For those of you just joining us:

It has been a bad time in the North, for everyone, but especially the Luminous Path. With members lost and killed, and many more friends and acquaintances either dead or brought back in the service of the Lich King, numbers have grown thin, nerves and morale more so.

But that is about to change. As the Ashen Verdict and their allies surge through Icecrown Citadel, nearing the pinnacle, Arthas's last days have been counting down. And the final one has come...

...and gone.

They brought the Orc in with his wounds bandaged but still bleeding. He was slipping in and out of conciousness, yelling and thrashing at the pain when it was not too much to keep him out cold. The two massive Tauren carrying the stretcher cleared the long refectory table with a sweeping motion, and the few cluttered plates and cups clattered to the floor. They laid the writhing hulk on it, and quickly set about unbucking the tattered robes and armor to better get at the wounds. Ekhan’s huge hands took on a kind of delicacy in their deftness that was uncanny to watch. Undoing the final layers of thick, jewelled robe, he had to supress his gag reflex when he saw the wounds. They were deep black, green, and purple, and some awful magical disease festered in bile and blood that seeped out. He tried his best to staunch them and slow the spread of the infestation, but it was quickly overtaking him.

‘Move!’ The crowd of acolytes and onlookers that had formed at the door parted suddenly. Through the gap came a tight group of figures, their own armor and weapons bearing the fresh marks of battle. At the lead was the elf, helm in hand, smeared with a long streak of something dark and nasty across the faceplate. He strode up to Ekhan and gently placed a hand on his wrist, and said something low, almost inaudible. The druid stepped back, and slumped down against the wall, staring intently at the group that set to work. The paladins began to speak loudly in elvish, their hands raised over the patient, just as Vedder began to sprout roots and boughs and fill the room with the smell of cedar and oak. Zuuko, the shaman who brought up the rear, looked over his shoulder and shouted ‘someone get the door!’ A death knight’s frame filled the arch, then vanished with a grunt and the slamming shut of doors.

In the acolyte’s barracks, no one slept. The sounds of occasional shouting, much moaning, and the low chanting of elf and tauren voices filtered down through the floorboards. The sound of hoofbeats and footsteps came and went several times an hour, and when they did not they paced the room above, in irregular circles.

By morning things had quieted down, but the mood throughout the house had grown somber. The refectory remained closed off, and meals were served in the acolyte’s pantry. Some time around midmorning, one of the druids appeared in the entrance hall with a bound scroll in her hand and called a group of acolytes over. The young paladin at the front stood to attention.

“Shiduri, is it?” She was taken aback that the older Elf even knew her name. “We need you to deliver a message. How quickly can you get to Nagrand and back?”

“I— I don’t know. Two, three days?”

“You have a little more than one. Hurry. Bribe, threaten, and break some fingers if you have to. His life depends on it.” Shiduri was taken aback by Aleyá's words. She had always taken her for the more subtle sort. Then again, the whole house was in a strange mood. Aleyá disappeared again into the refectory. Shiduri turned to her fellow acolytes, who merely shrugged and walked away. One of them, an older trainee, seemed to mouth ‘sorry,’ but then vanished down the stairs as well. Shirduri sighed. Turning back, the only other person left was the usually tight-lipped death knight from the day before. Overcome with curiosity and frustration, she blurted out, “what happened?”

Denathos smiled a wry smile. “It was a great battle.” He shook his head, but continued. “We faced him, the great mass of us, and I will admit we were afraid. Especially when Tirion was trapped. But we kept on, even as those among us were struck down or carried off by those awful Val’kyr. And then the moment was ours, and he was about to be defeated, and yet … he struck us all down with one mighty blow. It was strange. I thought we were all dead, done for. And then I heard a voice … a human voice, and we were raised up. And there was Tirion, with the Lich King bound by the ghost of the old human King!” The death knight’s voice had gown louder, until he realized he was almost shouting. Quietly, he said, “We slew him, those that were left. The Great Beast is finally dead.

