After their strange, peremptory interview with the archbishop, Elatha and Ghost were reunited with their weapons and with Starfang before being ushered out into the twilight with an eager beneficence. You have met the archbishop, the smiling functionaries seemed to say, are you not blessed? Is your mission not clear and holy? Yes. It cannot be otherwise.
Ghost was not of a temperament to raise objections, and Elatha lacked the vocabulary for even a complete understanding of the vague but decisive statement which had been delivered to them. It was not until the two night elves were alone on the steps below the postern door that they paused to take stock, and Ghost made a lackadaisical effort to translate the gist of their purposed undertaking.
"What is a lich?" the huntress asked.
"Some sort of undead sorcerer, I gather," said the rogue, picking at a crack in the marble with her boot.
"And this priest wishes us to go Razorfen Downs, back to Kalimdor, to slay this creature. Why us? Could it be because he has heard of your accomplishments?" Elatha looked hopefully at her companion.
"I doubt it."
"I've never actually been to the Barrens. Have you?" The region, and the famed city of the quillboar, was familiar to the huntress only from the names on old maps.
"To the border once or twice, but that was long ago. I've been to Tanaris recently, but I went through Feralas and Thousand Needles."
"Could you find Razorfen Downs?"
"It's in the southern Barrens. That's all I know."
"This seems difficult to me." Elatha walked a few paces and knelt to inspect her nightsaber, who was fortunately still in an amiable mood. After considering a moment, she returned. "Did you tell those people that we would do this? Go to Razorfen Downs?"
Ghost put her hands on her hips and looked at the sky, which was turning to the darkest blue before them. Her tone exuded patient boredom. "I didn't say anything."
"Then we are hardly obliged to go, are we?" Elatha was really quite embarrassed by the proceedings, for she had the unmistakable sense of having failed to properly understand a duty on which friendly hopes and expectations were riding. Her objections felt, even as she uttered them, a little pathetic.
Ghost, of course, said, "Not at all. If we don't do it, they'll send someone else—that's how these things work. Those priests have money and time to waste. They can afford to worry about the Barrens."
"Did they offer money just now?"
"Not a copper. Reward on recognition of services rendered: that's not unusual, either. There's no harm if we walk away."
Elatha felt otherwise. In fact, the rogue's elaborations increased her pangs of unease, not because she distrusted Ghost's opinion, but for the sense of straightforward enthusiasm they seemed to be creating around the would-be demands of the human archbishop and his followers. "Could you tell them we won't do it?"
"Better to just leave. Otherwise there might be hard feelings, and we can't say we meant to but had an emergency someplace else."
The huntress was further chastened. Of course, she thought, Ghost could not endanger her reputation among the important denizens of Stormwind purely on the ignorant whim of Elatha Thistledeep, acquaintance of less than a day. Feeling browbeaten, she offered, "Should we go to the Barrens, then?"
Ghost laughed, shortly but with evident sincerity. "Aren't you exploring this continent?" She descended to the bottom step and looked back at Elatha. "And neither of us know where Razorfen Downs even is."
There was no rejoinder to this. Ghost moved slowly off across the square, veering as usual toward a byway, and Elatha fell in beside her. Starfang bounded a little way ahead, pricked up his ears; stared off in the opposite direction. Elatha found herself looking at the cathedral's main entranceway, where a mounted paladin, armoured and wearing a winged helmet, had just arrived and was speaking to one of the priests. "Why didn't they send someone like that?" she asked aloud.
Ghost followed Elatha's gaze. "We all have our specialties. They think ours is Kalimdor, probably."
The last of the sunset was being obscured behind the tall shape of the cathedral. Overhead the vague yellows had greyed into a night which had already overtaken the east. Candlelight was appearing at windows and lamplighters on the streets. A thin silver moon had mounted into one corner of the horizon. To the night elves, of course, there was no diminution in visual perception to create an atmosphere either cozy or ominous. Instead they experienced the implacable sensation of having stayed up through the usual sleeping time, and the result was a partial tiredness combined with a partial inclination to simply carry on in wakefulness.
