The Burning

Chapter Nine

Aerai talked, and Arrwynn listened. The former spoke of the weakening of the Order of Tirisfal, who had taken their name from their traditional meeting place in Tirisfal Glades; of Aegwynn who sought to fulfill the original purpose of the Guardian, and refused to be a puppet; of Aegwynn's battle with Sargeras, and his defeat; of Medivh, and Khadgar, and the death of the last Guardian. She told all she knew on these subjects to Arrwynn, and Arrwynn took it all in, considered it, and rarely interrupted, only asking a few questions occasionally. The conversation went on until the sky began to brighten in the east.

"Alright, that is all very interesting, and valuable information, but... How does it answer my question about how Sageras' essence was sealed?" Arrwynn was suffering information overload, but her sharp elven mind was quick to acclimate, storing away the parts of what she had been told which were not immediately relevant, for later recollection.
"The power I told you of -- the power of the Tirisfalen -- is what I used to seal away the Dark Titan's essence." Aerai answered. Arrwynn turned fully to face Aerai, resting one arm on the back of the pew and peering at the black-haired elf.
"You used the power of the Tirisfalen?"
"Yes."
"But wasn't it lost? Wasn't that the whole point?"
"It was thought lost, and by all rights it should have been. It was possessed by Medivh when he died, and it should have died with him."
"But it wasn't."
"No, it wasn't." Aerai looked at Arrwynn as her brow furrowed, the silver-maned Blood Elf trying to figure out what it was she was missing. Eventually, she gave up, and asked the question Aerai had been expecting.
"So where did you get the power?"
"That is a very long story and--" Aerai suddenly stopped mid-sentence, and tensed up, and Arrwynn did the same, as they both felt a significant surge of magical energy in the distance, like a wave that swept over them. This surge abruptly vanished as an even stronger spike of energy sparked into life briefly, and then just as quickly disappeared. "--and one we don't have time for," Aerai finished.
"W-what was that? You felt that, right?" Arrwynn asked, standing up and looking in the direction the two magic surges had come from, in the south-east. Aerai stood as well, and said, "Come on, we have to hurry."
"Hurry? Why are we hurrying? Wait!" Arrwynn ran after Aerai as her purple cloak flew out behind her from the speed of her walking. Arrwynn stopped and ran back, grabbing her staff, and then charged back after Aerai.

The sun was starting to rise, and shafts of light broke over the Alterac Mountains, casting a glow upon Tarren Mill, as the Forsaken went about their business. Aerai was already inside the inn, and Arrwynn came up behind her, asking, "So what does all this mean? That you're the new Guardian of Tirisfal?" She was startled when Aerai barked out a brief laugh as though Arrwynn had said something funny.
"Not even close." Aerai marched up the stairs, glancing around to make sure that Shaw wasn't lurking up here, and then knocked on Arsika's door. She didn't wait for an answer and instead turned the door handle and strode into the dank room, and Arrwynn trailed behind her, trying to figure out what was going on. Aerai headed over to the bed, still occupied by both Arsika and Duskingdawn, and shook the red-head awake. It took much prodding and verbal badgering to get her to awaken, but when she did, she peered blearily at Aerai and Arrwynn, and slowly sat up, her long red hair dishevelled-looking.
"This is the second time in as many days that someone has barged into my room to pester me about something in the morning. I sincerely hope you have an explanation for all this." Arsika said, and rubbed at her green eyes with the back of her hand, to clear them of the remnants of sleep.
"I'll provide the explanation later. Right now we have to go." Aerai stated adamantly.
"Go? Go where? Have you taken complete leave of your senses?"
"Yeah, I don't remember you telling me we were going anywhere, Aerai," Arrwynn said in confusion. Aerai sighed.
"Arsika, please try to remember what happened last night for a moment," Aerai requested. It only took a couple seconds for Arsika's sleep-fogged brain to recall the horrors of yesterday, and she was abruptly wide-awake. "We have to leave here because the seal I put on that dark energy won't hold forever, and we can't just leave it there even if it was permanent. We have to go to someone more experienced than myself, who can tell us the next step." Arsika was still a bit confused, but accepted what Aerai was saying regardless.
"Alright, I understand we have to do this, but is the seal really that temporary that we have to leave immediately?"
"No, but there's at least one person or thing with a lot of magical power that I sensed a little while ago, and they may well be on their way here, and I would much prefer not to be here when they arrive. You have time to get dressed and gather your belongings, and then we have to go." Aerai urged. Arsika was clearly unhappy about being dragged out of a warm bed, with a naked woman in it, but she nodded in acknowledgement and climbed out from beneath the blankets to get dressed.
Aerai left, to give Arsika some privacy, and also to prepare for their departure, and Arrwynn followed her. As they stepped outside of the inn, Aerai halted when Arrwynn asked her to wait. "So if you're not the new Guardian, then why--?"
"As I said, it's a long story. All you need to know is that I only have a tiny sliver of the power of the Tirisfalen, and that I am inexperienced with using it, and that I am overall insufficient for our current purposes. We have to go to someone with more talent in this department than myself."
"So where are we going, then? And how are we going to get there?"
"We're travelling by bat," Aerai responded then began striding towards the Bat Handler. "And we're going to the Scarlet Monastery."

