Illidan (29 page)

Finally the necromancers realized what he was doing. They concentrated their attacks on him. A bolt of magical energy lanced into Illidan's side. Agony so intense that he almost lost control of the siphon smashed through him. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to hold the binding spell in place. The siphon fought against him again. Illidan felt part of his own spirit being drawn into the device.

Illidan forced his mind into a warding pattern, resisting the attack, slowing down the drain on his life force. As he did so, he felt his control over the siphon's binding spell begin to slip. The second gem glowed brightly now. Sparks of soul energy surrounded him like a blizzard of black snow. The power roared in, thick and fast. If he could only hold on for a few more moments.

His fel orcs were down to a third of their original number now. Grimbak Shadowrage roared encouragement at those remaining. He turned to Illidan, and just for a moment, hope, belief, and entreaty raced across his face before it became once more a snarling warlike mask for the benefit of his soldiers.

Illidan considered trying a counterspell against the necromancers but realized it was impossible. He could not hold the soul siphon, protect himself, and launch an attack at the same time. Even he was not so powerful a magician.

Illidan's legs felt rubbery and his head spun. Strength drained out of him faster and faster, and it was all he could do to restrain the growing power of the soul siphon.

He had not foreseen this. He had never imagined falling in this dark place. He was going to die here, and all his schemes would come to naught. The best thing to do was simply to release control of the spell restraining the soul siphon, and let its energies explode outward, killing everything around him. At least this way he would have vengeance on his killers.

No. He was not going to die. He still had work to do. His destiny must be fulfilled. The Burning Legion must be opposed. He drew on his last reserves of will to keep the soul siphon functioning. He fell to his knees as the life drained out of him. Slowly, the last gem filled.

Hold on. Hold on.
Agony racked Illidan's body as bolts of dark energy lashed him. Grimbak Shadowrage tumbled to the ground beside him. A few of his bodyguards had made a fighting retreat alongside their captain and shielded him with their own bodies as the walking dead and their sorcerer masters closed in.

The final gem was full. Illidan spoke the words that tied off the flow of energy and imprisoned it. He raised himself slowly to his hooves as the last of the fel orcs went down. He gathered what strength was left in him and opened a portal back to the Black Temple. The last thing he heard was the enraged shouting of the necromancers as he and the soul siphon vanished.

Chest heaving, he settled himself on the cold stone of his sanctum. Sweat dripped down his brow. He could barely breathe. The room swirled around him and consciousness slipped away.

I
llidan sat on the throne in his council chamber. It had been weeks since his return from Auchindoun and still he was weak. His power had not returned to anything like what it had been before his use of the soul siphon.

Not for the first time, he considered dispatching an expedition to root out the necromancers. He could not waste the resources. He looked at the great map table. His armies were shattered. His empire, crumbling. Among them, the Alliance, the Horde, and the Burning Legion had riven his Outland realm. It was all his followers could do to hold together the last remaining outposts in Shadowmoon Valley. The reports from his captains, when he had felt well enough to listen, had been very far from encouraging.

He had only himself to blame. He had decided to go to Auchindoun accompanied only by his fel orc bodyguards. He had chosen to reserve the power of the demon hunters for the final confrontation, not understanding the very real danger that awaited him in the city of the dead. That overconfidence was going to cost him, and perhaps all who lived, dearly.

He pushed the thought aside. He could not afford to let himself think like that. There must be hope, some chance of victory. If he could not win the battle himself, perhaps his demon hunters could. They were powerful, and they had been trained for this fight. It might cost all of their lives, but victory could still be theirs.

Keep telling yourself that,
and perhaps you might actually come to believe it.
The sour thought crept into his mind no matter how much he tried to keep it out. Doubt was a demon against which he had no defense.

One by one, his blood elf advisers filtered into the chamber. He could tell by their expressions that the news was not going to be good. He rose from his throne, concealing the pain that hampered his movements as best he could, but all eyes followed him, measuring and judging. Those present were ruthless, ambitious, and unbound by any conventional ideas of morality.

They studied him as wolves might study the ailing leader of their pack. His empire might have shrunk, but it was still an empire, and many others no doubt thought themselves capable of ruling it and even reclaiming what was lost. Perhaps they were right about that.