"Are we going back to the park?" Elatha asked presently, having belatedly noticed that they were walking in that direction.
"Should we not? There's nothing to do in this city after dark that's not illicit, except drink, and even then the taverns close up at midnight: that's the law here."
The huntress was still brooding on the evening's proposal. "Do you think we could look at a map somewhere? That priest's map was not good."
"The libraries will have closed, and there's not likely to be anything better."
Talk of time recalled an important detail. "I suppose you're leaving in the morning?"
"Did I say that I was?" Ghost's tone was one of real curiosity. They hesitated beside the enclosure of a young tree, while Starfang sniffed at the lower branches.
"No," said Elatha, after consideration. "But you said you were only stopping off."
"That was my feeling then. I may change my mind."
On this note they doddled, without sure destination or deadline. Their location was merely the canalside, the still air, and the blank stone; it was equally uncertain. With momentum arrested, the rogue sat down and swung her legs over the black water. The huntress joined her, and the nightsaber lay down against her back. They watched the lanterns pass along the opposite bank, and the quick-stepping couples talking quietly; the drunks and beggars and watchmen.
"What did that priest say about light?" Elatha asked. "I heard him use that word."
"Just a reference to their religion. That's what they call their deity: the Light."
"The light from what?"
"I never asked."
Elatha decided to return to the previous line of questioning. "How would we even reach the Barrens, do you think? Are they expecting us to sail back to Darkshore and go south through Ashenvale? Through Stonetalon?"
"No, no. There's two ways to go about it. The first would be to fly down to Booty Bay, that's a goblin port in Stranglethorn, and take a ship to Ratchet. That's in the northern Barrens, I believe. The second way is to go back to Ironforge, fly to Menethil Harbour, and sail from there to Theramore Isle. Theramore's farther off the Barrens, but it's an Alliance fortress, and farther south than Ratchet—I've never been there, so I'm not sure of the distances. I suppose a third way would be to return to Ashenvale, fly to Feathermoon Stronghold, cross Feralas and try to find a way north through Thousand Needles, but that's too much trouble."
"What would be the downsides? I mean, of the first two options?"
"Besides not knowing where to go from there? Ratchet's another goblin affair, but if it's far north the Horde probably keeps a close eye on it. Theramore I don't know."
"This sounds expensive. Gryphons and ships."
"Isn't that always the way for us? Finish a job, and half the reward goes to pay what's owed from the last one."
"I suppose."
They sat more quietly after that, until the sound of drunken singing rose from a nearby winesoak. "Why don't we sleep on it?" said Ghost, and helped Elatha to her feet.
They retired to the park, whose usual complement had now returned to it. The huntress was introduced to the druids and explorers there, and welcomed by them. No further reference was made to Razorfen Downs, however, and obviously could not be made as long as involvement with that distant bramble remained the nominal task of Elatha and Ghost. If the prudent keepers of the park had in fact been appraised of the archbishop's desire, it was plain to see, they would have written formal letters home and passed the matter on to the Cenarion Circle or the Earthen Ring or some similar body, and the result would have been further prevarication for good or ill.
Despite their protests, their surprise and disinterest, the two adventurers went to bed uncertain and slept uneasily through the remainder of the night.
There was dew in the grass the next morning, and Elatha woke shivering under her thin travelling blanket. This kind of experience was more novel than might have been expected, for in her old life she had rarely slept outside of a roof or the awning on her coracle. Even her profession as-such was new: in old, autarchic times the neighbours would have laughed, and said that young Thistledeep could not hit the broad side of a treeant with an arrow. Let her mend rope, and catch crabs and spiders; she seems happy enough.
Now she found a branch to hang her blanket and bedroll over. The sky was colouring pink before an unseen sun, and the little cloud-drifts were aflame. The space around the moonwell was quiet. Some of the residents had lean-tos and others had disappeared, or slept in animal-shape. Starfang was sitting up on his bed of crushed dandelions and grooming. Elatha tiptoed to the steps beside the moonwell and found a pitcher of profane water for her ablutions. When she was done, she stretched, walked off the lingering chill, and looked for last night's comrade.