A short time later, the three Blood Elf women had made all the preparations they could, and then had left on giant bats, flying over the Alterac Mountains, towards Tirisfal Glades, and the Undercity.

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An hour later, a short figure in purple robes came down from the road, entering Tarren Mill. The stranger passed by Forsaken who watched coldly, and a few Orcs who ignored him, and then stood in the middle of the Forsaken outpost and turned its hooded head this way and that, looking around, seemingly lost. This was because compared to the last time the stranger had been in Tarren Mill, nothing looked the same. Standing in solitude, amongst the somber, and rot-scented Forsaken that went about their daily business as unfeelingly as the dead, the stranger thought back to the one it had known before, that lived here. Marie Holdston was a child back then, as old as the stranger appeared to be now. The auburn-haired little girl had been one of two friends the stranger had made in its existence. They had met in secret and played in the fields and gone on adventures and gotten into trouble together. But it was not until people realized the stranger was not growing, while Marie most certainly was, that suspicion began to seperate the two.

And then came that night in which people died...

After a couple minutes the robed figure was approached by High Executor Darthalia, who gruffly asked, "You are here for the artifact?" The stranger was torn out of its recollections by the voice, and looked up at Darthalia, the darkness within its hood completely shrouding its features, and the child-voice emerged from that darkness in response.
"I am, at that, madame," The voice said politely. Darthalia tilted her head to the side for a moment at the way she had been addressed, but dismissed the politeness moments later as irrelevant.
"I was told to expect you by Advisor Duskingdawn."
"Then you are in possession of the artifact at this time?"
"I am," the Forsaken woman responded, and then retrieved the fragment of Sargeras' horn from a leather pouch at her waist, before holding it out to the stranger. At first, the child did not move to take it, but instead looked at the fragment as though Darthalia was offering it a dead slug. Eventually, however, a sleeve-covered hand rose up and delicately removed the piece of bone from the High Executor's palm, before raising it above its head, as though holding it up to the light of the sun, which was now shining over the mountain range.
"The artifact has been mishandled," the child-voice said. Darthalia scowled.
"If it is broken, it was through no fault of mine. I did not treat it poorly, and will not have you insinuate I was careless with something in my keeping for another," She growled out.
"I apologize for the misunderstanding, but I was not implying such a thing, madame." The stranger lowered the horn and turned around to face Darthalia once more. "What I referred to was that the artifact has been used by someone with the magic knowledge to do so, and that that individual did so in an incompetent fashion. I mean no offense, but you are clearly not capable enough in regards to the mystic arts to have been responsible for the artifact's current condition."
"I see," Darthalia answered, and considered whether to tell this child about what had happened before he got here. He seemed to pick up something from her tone or her expression, however, as the child-voice came forth again.
"Do you perchance know something about what might have resulted in this unfortunate state of affairs?" The stranger asked. Darthalia's previous reluctance to speak on the matter melted away for some reason, and she felt herself compelled to answer.
"An Orc Warlock stole the artifact prior to your arrival, and took up residence in the Foothills Cave, south-west of here, near Hillsbrad. He apparently planned to summon demons to assault Tarren Mill, and possibly the human settlements as well, by using the artifact's powers."
"And yet I have the artifact here in my hand now."
"Indeed," Darthalia nodded. "It was retrieved by a Mage that Advisor Duskingdawn called for, and two of the Mage's companions. They also slew the Warlock. His head is around here somewhere, I believe..." The flickering yellow light in her eyes marked where her gaze travelled as she looked around for where the head had been left, but the stranger didn't appear to be interested in it. The sleeve-covered hand holding the horn fragment was tightly clenched around it, and though the words were polite, the child-voice was strained.
"I would speak with the Advisor. Please direct me to her."
"The Advisor is in the second floor of the inn, but she had a very long night, and I believe she is still sleeping." However, even as Darthalia spoke, the robed figure moved with surprising swiftness to the entrance of the inn and vanished inside. The High Executor looked after the child for a few more moments, before shrugging her boney shoulders and preparing for the business of the day.

