Dangerous Songs
"—and the parrot says, 'Durotar! They're all over the place!'"
A few of the supply caravan's guards snickered; the rest of them groaned. Tascha laughed, more at their reaction than the joke itself, and the joke-teller flashed her grin. "At least someone appreciates the classics."
"There's classic and then there's decrepit, Lindgren." Maylar nudged his horse closer in line, his wolf companion trotting at his heels. He looked somewhat uncomfortable, and Tascha wondered if the guard's leader had spent much time on horseback. Most night elves preferred large cats as mounts. "That one crosses the line."
"All right, then, how about the one with the succubus, the paladin, and the orc warlock?"
Maylar raised an eyebrow. "That crosses a different line." He nodded in Tascha's direction. She frowned slightly, concentrating. "Does it end 'No, but she bakes a great cake'?"
Laughter erupted from all the guards. Maylar's face turned a deeper shade of violet. "I think I've already heard it."
"So I gather," Maylar said dryly. "We should keep it down, we're approaching Three Corners. Last word from Lakeshire reported gnolls there. Fall back into defensive formation."
The guards obeyed, with only a few muttered grumbles. Tascha returned to her assigned place in the middle of the caravan. Maylar fell back along side her. "I'm sorry about that, Corporal," Tascha said. He shook his head, his mouth quirked in a half-smile.
"It's all right. You had more effect on Lindgren than I would have." His tone was light, but to Tascha's mind there was worry underneath the humor. The guards were auxiliary pulled from the lower ranks of Stormwind's defenders and new trainees. Gossip during the trip had it the night elf was a privateer who had gained his rank during the last war against the Burning Legion. Doubtless he had more battle experience than all of them combined. If there was trouble, though, he was only one man. One night elf, Tascha corrected herself. Allies or not, few kaldorei liked being compared to humans.
"I have something for you," Maylar said suddenly, reaching inside his vest.
Tascha smiled, taking the perfect red leaf he held out to her. "Thank you! It's beautiful. I love autumn."
His laughter sent a delighted chill up Tascha's spine. "I never would have guessed, the way you kept looking around."
"There's not many trees in the city." Elwynn Forest surrounded Stormwind, but since the events of last year, she was too afraid to leave the city alone, and too proud to ask for company and face her fellow priests' skepticism. Or worse, pity.
"No. It matches the color of your hair."
It was Tascha's turn to blush. She was used to flirting and flattery –vocation or no, she was inevitably seen as female first and priest a distant second – and used to deflecting both with as little offense as possible. But from night elves, flirting seemed hard to brush aside.
"I'm not sure," she said, turning the leaf on its stem. "I think my hair's more brown."
Maylar laughed again. "After we reach Lakeshire, maybe we could look for another." He leaned closer, and beneath the leather-and-mail tang of his armor Tascha caught the wood smoke and spice scent of his skin.
"Corporal! Scouts are back!"
Maylar muttered something in Darnassian Tascha couldn't understand. "Duty calls. Light be with you, Tascha."
"Elune-adore, Maylar."
The night elf grinned. "I like your accent." He spurred his horse forward to the front of the caravan. Tascha watched him go, tucking the leaf into her jacket's top button-hole.
"You got a thing for the long-ears, dontcha?"
Tascha turned to face Lindgren. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb. You won't give a real man a glance and a nod, but you damn near fall out of your shirt for the flower-face." He sneered. "You city girls are all al…"
Lindgren's mouth widened to an O in surprise. Blood spilled from his mouth and he grabbed at the arrow embedded into his ribcage before toppling sideways off his horse. Instinctively Tascha began to slide off her own mount to heal him, but another arrow skimmed past her chest.
"We're under attack!"
Tall, lanky forms and shorter, squatter bodies flowed from the surrounding forest like water. The air exploded with the sound of combat. Tascha lay flat against the neck of her horse, urging it to her right, away from the caravan proper. She was trained for healing, not combat, but she couldn't heal what she couldn't see. Let her get to one of the rocky outcroppings, to a vantage point –
A spear sang between her mount's legs. The horse reared, screaming, and it took all Tascha's strength not to be thrown from her saddle. A blue, long-tusked face topped by a shock of red hair filled her sight. She screamed and elbowed it in the jaw. The thing fell back, yelping.
My elbow hurts. Its hair's the same color as mine. She had nearly reached the nearest stand of boulders. Everything seemed distant and far away, unreal. Men weren't really shrieking, or bleeding, or being hacked to pieces –
"Tascha!"