“When we went to account for the dead and wounded, we thought Zalmoxis lost. Someone had seen him picked up and carried off by a Val’kyr. Warlocks aren’t that easy to kill, apparently. He was spared the Lich King’s last damning blow, but just as well that breath of light from Terenas. We found him clinging to the edge of the platform, his fingers frozen. He was hurt badly, but refused to be helped by the Crusade’s people. Not that they could have done much, I suspect. So we brought him here.”

Shiduri stood for a long moment, until a sounds of movement and raised voices on the other side of the barred door broke the silence. “I must get packing,” she said, and ran down to the basement.

Out in the street the once embattled city of Dalaran was awash in celebration. People were drunk and happy everywhere; there was music and games and shouting and whooping. Humans danced with Orcs, Tauren drank with Dwarves — all sorts were out, some bearing the marks of the fight through the Citadel, many not. It seemed the very spirit of life and freedom had seeped into the stones, people, and the mortar itself, save the big, rickety house at the end of the alley that the Path had made its home. Shiduri sighed, hefted her pack over her shoulder, and made for the Landing. Thórva had often spoken of their mandate, the righteous duty that was the responsibility of the walkers of the Path. Was constant misery a part of that as well?

Every spring, which since the Sundering seemed to come twice a year, the wildflowers in the meadow just under the ridge bloomed wide and bright, and in the sun and nice weather Iah would wander out into the field and weed out the brambles and herbs, replanting what was useful in the pots along the low wall that marked the edge of the landscaped hill that the little monastic retreat was built on. He took his time, waking up around dawn to begin his morning mediations, before going out just as the dew evaporated.

This morning, he was just putting on his poncho and pack when there was a thunderous knock at the door. Iah sighed. He hated to be interrupted. He had been so grateful for this post, and it was usually so quiet. Duty, however, called as ever.

He trudged down the stairs slowly, even though the knocking was frantic.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” The small porter’s house he had made his own sat just above the entrance hall. The rest of the dormitories lay further back in the building. Iah lifted the bar at the door and pulled it wide.

“There’s no time to lose!” The little elf shoved a letter in his face bearing one of the original four seals that he had crafted in the little jeweller’s shop just a few paces away. Still, Iah sighed, took the letter, and slowly unravelled it as he stepped aside to let Shiduri in. She was windswept and looked ready to keel over from exhaustion, but stood and waited impatiently for him to read the note. He did once, then again, for clarity, and rolled it back up.

“I must pack, and send out a letter of my own. I will be back in a few moments, then we can go.” He began to head back up to his room, now with a bit more urgency in his step. “There is breakfast in the kitchens. Help yourself. I trust you remember where they are.” Shiduri grinned gratefully, and ran for the back of the building.

The trip back was, if anything, harder, as she tried desperately to keep up with the spry Tauren. She had always remembered him as meditative, somehow above the troubles of the world, but the letter Aleyá had giver her for delivery set Iah’s jaw and hardened his gaze. They made good time, and Savian managed to meet them halfway and provide a portal back to the city.

The three materialized in the main hallway, which was silent and empty.

“Go rest, both of you. You must be exhausted.” Neither Shiduri nor Savian could argue, and departed. Shiduri nodded worriedly at her former teacher as she rounded the corner, which Iah acknowledged, barely. As soon as they were gone, a fresh cry in the refectory broke the silence.

Iah burst in the door. That was quick, Thórva thought. But not quick enough. He didn’t let defeat show. The other healers made room for him around the patient, whose face had gone almost grey. His mouth was dry and lips cracked, and a bad smell came up from the wounds that now criss-crossed his torso. Old scars, all over his head and arms had opened back up. Iah couldn’t help but stand in awe for a moment.

“This is terrible.”

“What did you bring me, Iah?” Thórva said.

“All I’ve got.” He opened the bag and began to lay out salves, bandages, potions, and herbs. “The best of the stock in Nagrand.”

“Let’s get to work.”

By the third dawn, there was no more yelling. The shifts had gotten shorter, less frantic. Still, nobody slept. Just before the sun broke over the mountains, Ekhan knocked at the office door.

