a wizard. After two hundred years, most of the old object lessons taught, most human mages were deathly thin and frail. To be seven hundred fifty years old and bear a child! Khadgar shook his head, and wondered if Medivh was having him on.

Khadgar shed his traveling cloak and visited the facilities at the hall’s end. They were spartan, but included a pitcher of cold water and a washbasin and a good, untarnished mirror. Khadgar thought of using a minor spell to heat the water, then decided merely to tough it out.

The water was bracing, and Khadgar felt better as he changed into less-dusty togs—a comfortable shirt that reached nearly to his knees and a set of sturdy pants. His working gear. He pulled a narrow eating knife from his sack and, after a moment’s thought, slid it into the inside sleeve of one boot.

He stepped back out into the hallway, and realized that he had no clear idea where the kitchen was. There had been no cooking shed out by the stables, so whatever arrangements were likely within the tower. Probably on or near the ground level, with a pump from the well. With a clear path to the banquet hall, whether or not the hall was commonly used.

Khadgar found the gallery above the banquet hall easily enough, but had to search to find the staircase, narrow and twisting in on itself, leading to it. From the banquet hall itself he had a choice of exits. Khadgar chose the most likely one and ended up in dead-end hallway with empty rooms on all sides, similar to his own. A second choice brought a similar result.

The third led the young man into the heart of a battle.

He did not expect it. One moment he was striding down a set of low flagstone steps, wondering if he needed a map or a bell or a hunting horn to navigate the tower. The next moment the roof above him opened up into a brilliant sky the color of fresh blood, and he was surrounded by men in armor, armed for battle.

Khadgar stepped back, but the hallway had vanished behind him, only leaving an uneven, barren landscape unlike any he was familiar with. The men were shouting and pointing, but their voices, despite the fact that they were right next to Khadgar, were indistinct and muddied, like they were talking to him from underwater.

A dream? thought Khadgar. Perhaps he had laid down for a moment and fallen asleep, and all this was some night terror brought on by his own concerns. But no, he could almost feel the heat of the dying, corpulent sun on his flesh, and the breeze and shouting men moved around him.

It was as if he had become unstuck from the rest of the world, occupied his own small island, with only the most tenuous of connections to the reality around him. As if he had become a ghost.

Indeed, the soldiers ignored him as if he were a spirit. Khadgar reached out to grab one on the shoulder, and to his own relief his hand did not pass through the battered shoulder plate. There was resistance, but only of the most amorphous sort—he could feel the solidity of the armor, and if he concentrated, feel the rough ridges of the dimpled metal.

These men had fought, Khadgar realized, both hard and recently. Only one man in three was without some form of rude bandage, bloodstained badges of war sticking out from beneath dirty armor and damaged helms. Their weapons were notched as well, and spattered with dried crimson. He had fallen into a battlefield.

Khadgar examined their position. They were atop a small hillock, a mere fold in the undulating plains that seemed to surround them. What vegetation existed had been chopped down and formed into crude battlements, now guarded by grim-faced men. This was no safe redoubt, no castle or fort. They had chosen this spot to fight only because there was no other available to them.

The soldiers parted as their apparent leader, a great, white-bearded man with broad shoulders, pushed his way through. His armor was a battered as any, but consisted of a breastplate bolted over a crimson set of scholar’s robes, of the type that would not have been out of place in the halls of the Kirin Tor. The hem, sleeves, and vest of these crimson robes were inscribed with runes of power—some of which Khadgar recognized, but others which seemed alien to him. The leader’s snowy beard reached almost to his waist, obscuring the armor beneath, and he wore a red skullcap with a single golden gem on the brow. He held a gem-tipped staff in one hand, and a dark red sword in the other.

The leader was bellowing at the soldiers, in a voice that sounded to Khadgar like the raging sea itself. The warriors seemed to know what he was saying, though, for they formed themselves up neatly along the barricades, others filling gaps along the line.

The snow-bearded commander brushed past Khadgar, and despite himself the youth stumbled back, out of the way. The commander should not have noticed him, no more than any of the blood-spattered warriors had.

Yet the commander did. His voice dropped for a moment, he stammered, his foot landed badly on the uneven soil of the rocky hilltop and he almost stumbled. Yet instead he turned and regarded Khadgar.

Yes, he looked at Khadgar, and it was clear to the would-be apprentice that the ancient mage-warrior saw him and saw him clearly. The commander’s eyes looked deeply into Khadgar’s own, and for a moment Khadgar felt as he had under Medivh’s own withering glare earlier. Yet, if anything, this was more intense. Khadgar looked into the eyes of the commander.