Maylar was there along side her, no longer on his horse. Blood covered his arms and shoulders and part of his face. "Get to Lakeshire! Gnolls and trolls, Elune knows how – warn them –
"I can't! I'm supposed to heal – "
"Don't argue! Go!" He slapped her horse's rump, and it surged on past the screeching, chaotic knot of guards and attackers, and on down the road.
The battle faded to a distant roar, and then to nothing. How far were they from Lakeshire? She tried to recall the map from the Cathedral's library. The boundary between Elwynn Forest and Lakeshire wasn't a formal one. Three Corners, where the roads to Darkshire, Elwynn and Lakeshire met, was the real border, and they hadn't been that far from Three Corners.
There was a guard post there, right at the junction of the three roads. They could alert the townsfolk, and she could go back to the caravan and help. In fact, she could just make out the triangular 'crossroads' it was named for.
Her horse whinnied and balked, shying off to one side. "Come on, boy -- girl – whichever – we have to keep moving. We're almost…"
The late afternoon breeze shifted, and Tascha smelled it, too: burning wood, and the sweet-sickly stench of roasted flesh. She scanned the tree line, and caught the tell-tale sign of dark smoke curling up into the blue sky.
"No. Light, no."
There wasn't a guard post at Three Corners anymore.
She brought her mount to a stop, shaking. How could this have happened so quickly? The scouts had been out for nearly an hour; if there had been any sign of trouble, they would have returned much sooner. Maylar was right, there weren't supposed to be trolls this close to Stormwind at all. How had they gotten here?
Gates¸ answered part of her. Portals.
"None of that, Tascha. Not here." She took a deep breath. It had been a year. She had to stop being afraid. "You need to get to Lakeshire. How are you going to do that?"
The smoke came from up ahead, on her right. Tascha turned her horse to the woods on her left. The Redridge Mountains surrounded Lakeshire, with its lowest foothills leading into Elwynn Forest: the road cut through a small pass and continued down to a bridge over Lake Everstill, and into the town proper. From what she remembered of the Bishop's descriptions, the shore opposite the town was used for herding pigs, a few haphazard gardens and the graveyard. Prospectors sought out nodes of copper and tin in the foothills. There had to be trails. If she could get around Three Corners, skirt the mountains' edge….
She let her horse pick the path through the trees, trusting its senses to avoid any deadwood or tangles of brush, straining to catch any noise that would warn of an attack. No birdsong – the attack on Three Corners would have scared aware any birds. Dead leaves crackled under her horse's hooves like gunshot. Once the beast shied away from a stench like an open sewer. She held her breath when the breeze brought again the stink of the burning guard post, and the horse broke into a quick gallop. The rust-red stone of the foothills loomed closer, until at last she could reach out and touch it.
Tascha let go a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She had made it. She should be able to see Lakeshire right around this curve. She urged her mount to a full-out run.
Something snared her shoulders and yanked her out of the saddle.
Tascha screamed, first in surprise and then in pain as she hit the ground. Stunned, the wind knocked out of her, she lay unmoving, until she noticed the dog-like faces leering down at her.
Instinctively she struck out with one of the few offensive spells in her power. All her attackers abruptly fled, yelping in fear. Tascha wriggled free of the net holding her captive and staggered to her feet. A large lake shimmered in the sunlight, dotted with tiny boats. Beyond it was a village in miniature, picturesque and perfect and out of reach.
Lakeshire.
Her horse was nowhere to be seen. Tascha whispered a quick prayer to ease the worst of her pain, and ran.
Cackling, guttural cries from behind her. Gnolls. She didn't need to look to know they were there. Another net spiraled out over her head. Tascha flinched and it fell to the ground.
Where was everyone? Shouldn't there be people fishing, gossiping with neighbors, working in their gardens? Or was she simply too far away to see them? Please let there be someone to see me. Anyone. Please.
A scream, high-pitched and childish, pierced the air, and Tascha barely managed to avoid colliding with the boy standing frozen in her way. She shuddered, gasping for breath and fighting off hysterical laugher. A child. She'd asked for someone to see her, and the Light put a child in her path.
"Run," she whispered, leaning on his thin shoulders. "Tell your guard. Enemies come, gnolls. Trolls. Tell them."
"But –"
"Run!"
The boy whirled and fled.