“Come in.” Ekhan’s frame was crowded in the little tower attic. But the window had a nice view of the exapnse that Dalaran hovered over, and was the only part of the house that poked above the regular roof line. The window still rattled, barely.

“It’s over.” Thórva spat. Why did that damn druid always play pessimist? “You know it, too. Probably better. We’ve done all we can. We have to make him comfortable, if that’s possible.” The pre-dawn air hazed a deep blue. There were no lights in the room, and it ws cloaked in deep shadows.

“I hate it, you know.” Ekhan offered no comment, so Thórva continued. “This path. This mission. This is all his, not mine, it never was. Shit, I just wanted to stay home. This time of year Fairbreeze is …” Thórva turned from the window and sat down at the desk heavily. “War, after war, after war. Demons, spirits, old gods and the same petty greed and hate and grudges. And what do we do but march off, armed and ready to die for what? So other people can fight the next war?” Ekhan sat on the little bed by the bookcase, which creaked mightily but held. “Where is Thoradiel? Why can’t he do this?”

“This is no comfort, I know, but I heard something very similar from him once.” Thórva snorted. “It’s true. He was so … exhausted. So beaten. So lost. It was before he started to slip away.”

“Yeah. Slip away. That sounds nice right now.”

“If you know nothing about your brother remember this, my friend. Wherever he is, whatever he is doing. Thórra has not once stopped, not once quit or laid down or given up! All the pain and hurt he has ever experienced he redoubled in the fight against his enemies. It is the example he led by, the example you emulate, and must continue to. You know as well as I that the righteousness of the Path is not for or of the self, but—“

“Yeah, yeah. We do what we must, for them.” Thórva returned to the window. “For this world, whatever our wretched souls are worth.”

“They are worth what we pay for them.” Ekhan stood slowly, and left. Thórva, as he was accoustomed, waited for the last hooffalls to reach the bottom of the little spiral stair and vanish into the hall.

“Too much, I think,” he said to no one in particular.

“Too damn much.”



When Thórva came to the refectory door it was shut, and Ekhan was standing in the hall.

“Who’s in there?”

“The warlocks.” Ekhan didn’t look pleased.

“Oh.” Thórva shared Ekhan’s unease. “Which ones?”

“The usual. Kallbrand, Lovís Cadeau.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yes. He wanted a private word with all of them.” Thórva shuddered. He hated to think what constituted last rites in warlock circles. It was cure to involve fire, blood, and probably a demon or two. Before his own imagination could make him ill, the door opened.

Kallbrand, the tallest of the lot, was bent over listening to something that Zalmoxis sputtered out in fits and starts. Cadeau and Lovís carried out a collection of still-smoking, empty vials. Thórva’s queasiness returned. They took his mind off of it by handing him a freshly-sealed scroll.

“What’s this?”

“M-my will.” Zalmoxis breathed short, shallow gasps. Someone had put a pillow under his head, which was damp with sweat. Thórva took it solemnly.

“Th-thank-you, Kallbrand.” Zalmoxis took her hand and grasped it tight. Their skin was almost the same color. She nodded, and retreated with the other warlocks. Ekhan moved to check on his patient.

The whites of his eyes had yellowed, but the corners of his mouth seemed to play at a smile in between grimaces. Ekhan’s face loomed over him.

“What’s so funny?”

“You—you’re all s-so s-erious.” Ekahn raised an eyebrow. “I-isn-isn’t there a p-party on somewhere?” Ekahn disappeared from the Orc’s view.

“I don’t like parties.”

“L-l-lie-liar.” Thórva couldn’t help but smile a little. Then Zalmoxis cried out. They rushed to him, and what could only be a look of fear seemed to take hold of the old Orc’s face.

“W-why me?”