It did not matter. Illidan resented being here, resented having to go through with this charade. Every minute spent placating his advisers was a minute not used finalizing his plans to end the threat of the Burning Legion. He forced himself to look around the room. Every one of those present had to meet the baleful power of his eyeless gaze.

High Nethermancer Zerevor spoke first. “The news from the Netherstorm is interesting. Tempest Keep and our treacherous former prince have fallen. Whether this is good or bad for us, I do not know…”

Illidan made an impatient gesture, cutting him off. Kael'thas had sided with Kil'jaeden, so he deserved whatever evil fate had befallen him. He was not worth any more of Illidan's time. He turned to Lady Malande. “And the news from the Blade's Edge Mountains?”

“Lord Illidan, Gruul the Dragonkiller has been overthrown. I can find other allies. All it will take is a little more time.”

Malande was wrong. No allies would be coming from the mountains. Illidan nodded as if he believed her, though. The matter was irrelevant. He needed to get back to building the portal to Argus. He needed to perform the final ritual that would set up the terminus point.

“With all respect, Lord Illidan,” said Gathios. “Time is just one of the resources we are running short of. We need to mount counterstrikes against both the Alliance and the Horde, teach them to fear us, regain our lost territories.”

Gathios had been pushing for that for weeks, ever since the extent of the invaders' conquests had become clear. In purely military terms, he was correct. If Illidan's only concern were holding on to Outland, then he should be counterattacking. Although things had probably gone too far for that. They no longer had the forces to fight a war on three fronts.

Veras Darkshadow pointed that out, and added, “We could offer an alliance to one side or the other. Play them off against each other. It might buy us some time.”

Veras clearly thought he knew what Illidan wanted to hear. It was also something that Zerevor and Malande would disagree with.

The blood elves fell to arguing. In his mind Illidan reviewed the plans for the portal to Argus. There was still too much work to do. He needed more truesilver for the inlays. He needed to reinforce the dampening spells that would feed power from the soul siphon to the portal itself. There would need to be ways of making sure that the flow of energy was even and swift, that the gate opened smoothly. He needed the visualization to be absolutely clear. Nothing could go wrong. There would only be one chance to get this right. At the moment, as things stood, he might be able to open the gateway, but it could not stay open without a guiding will to keep it stable. He needed to find a way to ensure that it would remain steady once they passed through it. There was so much to be done.

“What do you think, Lord?” Gathios asked. “What should we do?”

Suddenly he was tired of all this. He was tired of listening to this petty, pointless bickering over matters that were no longer of any concern to him. He was tired of the feeling of weakness and lassitude that filled him.

Time was running out and he had important work to do and this was a needless distraction.

Illidan dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “Get out of my sight,” he said.

I
LLIDAN LOOKED AROUND
the great chamber of transference. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, he had created the last and greatest portal spell he would ever weave. Every line had been etched in the floor by his own hand. He had boiled the alembics of truesilver himself and filled out line after line. He had inscribed the runes around the edges in demon ichor mixed with his own blood. Each wall was covered in intricate warding symbols based on his tattoos. At junctions in the pattern, he had placed the skulls of demons and sorcerers, each etched with miniature versions of their section of the pattern to help channel the flow of energy. These additions reflected the star beacons in the sky over Argus. At the center of the weave lay the Seal of Argus. It pulsed with power now, a direct link to the world of Kil'jaeden that would guide the unleashed energies of the portal.

Everything still had an unfinished, incomplete look to it. The spell engines that would feed power from the soul siphon into the pattern were untested. The generators, great machines of copper and brass and fel iron, intricate as gnomish engines, stood almost ready. The whole vast pattern was falling into place but too slowly. He had strengthened his weakened body with magic to give him the energy and concentration of a dozen lesser sorcerers, but it was still not enough. It would take many more moons to complete sorcery so vast and intricate, and he could feel the sands running through his life's hourglass far too quickly.

Now was not the time to allow himself to panic. Impatience led to mistakes, and in an undertaking as complex as this one, the slightest error could lead to catastrophe. He needed just to focus on the matter at hand, to do what must be done this day, this hour, this minute.

