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Part Two – The Crown of the Earth
IX
A week ago, or a year ago, I would have laughed at the casual declaration that we were going north to drop in on a race of people that no one had seen hide or hair of for centuries. But here I was, sitting in front of a seven hundred year-old bull on the back of a mythical beast, facing an uncertain immortality at the hands of a force which I had not yet witnessed first-hand, and winging north to see the night-elves. I took it in stride.
I was also too queasy to concentrate. My stomachs lurched mercilessly with every beat of the great hippogryph’s wings, and cold wind whipped across my face and stung my eyes to tears. But, as we winged our way towards the northern edge of my homeland and the initial terror of being hundreds of feet off the ground with nothing but a bird-stag-horse between me and certain death subsided, I found myself, for the second time in my life, thrilling at the sensation. Soon, I was hollering at the top of my lungs and grinning joyously.
Then a bug flew into my mouth. I clamped it shut.
We rose rapidly above the clouds, and within a few short minutes we were cresting the sheer ridge which marked Mulgore’s northern border. Beyond were reddish-brown rocks, rising ahead of us into a ridge of mountains. It was more barren than the Kali barrens – there were few grasses and fewer trees.
Tamilin glanced over his shoulder after a time, and said, “Those are the Stonetalon Mountains. A furbolg tribe lives there, in some of the caves, but pretty much nothing else does. The whole place was clear-cut and strip-mined to death by the goblins centuries ago,” the hippogryph added venomously.
M pointed ahead of us, towards the brown horizon. “Ashenvale,” she said. “Six hundred years ago, it was a thick, beautiful, dangerous, surreal forest, lorded over by nature and shepherded by the night elves. The dry mountains ended with a wall of thick green vegetation, and within flowed streams of crystal-clear water.” She spoke as though quoting from a favorite poem. “It was beautiful. The goblins got them, too,” she continued, her voice sad. “The orcs helped. Trying to drive out the elves. It worked.”
“Did you ever go there?” I said. “Did you see it before it died?”
“Of course not,” answered M, blinking stonily. “That was more than six hundred years ago.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right, of course.”
The sun rose higher in the sky, and miles of barren mountains passed below us. Here and there, wisps of smoke rose from what might have been campfires. I stared down at them, thinking thoughts of eternity and responsibility and heroism, but none of the thoughts went anywhere. Not yet, I thought. I have time. Then I thought, is this all real? Did I seriously just get invited into a don’t-ever-die club?
Ahead of us, woods began to sprout beneath us. A few trees, then more, then the ground had been replaced with an impenetrable canopy of wide-branched, wide-leafed trees. The dark mountains of northern Kali hid themselves away beneath them. I stared down, trying to plumb their depths and learn what had so terrified us that none of us, no one on all of Kali, had dared enter. But the forests breasted their secrets well.
As the sun reached its apex, a single peak rose ahead of us and off to the east, impossibly steep, impossibly high above the others. I pointed. “Mount Hyjal,” said M behind me. “It’s the stone glory of Kali’s mountains, the highest mountain in the whole world. There is a tree at its crown, in its caldera, a very old tree – as old as Azeroth. Az,” she corrected herself. “It’s called Nordrassil.”
“Crown of the Sky,” translated Tamilin. “The proudest, most powerful, most magical tree in the whole history of the whole world. It was called the World Tree, because its roots and the roots of the world were the same, and it had old spells on it, older than any mortal races. Kill it, and you destroy the world. True story,” he added, nodding his horned head in the wind.
“It was a true story,” said M, “until its spells broke, in the Third War. Mostly it’s just a big tree now.” She sounded sad.
“The third war?” I said. I didn’t know my history very well, I thought, or maybe M just knew it way better than anyone else. It would make sense – she was seven centuries old, after all.
“Yeah,” said Tamilin. “Wasn’t that the Second War?”
M grunted. “In the East, it was the Third War. Seven hundred years ago,” she continued, “soon after the orcs arrived from their shattered world, a legion of burning demons followed them from the Nether. Their leader, a great twisted demon named Archimonde, led the attack. His target was Nordrassil: he sought to sap it, and by extension all of Az, of its magic, of its life. He failed,” she continued, “and the immortal spirits of the night elves’ ancestors sacrificed themselves to protect the tree and the world. It nearly killed the tree, though, and broke all of its ancient magic. The elves lost their immortality.”
“So they sacrificed themselves to protect the tree,” I said.
“The spirits, and hundreds of orcs and humans and elves, and a few tauren,” she added meaningfully.
“Wow,” I said. “And the tree died anyway.”
“Well, it grew back,” said M. “But its magic dissipated.”
I nodded. Then I shook my head. “Wait,” I said, “I still don’t get it. Archi-guy wanted to sap the tree’s magic and destroy the world, so a whole bunch of people and spirits sacrificed themselves to save the tree, and the world, and in the process, they sapped the tree’s magic. And didn’t destroy the world.”