The shouts reached a fever pitch. Thórva called for Iah, but he did not come. He rushed out into the hall, but he was still nowhere to be found. The warlocks appeared again, but could not help minister to Zalmoxis, and so stood over him, silently. It only annoyed Thórva more as the agonizing cries went unabated. He sent Ekhan to look for Iah, and was gone what seemed like ages, thought it was probably only a few minutes. So Thórva went back out in the hall, shouting for them. A few others appeared, but no one who could help. Panic mixed with frustration, and Thórva stood there dumbfounded for another long moment. Finally, he saw them coming down the hall from the back of the house, Zuuko, Iah, and Ekhan behind. And as he turned back into the room he realized that the shouts had stopped, and only just had time to see the last strands of purple energy coalesce into a rough, glowing stone in Kallbrand’s hand. It took a very long moment for him to understand what he had just seen, and it was in that moment that the stragglers came up to the door.

In one motion he stepped into the room and grabbed the large mace at Zuuko’s belt. He had crossed most of the room in a few quick strides, and raised the weapon over his head before Kallbrand could react. He brought it down as hard as he possibly could, but hit only air, ash, and smoke as the warlocks all disappeared at once in a green flash that filled the room. The end of the mace tore through the table and sent wood splinters everywhere.

Thórva wheeled around, his eyes wild. Ekhan and Zuuko looked stunned. Denathos, Narushka, and Zhak were just coming up behind.

“Get them!”

The warlocks had teleported only to the alley, where a portal had been waiting for them. It took several minutes to scare up someone who could help them give chase, and even then, Ekahn pointed out that they could have gone anywhere.

“Not anywhere,” said Zhak. “They’re Forsaken. Where else do those traitors run but right back home?”

They took the gamble, landing by a canal. It took a second for Thórva to get his bearings, but as soon as he did he saw them, in a group, on one of the bridges.

“There!” They were too far away, though, and would be gone before anyone could reach them. Ekhan caught the attention of one of the guards and shouted, “Kor’kron, stop them!” The guards looked at each other, then seemed to decide they needed even less of a reason than they’d just been handed, and rushed after the group on the bridge. They made a good show of a chase until Kallbrand stopped, turned, and began to sprout wings.

“Shit.” They were only halfway to the bridge when the two gauards hit the green slime below, and the demon-warlock jumped to safety on the far side. They ran as fast as they could, just managing to keep up with the warlocks until they found themselves before the Temple of the Damned, in the heart of the Magic Quarter. The usual congregation of warlocks was gone for the weekend, and they only heard distand footfalls.

“Where did they go?” They were about to split up and go different directions when Narushka pointed up to the terrace, where Kallbrand was making a run for the portal to the Blasted Lands, her wings vanishing rapidly. Thórva ran like he’d never run before, not paying attention to the rest of the group. As the portal neared he lept, and knew he made it when the acrid damp air around him became suddenly dry and hot.

He looked down the ravine at the Portal. They were assembled, the three of them, Kallbrand still cradling the soul stone, which seemed to pulse frantically. Thórva ran for them, knowing he couldn’t make it. No, he thought, as he was almost on top of them. Please, you can’t! Then he realized he’d been yelling it, not thinking it, as he saw Lovís turn, and instead of attacking him, put a foot out, at just the right moment. Thórva and the stone each made a long arc forward, tumbling, and as the hard slab of rock came up to meet his face, it was all he could do to think, this is going to hurt.

He never felt the impact.

The stone against his face was cold. The stone was cold and the air was cool and smelled of autumn in Quel’Thalas. And the breeze smelled like the same breeze that had been fine and a herald of nothing but the change of the seasons until the year it carried only smoke from the fires of the war. And after that the breeze had never been the same, always somehow soured, or the memory of it soured, and he had always been sad then when autumn came and he remembered that first bad winter of the war.

As he slowly came round he began to wonder if it was possible that he was back there, back in his village in a time before such terror had been real, instead of abstract stories he was told by his father’s friends. The house, the living room he was now in with its cushions and curtains, certainly reminded him of the family home, but more done up than his mother ever would have allowed and the water pipes smoking freely even though there was no one there to attend them. He was on the balcony, and below he saw the leaves turning, and the whole village serene in the early evening. The birds were loud, and somewhere a Hawkstrider crowed. He marvelled at all of this until a hand touched his shoulder.