Tascha straightened and turned to face the foe.
…seven, eight, nine. There were too many of them, and only one of her. If she were more experienced, more trained, she might have held them off. She wasn't. I'm going to die here. To her surprise, she wasn't afraid. Fear meant there was a chance she might live, and she didn't see one. She murmured a shield prayer and prepared to die fighting.
The raw power of the Light struck one dead, holy fire burned another. Her shield-prayer protected her from arrows and spears, though she had to dodge their nets. Her fear spell scattered them again and again, allowing her to a few breaths' respite to gather up her will and focus the powers granted her. They returned in force each time, rushing her from both sides, forcing her to retreat back the way she came.
They're not trying to kill me. The thought made her cold. They're herding me. She risked a glance toward Lakeshire. The town seemed farther away than ever, but figures swarmed around shoreline, tiny as ants. No rescuer would reach her in time. She would tire soon. She carried a knife, but she was no warrior.
Trolls and gnolls were cannibalistic, and preferred their meals alive and kicking. At least to start.
Tascha called up the fear-spell, throwing all her power behind it, then bolted for the foothills. A boulder or two to hide behind, a few moments to spare and she'd have a quick, clean death.
Yes. There, just ahead – perfect. And….
Tascha slowed, confused. Something tugged at her from the outcropping of rock scattered like giant's teeth along the foothills. It was somehow familiar, like the tune of a song she had heard long ago and never again.
She darted past the boulders she had chosen as her personal tombstone and clambered up the hillside, the something's call increasing in strength and persistence. At last it reached its peak on a small ledge, blotting out her perceptions of anything except its existence. Like the faintest star in the night sky, it hung in mid-air, barely three steps away.
A portal.
The calm acceptance of her own death that had sustained her evaporated in the face of this new choice. Tascha pressed back against the hillside. No. No. She couldn't. Step through and leave her world for Light only knew what existed on the other side? Lose a year or more of her life again? Or worse?
A spear clattered against the rocks. Tascha heard yammering, mingled with deeper, slower voices. A second spear thudded near her feet and several pairs of long, blue arms scrabbled to find handholds on the ledge. An ugly, blue-skinned face smiled at her, a disembodied puppet.
Only two options existed: jump or be eaten.
Tascha jumped.
The world somersaulted and turned inside out.
She landed in a crouch, then collapsed backwards on a cold marble floor as an intangible, dark pressure seized her, immobilizing her. Light blazed from wall sconces and candle stands, blinding in its intensity.
A hiss of indrawn breath. Blinking away pain-tears, Tascha looked up in time to see an elf standing over her. He had to be an elf, though she'd never seen night elves with skin that shade of gold, or dressed that fancy. Another hiss and he had a mace swinging down at her --
"Hold."
The voice was a rich baritone, smooth, precise. The choirmaster would have killed for it. The mace stopped a bare inch from her head. The elf looked past her and said something that sounded almost like Darnassian.
" – out of nowhere. Yes, a cause for concern. But a dead intruder cannot be interrogated."
The elf dipped his head, then glared back at Tascha with narrowed eyes. "I speak your coarse tongue, human filth, because you must understand to answer. And we will have answers!"
"I will have answers, Gathios," said the other dryly. "You are dismissed."
"My lord, is this wise?" A third speaker, female. Tascha heard the rustle of several layers of clothing.
"Wiser than questioning me, Lady Malande."
Silence, then murmured farewells. Gathios bowed to his lord and marched past Tascha as if she didn't exit. More rustling clothing heralded Lady Malande's departure. She heard other footsteps, other voices. She wished she could turn her head and see. Part of her was glad she couldn't.
Where was she? Gathios, Lady Malande. The names meant nothing to her. They were elves, but not night elves. High elves? Blood elves? Was she in Horde territory?
The darkness lifted. Tascha sat up and gulped in air, shuddering.
"Young one," the lord said, "do you know who I am?"
Tascha swiveled in his direction and froze.
O Light.
He was a night elf, at least partly. He was taller and more broadly built than any night elf she had ever seen, and wore only the plain leather pants favored by night elf hunters. His legs ended in hooves. Black hair was caught up in the familiar top knot so many night elves sported. A blindfold hid his eyes and did nothing to mask their faint green glow. Horns sprang from his forehead, curled back toward leather wings draped around him like a cloak. Runes covered his bare chest and shoulders. Despite his demonic transformation, his face still possessed the handsomeness of his native race. She had heard stories, seen woodcuts in histories, but those descriptions paled before the reality.