M blinked. Then she shook her head. “I must not know the whole story,” she said.
“The loremaster is stumped!” crowed Tamilin.
“Anyway,” growled M, “now it’s just a big tree.”
Tamilin glanced over his shoulder. “Although the pool of water at the base of the tree is said to still heal the elderly and bring marvelous dreams,” he said.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” growled M, her mood apparently soured.
“What, have you ever been?” challenged the hippogryph impertinently.
“Hmm,” said M, without answering the question. “Have you?”
“No,” he answered sullenly.
I shook my head. Giant trees and magic-sucking demons. “The world is a lot stranger than I realized,” I said to no one in particular.
The hippogryph screech-laughed. “You have no idea,” growled the bull.
“I’m hungry,” I added, as an afterthought.
“You’ll survive,” growled M, but a minute later she had produced a loaf of bread and a chunk of boar meat for me to munch on as we flew.
* * *
The great mountain passed away behind us as the hours passed, and the sun sank from its apex towards the western horizon. Tamilin banked left suddenly, and I cried out.
“Sorry for the late warning,” he said. “Just taking a bit of a detour west. M, you understand.”
M nodded. I cocked an eyebrow back at her. She pointed towards the east, towards the north-western slopes of the great mountain. The thick trees took on a different feel there, a different aura – almost purple, I thought.
“The color is in the air,” she explained. “There is strong magic in that place, life-magic.”
“It’s Moonglade,” said Tamilin, “my homeland. The air makes it look like it’s always just past dusk. I’m taking us around it,” he added. “We don’t take passengers over our home.”
“Why not?” I said curiously.
“We pretty generally mistrust strangers,” said the hippogryph. “It’s a product of having so many of them try to enslave us over the centuries. That’s also the only reason we learned Common – so we could tell people to piss off when we needed to.” He laughed.
“How do you know M, then?” I asked.
“She helped me out one time,” said the hippogryph casually. “Plus, she’s a good healer and a damn good travel companion. Has a lot of stories, as I’m sure you know. Knows a whole lot for her age, she does.” I glanced at M, whose stony expression held firm.
I stared into the thick canopy of the deep, purple forest. Something about its mist and its deep, calming colors called me in a way that I couldn’t explain. I stared down into it, trying to pierce the thick canopy with my eyes, but the deep forest held its peace, serene and mysterious.
Then the deep forests disappeared off the edge of a steep cliff, and we were over open ocean. A scattering of great white broad-winged seabirds winged in from the north and west.
To the west was a small island, covered with gray-green trees. Something jagged and glittering rose out of the island’s forest– it looked like an enormous bed of crystals, rising out of each other, each reflecting each other’s reflections of the light of the setting sun. “What the hell…” I said.
“The crystal thing,” said M, “it’s a building. It crash-landed there centuries ago. That island wasn’t even a particularly noticeable island until that crystal thing flamed out of the sky and landed on it, and then a bunch of tall blue people came out, and allied themselves with the elves and the humans, and then they fought in some wars, and then, once the wars were over, they disappeared. They called themselves the Draenei,” she said. “Very powerful, very noble creatures.”
“The crystal building fell out of the sky and brought blue people?” I said dumbfoundedly.
M smiled. “Yup,” she said.
“The world is a lot stranger than I realized,” I said for the second time, and laughed. I’ll believe anything now, I thought.
Soon, the island faded to the west and the mainland was nearly out of sight behind us. The sun touched the western horizon, and the ocean lit up with fire. I squinted at it. What lay over that burning horizon? I thought. Who knew. Maybe that’s where Pandarens came from. I inhaled the ocean air and thrilled again at the wind and the feeling of flying free.
Ahead of us, lit up orange by the setting sun, a thick bank of mist rose abruptly out of the ocean. A few short minutes later we winged into it: the ocean wind died, and I could barely see the tips of Tamilin’s proud stag-horns. “Keeps prying eyes out,” explained M.
“Out of what?” I said.
“Look,” she replied quietly, pointing ahead. I squinted, and saw nothing for a moment. Then the mist began thinning, gradually, falling away behind us and to either side. The fog bank to the west was still lit, though fading, with the light of the sinking sun. The ocean still lay beneath us. We had entered what seemed to be an enormous, miles-wide berth, surrounded by the high wall of mist. And in the distance, at its center, rising against the still-sunlit sky, was what M had been pointing at: an enormous tree, growing up out of the ocean itself.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “There’s an enormous tree growing out of the ocean,” I said. “I’m looking right at it. It’s right there.”
Tamilin screech-laughed. “Well said,” he said.
M smiled. “It’s real,” she said.
“What is it?” I said.
“Teldrassil,” said M, “child of Nordrassil. Planted by the night elves after the near-destruction of its mother, in a bid to get their immortality back.”
