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VIII
The sunset faded to twilight, which faded to night. Stars shimmered. Ajax, gorged and sated, lay curled up next to me on the warm rocks, sleeping quietly. The blue moon rose behind the red stone cliff behind me, and the plains shimmered dimly in its surreal light.
Away to the south and west, at the edge of my vision, a shadow shifted on the plain. I looked sharply at it, squinting. The shadow moved again, then again: whatever it was, was moving quickly, at a distance, and it seemed coming towards the Rocks.
As the shadow moved closer, it resolved, first into a very strange chimera shape – a lithe beast with a strange spiked blob on its back – and then into a murloc riding a jungle cat. I smiled in spite of myself. It was a ridiculous sight.
The cat slowed as it trotted up the ridge. When it arrived, Fang hopped off, and the cat arched its back and swelled quickly into M. I stood. Ajax twitched and stood. He meowed once, and I picked him up.
I looked at M. Knowing her name, her original one, knowing some grain of what she’d been through, knowing – at least a little bit – why there was always a look of sadness hiding just behind her expression, made me swell with respect for the quiet bull. “Suyeta,” I said, deferentially.
Fang hissed, and M grimaced, as though catching an unexpected dagger in the gut. My face fell. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Tashunke,” she said simply.
It twisted to hear my calf name spoken aloud, for the first time in so many years. “Oh,” I said.
“Right,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. She nodded placidly.
“So what’s the good word?” said Fang cheerily into the awkward silence, as though asking whether I’d join him for a night of billiards.
I sighed. “I need to know some things, first,” I said.
Fang grinned. “Good bull,” he said. “Have at it.”
“So, what’s…” I started. “What’s the deal with Varimathras? Now that he’s out? Is the Scourge back? Has he attacked in the East yet? Is Madoran okay? What about Rhy?” I crescendoed without meaning to.
Fang hiss-laughed. “Easy, boy!” he said. “Not so fast. Varimathras has begun to gather his undead army. There have been no attacks, but word has traveled around the East that all is not well in the North. Important people are in important meetings making important decisions, having all that fun while we’re out here following your mangy tail around.”
“Yeah, because I asked you to,” I muttered.
“Oh, I don’t blame you,” said the murloc charitably. “Madoran is alive. I don’t know about your friend….” He blinked, staring off across the nighttime plains for a moment. “Rhy is alive,” he said. I breathed a sigh of relief. A great burden lifted from my mind.
“Sort of,” said M, faint amusement flickering across her face.
Fang laughed. “She’s Forsaken, right?” he said to the bull. “That’s good, that was clever. Reanimated corpse humor.”
I stared at them, jaw slack.
“What else?” said Fang casually, turning back to me. “Ask away. Anything you want.” He smiled, clearly enjoying the fruits of his long labors.
“Anything?” I said hesitantly, and a little disbelievingly.
“Anything,” he nodded, “and we’ll answer.”
“As much as we can,” said M.
I looked sharply at her. “That’s not what I wanted to hear,” I said.
“That’s not what he wanted to hear!” exclaimed Fang, throwing his arms up at her.
“You have to understand,” continued M, ignoring Fang, “that we can’t tell you everything: we just don’t know everything. We get enough information to get the present job done – take Horse north, send him after the book as a test. Tell Hannathras to follow him.” My breath caught in my throat. “Sometimes we get glimpses at design, and sometimes we can piece the design together from the information we have.” She sighed. “But usually, we’re pretty in the dark.”
Fang bobbed his head. “Makes for some good rumor-mongering whenever we all get together though,” said Fang.
I was still staring at M. “You were at the cave with the warlocks!” I cried. “I saw you – you were a bear, up on the cliff.” She nodded, and made to speak, but I interrupted her: “You were there when Rayn died!” I cried.
She looked down, and then closed her eyes for a moment, looking utterly unhappy. “I saw him die,” she said sadly. “I advised Hannathras’s attack on Under City. I told him to send that gnome to his death, and I told him that you would lead him to the book. The purpose, I knew, was to test you and to effect the release of Varimathras, and those goals, we achieved.” She sighed. “Why release Varimathras? We can only guess.”
I stared at them numbly. Her agony, her guilt, they were the same as mine, except she’d known what she was doing. “That’s it?” I said heatedly. “The Law tells you what to do and you just unquestioningly obey, and watch as people die?”
M grimaced unhappily again, but Fang narrowed his eyes and looked up at me. “Damn straight you do,” he said. “Because when you do, things work out the way they’re supposed to.”