“Zalmoxis!” It could have been him, only younger. The Orc’s scalp bristled with stubble, his beard was shorter and jet black and unadorned with the slips and trinkets and braids that had been added later, and only one scar, all the way down his left arm, was visible now. The Orc shook his head.

“Call me … Magliol.” He smiled a sad smile. “That was my favorite name. My favorite time.” They sat, then, at a small table in the middle of the room as the sweet breeze blew around them, gently rustling curtains and the fragrant pipe-smoke.

“Where am I?” Thorva didn’t have a mirror, but his own voice was somehow softened, like it was passing through the gauze of many years to reach his lips.

“The Nether. The tiwsting force that binds chaos.” There didn’t seem to be anything chaotic about where they were, but there wasn’t a better explanation at hand.

“If that’s so, is … he here?”

“Your brother? No. Not here.” The Orc shook his head. “No, but he is why I came back here. Why I asked Kallbrand to bring me here.”

“In one of those things?!” Again, the smile Thórva got back was small, pedantic.

“Time was short. And after everything I did, it did seem fair. What’s the saying? A taste of your own medicine.”

“Hardly medicine.”

“Yes, well. Your brother judged me for it, you know. He tried not to, he believed me when I pledged my loyalty. But he hated what I did.” The Orc got up and walked back out onto the balcony. “I hated it, too. All that pain. I think the best of us feel it, if only a bit. The worst, well. They had no souls to begin with. I’m just surprised I had any left at the end.”

“Why, then? You never told me why. You were so comitted to the Path, to our goal. Why did you support it with such terrible magic?” The Orc faced Thórva again, and seemed old and cut to pieces again.

“When I was a boy I was shown the supreme power of pain and agony and fear. And even as I swore vengance against those that wielded it I knew that it had taken a hold of me so deeply I would never be able to wield anything else. The Light is nothing to those who have never been granted Its mercy. The powers of the Dream, great though they are, cannot heal a broken heart.” The Orc dropped his gaze, and ran a hand through the stubble of his scalp.

“I never did get my revenge. Ysera help me, I do regret it.”

“Let me. As a last favor.”

“Thank you, but no. No, I’ve taken care of that. And you need not dirty your hands with such work. You have too much ahead of you.”

“The warlocks?”

“Of course. They are nothing if not reliable.”

“I’ve never heard Forsaken described that way.” The sun was beginning to go down, and as night encroached from the west the swirling patterns of the Nether emerged between the clouds. The breeze had stopped.

“I have to go now. I’ve got your brother to find.”

“Good luck. Ysera protect you, the Light guide you.”

“And you, Thórva.” The Orc raised a hand in salute.

“Zalm ... Magliol. Where do we bury you?” The Orc stopped, taken aback. “I mean, do you have … family? Somewhere?” He shook his head.

“No, they … they were never properly put to rest. And I don't care for the old rituals.” He thought a moment, then said, “if she permit it, please, the Emerald Dragonshrine. It would be … I would like to dream that dream someday.”

“Consider it done.” The Orc raised his salute again, and Thórva returned it.



“Aaaaaah.” His head hurt something awful. He had hit just a few feet shy of the Portal, and a little blood trickled down his nose. Narushka was picking him up off the ground, a sympathy grimace on her face. Denathos had the warlocks at axepoint (Thórva had never seen that before, but the Tauren managed it) in a line. Thórva gestured to let them go. “I’ll explain on the way back. Speaking of which, where is that mage?”

“He didn’t make it.” Zhak did not look happy. “Gonna be a long walk.”

(Epilogue)

The grave is not marked, except for the slight mound which will no doubt be worn away by time and the shifting earth. And though it sits at the edge of the Dragonshrine, in the shadow of the Dreamer, and is adorned with a small patch of mushrooms transplanted by Sporeling hand directly from Zangarmarsh, it is not a part of the Dream, nor a part of the world that has at least a brief reprive from the great conflicts which rage across it. Under that patch of ground is the sleeper who does not dream.

“Henceforth let our fallen comrade be known by all who fought beside him and who tell of him that he was Magliol of Durotar, the Dreamless One."
—Th.L., 33 ADP