The tree drew closer. It rose mightily into the sky, but it looked wrong somehow – its branches, greater in breadth than whole trees, or whole towns, were twisted around each other in a hauntingly unhealthy way, and it seemed dark, its leaves a deep, brooding olive green.
“Did it work?” I said faintly.
M’s jaw set into a frown, and she stared at the darkened tree.
“Sort of,” said Tamilin.
“Its creation was an act of selfishness,” said M quietly. “The tree is not natural, its life not welcomed by the forces into which its roots tap. It grew from a healthy sapling into a giant, dark, twisted tree, larger even than its mother. It gave the elves their immortality back, but those that accepted it, those that drank from Teldrassil’s polluted moonwells, they paid the price: as their endless years wore on, they slowly grew as twisted and darkened as the tree itself.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. The night elves, as legend told, had been the most graceful, most beautiful people in the world.
“They’re still the oldest and wisest beings on Az,” said M, “and they’re still the only ones in the world that can wield nature’s power, other than us tauren. But they’re hunched and bitter now, a shadow of the proud beings who stood tall against Archimonde seven centuries ago.”
“That’s what they get, I guess,” said Tamilin. He sounded sad, though, and uncertain.
“All of them but one,” added M thoughtfully.
“One?” I echoed.
“All but one,” she repeated. “Malfurion Stormrage, the archdruid of Cenarius. He looks as he always did.”
“There’s no way he drinks his immortality juice from Teldrassil, right?” Tamilin said casually. “Didn’t he try to destroy it?”
Behind me, M nodded. “When he discovered that the tree had been planted, he flew into a rage and summoned a great hurricane to destroy it. But something stopped him, and he let the storm dissipate and the tree live. Now he lives on in its crown,” she finished. “Archdruid over his fading people.”
“Wow,” I said. “Is that why they disappeared? Because they got twisted or something?”
“Hmm,” said M. “I’m certain that that’s a reason, but I’m also certain that it’s not the only reason.” She glanced meaningfully at me.
Beyond the high wall of mist, the sun had sunk below the western ocean, and a few stars began to wink to life overhead. Above us and to the east and north stood half the white moon, faithfully following its new cycle and standing guard over the night. The tree loomed ahead of us now, larger even than I had realized. As dusk deepened into night, pure, white lights flickered to life, lining its impossibly thick branches and rising up towards its sparkling crown. By night, the tree took on a new aura – one of beauty, I thought.
We winged in low, only a few hundred feet over the moonlit waves. Tamilin flapped mightily, and as we approached the tree’s impossibly thick trunk, we rose up among its lowest branches. A great platform appeared, stretching from one twisted branch to another, studded with white lights and lined with what looked like stables, and with a last graceful arch of his wings, Tamilin brought us down onto it. M dismounted hurriedly, and I followed suit, stretching my aching legs. “It’s a great honor to be borne on the back of a hippogryph,” she whispered, “and a great insult to remain there any longer than you have to.”
A horned head poked out of one of the stables. “Tamilin!” it cried. “Ish n’ala!”
“Ish n’ala, Oshuro,” replied Tamilin. Other voices cried out and other hippogryphs stepped out of their stables, greeting Tamilin. He spoke, tossing his head towards us periodically. While he regaled the listening hippogryphs with whatever tales he was telling in whatever language he was speaking, M put a firm hand on my shoulder and guided me towards the platform’s inner edge.
“But,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the hippogryph.
“It’s not the last time you’ll see him,” said M. “Come on, we’ve got people to meet.”
A narrow open stairway rose there, lined with glowing white lights in dark wooden lampposts, with a single guardrail, all carved intricately out of the same dark, fine-grained wood. The stairway rose up, curving gracefully in towards the distant trunk, and met another platform dangling from another twisted branch. M mounted the stairs gracefully, her hooves making a surprisingly deep noise on the thin wood. I hesitated, staring at the bottom stair. It was narrower than my shoulders.
“It’s strong enough,” she said over her shoulder.
“But it’s not wide enough!” I cried. She sighed and shot me a look that said, grow up. I gritted my teeth and set a hoof on the bottom stair. She’d been right – it felt solid as rock. I grasped the single guardrail tightly, forcing myself to keep breathing and not look down, and, painfully slowly, I ascended.
Long minutes later, the guardrail ended and I stepped out onto the higher platform. M had disappeared ahead of me, and she stood waiting. Next to her, clad in simple, deep purple robes, stood a being – he was hunched, bent like an old man, his nose was long and hooked, his skin dark and blue, and his two withered ears rose sharply from the sides of his bald head. His eyes were small black orbs sunk into his dark blue face beneath white, wispy eyebrows. He looked almost like a tuskless troll. I stared.
“Ish n’ala, Ashva,” said the creature to me, his voice soft and ethereal. “Welcome,” he breathed, bowing deeply, “to the Crown of the Earth.”
X
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