M nodded reluctantly. “He’s right. In seven hundred years, the Law’s orders have always turned out for the best.”
I shook my head. That was a lot of faith to have in… something. “What is it?” I said, disbelievingly. “M, you told me about it back in Storm City – you said it was some kind of force in the universe. That’s kind of a vague thing to obey unquestioningly.”
Fang laughed. M grimaced and nodded. “That’s what it is,” she said. “It’s been right so far,” she added, shrugging, “about so much. To all appearances, it knows what it’s doing, and it does what it’s doing through us.”
I suddenly trusted her. I believed that she believed, and as I looked at her, I saw a bull who had wrestled with the questions for centuries longer than I had been alive, and I trusted her to know what was best. She saw it in my face, and the faint shadow of a smile flitted across hers. She nodded, and I nodded back.
“Tales tell,” Fang was saying, “that thousands of years ago, before there were agents, the Law manifested itself as a great black dragon, with powers to reweave the very fabric of the universe. Eventually, he got overwhelmed with how much work there was – couldn’t be everywhere at once – so he disappeared and hired the first agent.”
“The ancient agent,” said M, smiling.
A sudden thought flashed into my mind, and I interrupted their story-time: “If the Law didn’t tell you why Varimathras had to be released,” I said, looked down at Fang, “why did you call it a mistake? You said that we were undoing a six-hundred year old mistake when he was getting freed from the frozen tomb by his son or whoever.”
“Throne,” said M instinctively.
“Right,” I said. I looked at her. “What was it? Why was letting him out a good thing?”
“The Frozen Throne,” she replied, “was the crystal cask that brought the Lich King to our world almost seven centuries ago. It was a chamber, an antenna, built to contain whoever was put inside it, but to strengthen them, too– mentally, psychically. Locking Varimathras in a block of mysterious crystal which they did not understand, and which they did not seek to understand, was the dumbest thing Argent Dawn could have done.”
“You can’t exactly blame them, of course,” said Fang. “It was the end of a long and grueling war for the people of Az, and the Throne offered a quick solution.”
“Quick solutions are not good resolutions,” growled M.
“Granted,” muttered Fang.
“And in this case, it’s proving disastrous: leaving him in there for six hundred years strengthened him enormously, although it did keep him imprisoned.”
“Short term benefit,” said Fang, spreading his fins at me and smiling, “long term disaster!”
I blinked at them. After a moment, I said, “Varimathras is more powerful than he was before?” a little more querulously than I’d intended.
“Sure is,” said Fang. “More powerful than he was before, maybe as powerful as the Lich King was at his peak. Might actually be able to run a decent Scourge this time.” M smiled thinly.
“But why didn’t the Law fix it?” I cried. “Why didn’t it make sure he died, or have you guys release him sooner, before he got so powerful?”
M and Fang were silent. Fang looked down. M glanced up at the moon for a moment, then looked back at me. “We’re not sure,” she said.
“Because the Law didn’t tell you to,” I said dully.
“It could just be that we weren’t strong enough at the time,” she continued. “The Law’s influence in the Dawn may not have been strong enough to change its decision to end the war as quickly as possible.”
“There is no limit to what the Law can do if it wants to,” Fang said crossly.
M sighed. “Maybe. And it doesn’t make sense, anyway,” she continued. “The Law had us help with the entombing.” She sighed again. “We just don’t know.”
“We’ve got some theories, of course,” said the murloc. “Maybe the world wasn’t ready to face him yet. But mostly, the theories are about you.”
“Me?” I said. “They locked Varimathras in a crystal chair for me?”
“So that we could recruit you. So that you could help us out with Varimathras. Or something.” Fang shrugged. “The Law works in mysterious ways.”
“How does it give you your orders?” I said. “If it’s just a will in the universe. It’s not like messengers show up with them.”
Fang smiled mysteriously. “You haven’t figure that out yet?” he said. I stared. He shrugged. “You will.”
I sighed. I could live with that. They were opening up about everything else. Ajax had been curled up in my arms; now he climbed up on my shoulder, standing at attention and looking alertly out over the plains.
“So, then, if you don’t know why,” I said to Fang, “why did you call me Nemesis?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
He shrugged. “Because the Law said to,” he replied.
I nodded, and made to continue.
“But I assume,” he interrupted, “that it’s because you’re going to be the one to take him down.”
The words hit me like a boulder. I had thought about it, I had suspected it, I had mulled it in the world that’s half way between sleep and awake, but somehow, I had never really fully believed it. “He flicked me off a cliff with his mind,” I said faintly. “You said he’s really, really, really powerful.”