Ghost had been loaned a fine indigo mattress, a silken blanket and a pillow, and behind the sacred posts she had escaped the dew. The huntress was about to go in search of breakfast alone, and bring some back, when the rogue sat up and rubbed her eyes. Elatha brought her water in a tin cup.
A hot meal was acquired on Ghost's recommendation, though she said barely a word either to Elatha or the street-vendor from whom it was purchased. The night elves ate and drank in relative isolation, on a stone bench along the canals, and gave back the dishes when they were finished. Fingers rubbed eyelids; mouths yawned. Restlessness returned.
"Do you know where a library is?" Elatha finally asked, rather timidly.
Ghost said nothing, but led off into the morning traffic. The building they visited was in Old Town; the Mage Quarter or Stormwind Keep would not have suited the rogue's preferences or perhaps even occurred to her. It was a long, low room as good as an antique shop, with one whole corner dedicated to the musty scrolls and vellum tubes of cartography. With the help of the proprietor they unearthed three separate maps of the Barrens, all, of course, of recent vintage: one was a diplomat's copy of maps seen in Darnassus, one was from the scouting service of Theramore, and the third from the Explorer's League.
The first map was only a vague impression of where the greatest landmarks stood in relation to one another and to east, west, north and south. The second was more precise, of military character, but went no farther than the borders around Dustwallow Marsh and the road north. The third map was the best, but was filled with huge blank spaces. Razorfen Downs was a name on the first and third map, but its precise location could have been almost anywhere southwest of Dustwallow and north of Thousand Needles.
"Our people must have made better maps," said Elatha.
Ghost replied, "Probably, though the Downs might have shifted locations since the last time anyone bothered to check. Anyway, there ought be something more accurate in Ironforge."
But the proprietor insisted not: these were the latest prints from the Explorer's League, which came on the Deeprun a few days after the dwarven shops received them. In the event, the expense and a lingering irresolution persuaded Elatha not to buy the second or third map, though she was to feel the lack of them. Outside again, the two night elves stood on the Old Town street in the sun, not far from the Pig and Whistle.
Although she had left the maps, or maybe because she had, the huntress was afflicted with a feeling of guilt and dissolution. Her idea of exploring the Eastern Kingdoms had become a whim, now represented solely by the vague, unjoyous spectre of 'excitement' in Stranglethorn Vale. In the course of one day, her sense of free-wandering had been smashed under a sudden awareness of neglected duties and improvident movements. Ghost had in fact started the process, with her world-weary advice and warnings about diminishing money. The archbishop and his fellows had been more important, throwing onto her shoulders a mission she had not actually refused to undertake—a mission of possibly urgent importance to unknown but perhaps large numbers of people. Yet Elatha knew herself to be stubborn enough to refuse all these sudden pressures, if she had not already grown tired of the preceding circumstances.
She looked across at Ghost: the relaxed stranger, the veteran, in her hood and concealing suit, fingers splayed emptily at her sides, head tilted very slightly, looking at the passersby as if at nothing. It occurred to Elatha that Ghost would not still be standing there so easily if she was not a little interested in Razorfen Downs, or at least in obliging the huntress.
Clearly, there would be no momentous debate or decision. The rogue would not care for that; it would not be to her taste. Instead, Elatha simply composed herself and said casually, "I wonder if the tram is running yet?"
"It goes all day," said Ghost. "The next arrival is probably about midmorning."
This time it was Elatha who walked away, with her nightsaber beside her. She remembered the route. Ghost appeared at her elbow in a few moments, and matched her pace thereafter. Nothing more needed to be said.
-Author's Note:
I really don't remember if we got to the Barrens via Ratchet or Theramore, though I'm almost inclined to think it was Ratchet (it could also have been both, if we arrived there separately). I've decided that it will be Theramore in this story, however, because that seems more interesting and convenient than Ratchet as well as more reasonable for the characters and situation I've established.