He needed to complete the link between Outland and Argus. He must set the terminal runes. He placed the incense and invoked the spell. One by one the magical engines sprang to life, filling the air with the stench of ozone and brimstone. Tiny trickles of energy, the slightest breath of power compared with the great roaring gale that would mark the portal's opening, leapt from the engines. The lines of truesilver shimmered. A mirror image of their pattern appeared in the air above them, projected from the Seal of Argus. He let his spirit exit his weary body.

It was easier to let go, as if using the soul siphon in Auchindoun had somehow weakened the link between his spirit and his flesh. He reached out and wove the flows of energy from the pattern into subtle threads, then gathered them to his spirit.

He followed the intricate pattern of runes out into the Twisting Nether. His spirit flashed through the void, and once again, Argus appeared beneath him. He looked down on the once glittering and beautiful world, then sent his spirit soaring downward into its glass canyons and diamond-edged mountains. He moved as cautiously as he could.

This time he sought to establish a terminal point for the portal. A web of magical energy linked him to Outland. He had done his best to conceal it, but a sufficiently adroit sorcerer—and this was a world full of them—might still detect him unless he was extremely careful.

The thought of the being he had encountered last time troubled him. It had seemingly aided him, but he knew how subtle and cunning the demons of the Burning Legion could be. Kil'jaeden was well named the Deceiver.

Illidan flew closer to the palace city where the demonic rulers of the Burning Legion dwelled. He feared that his comet trails of magic leading back to Outland might be spotted no matter how thin they were, no matter how well he had concealed them. He slowed his advance to a crawl.

A tingling of his spectral senses warned him that he was under observation. He tried to track whatever spied on him, but it eluded his perception. Alarm pulsed through his mind. The fact that it could elude his powers of observation even when he was alert spoke of tremendous sorcerous ability. The thing might attack him by surprise while he was most vulnerable, placing the points of resonance for the portal.

He waited for long moments, but nothing happened. Perhaps he was caught up in the backwash of some defensive spell designed to induce paranoia and doubt. Kil'jaeden was capable of such subtle magic. Every moment Illidan spent here was a moment wasted, one that increased his chances of being discovered. He needed to either proceed with his plan or retreat and wait for a more auspicious time.

It was now or never. He plunged toward Kil'jaeden's enormous crystalline palace, found the part he was looking for, and wove the spells. A small, temporary whirlwind of force appeared, a tiny echo of the vast pattern back in the Black Temple. Illidan glanced around, waiting for the hammer to fall. If he had been detected, now would be the time. No ward spell sprang to life. No alarm triggered. The vortex faded virtually to nonexistence, leaving behind a well-nigh undetectable residue of power.

As it did so, Illidan thought he was under observation once more. The sense of the watching presence returned, intensified. He felt as if something looked upon his action with immense curiosity, but when he sought out the source, he could not find it.

Wait. What was that? That faint aura of shimmering light. He focused on it, but even as he did so, it vanished from his perception—as if the owner had somehow withdrawn below the skin of the universe.

He needed to concentrate on the work at hand. He was distracted when he could least afford to be. He flitted through the crystalline palace to a new location, a vast chamber in which succubi danced for the amusement of demonic generals. He invoked the portal-anchoring spell once more, fixing it in place as swiftly as he could. He was closer to the throne room of Kil'jaeden now, and the danger of detection increased with that nearness.

He felt as if something vast and powerful loomed behind him, watching him work, studying the way he invoked the spell, observing how the anchor fell into place. He dared not interrupt the casting to try to catch it, otherwise the whole ritual would fail.

It was all he could do to focus on the work at hand when, at any moment, a blast of power might cast him into oblivion. He forced himself to concentrate on completing the anchoring spell, then swiftly attempted to bring his observer into view. Once again it eluded him.

Even in the reduced emotional state that came with being in spirit form, he was angry. He did not like being toyed with, and he felt that this was what was happening now. Kil'jaeden knew he was here and was playing with him. He was being allowed to get near the completion of his spell—and at the last moment his spirit would be captured and imprisoned.