The robed figure stood over Duskingdawn as she lay in bed, naked but for the blankets entwined about her form like a serpent. It extended one sleeve-covered hand and shook Duskingdawn by the shoulder roughly. "Advisor Duskingdawn, I have need to speak with you. You must wake up." As the golden-haired Blood Elf did not awaken, the robed figure's shaking became more and more violent, until it yanked her out of bed with both hands, sending her tumbling to the floor. Breathing heavily from its exertions, the robed figure spoke again. "Awaken, immediately! It is most urgent!" Finally, as she lay on the wooden floor, Duskingdawn's green eyes opened part way, and looked up at the purple-robed figure standing over her. "Who was it that you called here to deal with the Warlock, Advisor? You must tell me! Please, it is very important!"
"So much..." Duskingdawn whispered.
"What was that?"
"So... Much... So... Tired..." Then the Advisor's eyes sank closed again, and she would not respond to any further entreaties from the stranger. The child-voice was full of fury as it shouted.
"You silly, stupid, cow of a woman! The horn is bereft of power! Its magic has fled! This is naught but a piece of bone, now! It is worthless to me!" The robed figure flung the horn fragment it had held clenched in its hand across the room, and it thunked dully against the wall, before falling to the floor and bouncing a few times. As the sharp white sliver of the Dark Titan's horn spun in place on one of the floor boards, and then slowed to a halt, the purple-robed stranger merely stood with its shoulders hunched, its arms at its sides, and shook with rage.

Then a voice spoke up from behind the stranger. "I know who the Mages were, and where they have gone." The stranger turned slowly to face the speaker, and found the boney frame of Shay standing just beyond the doorway, in the hall outside of the bedroom.
"Do you now? Would you care to perhaps share this knowledge?" The child-voice asked tensely. Shay grinned his skeleton grin. He had been standing just behind the wall on the first floor of the inn, which jutted out slightly, concealing that corner, as he waited in the shadows and contemplated dark things. And then Aerai and Arrwynn had stood right outside the inn's entrance while they conversed. Shay eagerly told the stranger about what had been said regarding their destination, their plans to leave immediately by bat, and the names of Arsika, Arrwynn, and Aerai, as well as descriptions of their appearances, with this last at the request of the robed-figure. Finally, the stranger seemed satisfied.
"I thank you for this information. You have been most helpful." The stranger departed the room, where Duskingdawn still lay on the floor, asleep, and headed for the stairs. Shay cleared his rotting throat, and the stranger paused, turning its hood to face the Forsaken man. "Was there something else?"
"You said that this information had been helpful to you. With information as valuable as this, don't you think that I deserve a reward?" Shay regretted having spoken almost immediately after doing so, as the robed figure regarded him silently.
"I suppose fairness dictates an equivalent exchange. What form might this reward you desire take?" As the child-voice said this, Shay relaxed his tightened muscles, and eagerly named his reward. The stranger seemed to consider it, and said, "Amusing, that. I will look into possibly fulfilling your wish. Unless there is something else?" The stranger obviously desired to leave, but Shay had not received the solid confirmation that he would be receiving his reward. He wanted it stated more definitely than that, and thought he knew how to squeeze it out of this child.
"There was something else, infact. The silver-haired one, Arrwynn, seemed to think that the black-haired one, Aerai, might be something she called 'the Guardian'." The stranger tensed, and its grip on the handrail of the stairs tightened until the wood creaked, but Shay seemed not to realize it, and pushed on, convinced he was in possession of very valuable information. "And then Aerai stated she had something called the 'power of the Tirisfalen'." There was a defeaning silence after this, as Shay eagerly waited for an answer. The answer didn't come. Eventually, his anxiousness got the better of his Undead patience, and he said, "Now that you know this, will you promise to give me the reward I asked for?" There was more silence for a few seconds as the stranger stared at the Forsaken man from the darkness of its hood. Then the child-voice spoke.
"Where was it that you said they were going again?"
"The Scarlet Monastery, in Tirisfal Glades. And my reward?" Shay pressed. The robed-figure started down the stairs as it answered calmly.
"I will consider your request." Not satisfied, and seeing his opportunity slipping away, Shay ran towards the top of the stairs and called down to the stranger.
"But what about--"
"I WILL CONSIDER YOUR REQUEST," The child-voice bellowed out, full of menace, and the rage of all the world come together to be rage. Shay froze and did not move or make another sound, as the stranger finished descending the stairs, and exitted the inn. He continued to stay where he was for another two hours, still as a corpse, until the sound of quiet moans from Duskingdawn as she finally began to awaken drifted out to him. He abruptly turned and moved towards the bedroom, and stood in the entrance, looking down at the peach-hued skin of the bare Blood Elf on the floor. The innkeeper decided that though he had no promise that he would receive what he desired, he would risk hoping he would. Being disappointed could not possibly make him any more miserable than he already was, after all.

In the meantime, as he watched the slender body of Duskingdawn moving about in her sleep, he decided he would have to make do with what he had while the opportunity still presented itself. The Forsaken seized the door handle, stepped into the room with the Blood Elf, and closed the door tightly behind him, shutting the two off from those who might interrupt his fun.

-----------End Chapter Nine-----------