Fang smiled. “He could kill you with one of his ugly uncut fingernails, if he wanted.”
“Luckily,” said M, “you’re going to be much, much more powerful before you have to face him again.”
Fang glanced sidelong up at her. “At least,” he said, “that’s the plan.”
M nodded. “We think.”
“Oh,” I said. I paused, and looked from one to the other. Ajax had climbed back down into my arms. “You don’t know much.”
Fang smiled. “And yet,” he said, “we know more than anyone else in the world.”
“Huh,” I grunted. “So,” I continued slowly, “If I say yes. I’m inside, right? I’m an agent.”
“You’ll be inside, yes,” said Fang.
“Not immediately an agent,” said M. “There are a few more tests. But this time,” she said firmly, leaning forward, “you’ll be in on the joke.”
Fang nodded. “Promise,” he said. “This time I can save your ass without having to hide in the shadows in the woods and not tell anybody,” he added, glancing pointedly up at M.
“That was you!” I cried. “You saved me from Grimble!”
“And how,” muttered the murloc darkly. “I’d been hoping I’d be the one to get that slimy little capitalist.”
“Well, thanks,” I said. “I guess… thanks.” I nodded.
M nodded.
Fang glanced at both of us. “So that’s that, then?” he said.
I inhaled deeply. I looked back and forth between them. Then I nodded again. “Yeah,” I said. Wow.
“Great!” said Fang cheerily. “Hundreds of years of careful planning not out the window.”
M smiled thinly. “We have a lot of work to do,” she said to me. She turned to Fang. “You have fun,” she said.
He grunted. “I’ll come track you two mad cows down when I get lonely,” he smiled. He and M embraced. He turned to me, stamping his fins officially. He saluted. “Horse,” he said, “Welcome aboard. Good luck.”
I smiled at the little blue amphibian. “Thanks,” I said. My smile faded. I would probably need it, I thought.
Fang turned on his heel and hiked off onto the night-fallen plains, west towards Thunder Bluff.
M turned to me. “Well,” she said. “Pick up your things and follow me.” And she turned, and walked up the hill towards the red stone ridge above.
I set Ajax down on the hard ground and hefted my pack onto my shoulders. The cat looked up at me. I nodded at him, and we set off after M.
She walked uphill and to the north, across the bottom of the cliff. I followed, until, at the northern corner of Red Rocks, she stopped, turned and faced the cliff. It was less absolute here, sloping upwards into a steep but climbable ravine. M glanced back at me, and then set off into it. I followed. The ground was rocky, and after no more than a minute I fell to all fours to continue clambering up, pulling myself upwards with arms and pushing with legs. Ajax bounded from rock to rock behind me, pausing periodically to sniff at something, but keeping pace.
As the ravine got nearly too steep for me, M climbed easily over a ledge ahead and disappeared. As I clambered past a protruding vein of blue-green rock, her head popped back over.
“A little help?” I said, straining to maintain my hold on the rocks.
“You can do it,” growled M. “We can’t help you with every little thing.”
I sighed, and a moment later, Ajax scampered up past me and up to M. Are you serious? I thought. Wretched showoff.
I struggled up over the ledge, my hands bleeding and my hoofs sore. It was merely a nook, a small flat area surrounded by another cliff, this one only twice my height. There was a pile of rubble to the right, jagged stones that looked like granite. M was climbing them, and I followed.
It was an easier climb. A moment later, I was at the top. Thirty feet in front of me, between a rock and another shallow cliff, stood M, holding Ajax, outside of a hut, a traditional tauren hut with a blackened fire ring in front. Behind it was an ancient, scraggly tree, the kind that grew on the barrens to the east. Behind that, the ground was flat and dusty, and then it disappeared. The darkened plains of Mulgore stretched beyond.
I stood and walked over towards the hut. M handed me my cat and a loaf of bread.
“I knew you could do it,” she growled.
“That was a test?” I said with mock indignation.
“The first of many,” she replied. “Are you ready?” She narrowed her eyes keenly at me.
“Ready?” I said. “For what? No,” I continued, and I was suddenly on the verge of tears. “No, I’m not ready, I have no idea what I need to do or why or how hard it’s going to be, or if I can even handle it! Maybe the Law chose wrong, maybe it made a mistake and I’m the wrong bull and I’m going to screw everything up and Varimathras will win.” I was shouting now, without quite meaning to. “What do you mean, can you possibly mean, am I ready?” I stopped talking, breathing heavily, and stared at the serene bull. There was a look of desperation in my eyes.