He walked toward her. "Do you?"
Tascha nodded, the only movement sheer terror would allow.
"I didn't hear you."
"Illidan Stormrage," she whispered.
"I have another name. Do you know that one as well?"
The Betrayer. Tascha said nothing, nodded again.
A smile ghosted across former demon-hunter's lips. "A show of wisdom for one so lacking in years. For your sake, continue to be wise. Who are you?"
"Tascha of Stormwind." Her voice shook. She couldn't help it.
One finely-drawn eyebrow quirked. "Your parents named you for a Kalimdor songbird? Humans grow more insipid with each generation." He tilted his head. "You have the feel of the Light about you, Taszhia of Stormwind. What were your duties in the Cathedral?"
"I…I helped in the infirmary. Mostly I worked in the library."
"A nursemaid and a bookworm. Quite unusual for an assassin. But I do not think you are sent by my enemies. How did you arrive here in my council chamber?"
He wouldn't believe her, but what choice did she have? "Through a gate, in Lakeshire. In the Redridge Mountains."
"There is only one portal to the Outlands on Azeroth, and you were far from it." The glow of his eyes intensified. "Who created this portal for you?"
"No one. It was just there."
Illidan Stormrage stared at her. "Was it, now?" he asked softly. "You are not a skilled liar, priest, but for some reason I suspect you are not telling me everything. Perhaps I can persuade you to do so.
"Be seated." He gestured to a marble stool in front of a desk strewn with papers and tomes. Tascha all but ran to it and sat down, for the first time aware of her surroundings. The desk had an immense, throne-like chair behind it, with several more chairs carefully arranged in front. Shelves lined the walls. Everything was in dark colors but made from the finest materials. It looks sort of like the Archbishop's office, Tascha thought wildly.
"I find interrogations go more smoothly when all involved are comfortable." He smiled; Tascha wanted to hide. "For one of us, at least."
He folded his arms. "Start from the beginning of how you found this portal. Leave nothing out."
Tascha did. He remained impassive through her recounting of the attack on the caravan and its aftermath. "So," he said when she had finished, "you chose to risk the unknown instead of facing greater numbers than you could defeat."
"It seemed the safer choice. Relatively speaking."
"Relatively speaking, indeed," Illidan mused. "I'm pleased with your cooperation so far, but I have a question that may change that. How did you sense this portal?"
"I don't know," Tascha said slowly. "I just did." Why had she known it was a gate, anyway? She wasn't a mage.
"You just did," he repeated, "your previous experience with portals aside? I find one statement of yours in that rendering most interesting. 'I didn't want to, I was afraid it would be like the last time.' What 'last time'? And where?"
"I was on my way to Northshire Abbey. I got tired of the road, wandered into the woods." Tascha knotted her hands together. He wouldn't believe this. No one did. Like everyone else, he'd think she was crazy. Or lying, and Illidan the Betrayer would pen her name in the Dead Book for certain. "There was a tree that had fallen and was leaning against another – they formed an arch. I walked underneath it." A moment's fancy, pretending it was the secret entrance to some lost elven ruin. "And I was somewhere else.
"A city. Sigil."
"There is no such city on Azeroth."
"Sigil isn't on Azeroth. It isn't on any world. It's in the center of…" Tascha gestured helplessly. "Everything. The people who live there call it the Cage or the City of Doors, because it has gates that can take you anywhere, anywhere at all if you know how, but not everyone – only Sigil's ruler, the Lady of Pain, knows them all, she can send anyone through them or keep them out, even keep out gods, people said. I didn't know how to get home, I stayed there for a year, one of ours – I counted the days, I kept track, they can say I was gone less than a week, but it was a year!"
Her voice cracked. Tascha gripped the edges of the stool, breathing fast.
Illidan looked at her.
"Drink." A crystalline goblet appeared in front of her face; it held pure water, cold enough to be painful. At the moment, she didn't care: her throat felt desert-dry. "You are on the edge of hysteria and no good to either of us. Calm yourself, and let me see if I understand you."
"The City of Doors…" Illidan clasped his hand behind his back as he circled her. Tascha didn't dare turn on her seat to follow him. She wasn't sure she could have. "So-named for the portals it holds that connect it to other worlds, other universes."
"Yes."
The sound of a leather whip cracking, loose hairs brushed her face; Illidan had opened his wings. "Portals without number, and each dependant on a different method of operation?"
"Yes."
He was suddenly in front of her, the glow of his sightless eyes capturing her own. "You believe what you say, Tascha of Stormwind. That is in your favor.
"But I am not sure I believe it."
"What use would it be to lie?" Tascha jumped off the cold marble stool, still holding the goblet. "Anything else would make a better story –"
"Hush," the Betrayer said mildly. "And sit back down. You're being rude." He waved a hand. The sensation of oppressive darkness that had kept her pinned in place earlier folded about her. Tascha hopped back on the stool and curled in on herself as much as possible. The darkness' touch pained her spirit, she realized, not her body. She wished it did. Physical agony would have been easier to endure.
"What I meant," Illidan went on, pacing again. "is that I am not sure I believe what you were told is the entire truth. Someone must have realized the power to be had in possessing as much knowledge of as many gates as possible --"
Tascha spoke without thinking. "The Lady of Pain has that."
"Yes, you mentioned her." Illidan stopped, rubbing his chin in a distressingly human way. "No one challenges her? No rivals?" Tascha shook her head
. "An undisputed ruler who can send anyone she wishes through any gate in her domain or bar them from entering, even gods, if what you claim is accurate. I wonder if she realizes …does she see…."
His voice trailed off into mutters she could barely hear. He was talking to himself, not her. Tascha sipped more water and tried not to speculate on what would happen to her.
"She must. She sent you back, didn't she?" Illidan spun around and strode over to her. "Didn't she?"
"I don't re –"
"Don't lie to me, Taszhia," Illidan said softly. "It is exceptionally bad manners in a guest."
"Yes." The memory of what she had never told any of the few people she'd taken into confidence welled up in her mind: cool inhuman fingers on her forehead as she stood motionless and unharmed by the ruler of Sigil's will, power coursing through her, then blackness and the mountainside of the Valley of Heroes.
"She did more than that, your Lady. She gave you a farewell gift."
"I don't think so…all I had when I came back was the clothes I wore."
Illidan laughed; to her surprise, he sounded disturbingly like Maylar. "Not a visible gift. At least, not visible to you. But I see it clearly, on your skin and in your soul. You did indeed 'feel' a portal, because that is what she gave you: the power to sense them and where they go.
"And, perhaps, how to close them. I'd hazard a guess your erstwhile hostess expects you to do so. If , as I suspect, she wishes to keep her domain free of our world's influences, how better than to have someone else do the work for her?"
Tascha shook her head. The Lady could keep out anyone He was wrong. He had to be wrong.
"I am not wrong. There are beings who exist who do not require portals to travel between worlds. " There was an edge in his tone. "The Lady of Pain may know this, or she may not. Yet. Remove your jacket and shirt."
"What?"
"This is not an attempt on your virtue," Illidan snapped. "I offer you proof of what I say. Remove them and hold out your arms."
Flushed with embarrassment, Tascha obeyed, struggling with her jacket's buttons. The leaf Maylar had given her drifted to the floor. Her jacket landed on top of it, followed by her acolyte's blouse. She shivered, wishing she'd worn a heavier chemise.
"Now, Taszhia, behold your true plumage."
The glow of Illidan's eyes deepened, transfixed her. Their light was almost solid, tactile, coursing over her like a lover's touch. A sudden, answering glow shone from her body in a golden nova, and disappeared.
Tascha gaped. Heart-shaped leaves, the blue-green of a perfect gem, twined up her arms from wrist to shoulder and across her collar bones.
"Razorvine," Tascha said in disbelief. "She tattooed me with razorvine. Though it's black –"
Illidan snorted. "The pattern doesn't matter, the power does. This power you have blazed like a beacon the moment you tumbled into my realm. It's the only reason you still live." His hand slid over her arms, not quite touching her.
"Magnificent." Greed and admiration spilled from Illidan's voice. "Exquisite. Arcane magic unlike any I have ever seen, crafted for a single purpose, hidden from ordinary sight. Did she expect you to go on in ignorance until some doddering greybeard at the Mages' Tower or dream-struck fool in the ruins of Dalaran noticed you, your Lady? Or were you to unlock its secrets on your own through trial and error?
"Well. No matter."
A sharp-taloned finger raised her chin. Illidan smiled down at her.
"You are going to be very helpful to me, little bird."