“I mean,” M replied gently, “are you ready to do what is asked of you, fully in the knowledge that no matter how hard it might be, it wouldn’t have been asked of you if you couldn’t do it?”
I inhaled. “Wow,” I said. Her simple words effortlessly lifted the tremendous weight off my shoulders. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“There we go,” said the bull, and the shadow of a smile passed over her face. She handed Ajax back to me.
I looked at M and grinned. “You knew that was what I needed to hear, didn’t you?”
“Mmm,” she replied. “The Law knew, at least. You might want to get some rest. You’ve got a long day tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that for some time to come. The Law asks a lot,” she added, and it seemed to me that she spoke from experience.
And, with the terrible specter of inadequacy lifted, the day’s long string of revelations suddenly caught up with me. The Law wants me, I thought, and for whatever it’s worth, it knows I can do what I need to. The agents are centuries old. M is centuries old. There were lines on her face, I saw – not wrinkles, but creases from centuries of worry.
I nodded, and she stepped aside. I bent over and stepped into the hut.
It was low, barely large enough for me to lie down, but the floor was covered with thick animal furs. I knelt, and munched on the bread M had handed me. Ajax curled up under one of the furs, and was asleep in seconds. M stood outside, arms folded, staring out across the plains. She glanced back over her shoulder at me. “Sleep,” she said.
I flinched.
“If you want to,” she added, smiling thinly. “If you want to.”
* * *
I woke up the next morning to a loud thump and scuffling. I sat bold upright, and ran out of the hut. M stood behind it, under the scraggly tree, and on the dusty flat beyond pranced a beast like I had never seen: four legs, with hooves at the back and claws at the front – a body like a horse and a head like a bird, with a long, dangerous, black beak and antlers like a stag. Its feathers shimmered in the morning light, orange and green and purple. Its eyes glowed a regal yellow. It cantered gracefully towards us.
I walked up beside M. “What is it?” I breathed.
“He,” she said, “is a hippogryph, and his name is Tamilin.”
“Wow,” I said. The creature cantered to a stop in front of M. I’d only ever heard of them in storybooks. “I didn’t think they were real. He looks kind of weird.”
M suppressed a smile. The hippogryph turned his dark head towards me, and narrowed his glowing eyes. “You’re a cow with thumbs,” he said. “You should be talking.”
“Ohh,” I said, and my nose turned red with embarrassment. “I’m really sorry.” How was I to know the thing could talk? “I meant, weird in a good way,” I stammered.
The hippogryph tossed his head and screeched in what I thought was laughter at my discomfiture. “I assume you meant weird in the staggeringly majestic way, so we’re cool,” he said. I smiled uncertainly and nodded. His voice was a strange cross between a storyteller’s easy lilt and an eagle’s cry.
M turned to me. “Get your pack,” she said. “We’re going for a ride.”
I crated Ajax, sacked up and returned to under the tree. M had tossed a rabbit to Tamilin, and was tending quickly to one of his front claws. “Thanks,” he said as she stood back up. “It’s been bugging me for a couple weeks.”
She nodded. “Thank you,” she replied, “for coming. It would not be a pleasant trip by foot.”
“No problem,” he said. “I owe you, from that time with the thing.”
M bowed at the neck.
“Well,” said the hippogryph, “we should be on our way, if you want to see any of the north by daylight.” He glanced at me.
M nodded and turned to me. “You’ll be sitting in front,” she said.
“Where are we going?” I said as I climbed onto Tamilin’s feathery back.
M climbed up behind me, and Tamilin flexed his wings majestically. “We’re going to get you trained up,” growled M. “We need a warrior, not excess baggage.”
“Where?” I said.
“The only place that can do it properly,” replied the bull. Without warning, Tamilin charged forward, hooves and claws pounding at the dusty ground and then suddenly, we soared out a hundred feet over the green plains. My stomachs dropped. A wide grin split Katy M’s face. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped Tamilin’s neck as tightly as I could.
“Easy back there,” called the bird, “I won’t drop you!”
“Where is the only place that’ll do it properly?” I called back to M, after a moment of centering myself. My eyes were still squeezed shut.
“M, your friend asks a lot of questions,” said the bird as we veered suddenly about and soared north towards a line of mountains on the horizon. I gulped.
“He sure does,” M cried.
“You gonna tell him?” called the bird.
“Yes!” I yelled crossly.
M laughed. “We’re going north,” she cried into the wind, sounding, for the first time since I’d met her, really happy. “We’re going north,” she cried, “and we’re going to see the night-elves!”
END OF PART ONE.
Part Two
(Discuss chapter)
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