Chapter 5
Ero'then and Drex were waiting when Sel'uen joined the students. They had gathered around the Shan'do, their tents collapsed into heavy packs. Brim handed out food he had prepared. He had long taken on the responsibility of cooking for the group. They accepted his offerings with a few grumbles. His attempts at making their provisions tastier were almost always abysmal failures.
She inclined her head to the Shan'do to show she was ready.
Ero'then nodded. "Our honorable guide will lead us," he said. Drex grumbled something unintelligible. "My position will be behind him, and yours behind me. Yeshaila, you will watch our rear." The female nodded. She had the sharpest eyes. She'd also brought a bow, though Sel'uen doubted it'd do much good in the wind.
The formation, with the addition of the goblin, was what they'd traveled in since Ero'then had learned of the quel'dorei pilgrims, way back at the Alliance settlement of Honor Hold.
"And as we go…" Ero'then said. His eyes twinkled. "We will have a lesson."
Sel'uen looked to Renarion. He straightened a bit and gave her a minuscule shrug.
They hadn't had a lesson since they'd started hunting the quel'dorei. The Shan'do had been single-minded in his pursuit and their learning had taken a back seat to their usefulness in catching the pilgrims. Though his nightmares hadn't begun until they'd left the mountains and entered the wasteland, his mood had perceptibly darkened during the chase. Hopefully, this meant a return to form.
She understood the meaning of Renarion's gesture. We'll see.
The others exchanged glances as well. Ero'then cleared his throat and turned to Drex.
"Lead on, Master Drex!" he said. The goblin gave him one last look of disbelief, shook his head then started forward.
The students followed, the storm blocking out the horizon ahead of them. For the first time, the sight of the storm caused Sel'uen's heart to spike in fear. They were going to enter that maelstrom. She started to think along lines sympathetic to the goblin.
After a few steps, Ero'then turned to face the group. He walked backwards, a talent he'd demonstrated many times during their travels. He gait didn't slow and he avoided any debris that might have been in his path. He was actually smiling at them.
A change of mood indeed.
"One question I pose," he said. "It will lead us to our lesson. We crossed from the Blade's Edge Mountains nearly a week ago. You have had plenty of time to grow acquainted with the landscape since then." The druid spread out his hands. "What can you tell me of this region?"
The question hung in the stale, biting air for a moment. Drex was still mumbling imperceptibly.
Deciding that she'd fallen behind far enough in the eyes of the others and the Shan'do, Sel'uen decided to try. She cleared her throat, drawing attention. "It is dead?" she asked.
One of Ero'then's thick eyebrows rose. "A bit broad," he said. "In fact, a bit inclusive as well." He looked at the other students. "How should we view every environment?" he asked.
Next to her, Xallon started. "Relationally," he said, and a couple others echoed him.
"Indeed." Ero'then sidestepped a boulder. "Every environment is made up of relationships. And, as with our own, this world's relationships are complex. You must consider every facet a region has to offer you before making conclusions of it or, worse, attempting to inject yourself into that environment. Understanding is the precursor to good conversation. Your lovers will tell you that." A couple chuckles. "You must understand your environment before you can appropriately commune with it." He looked at Sel'uen. "Simplifications of these relationships is more than rash. It is dangerous."
Sel'uen bowed her head. She could feel the full length of her ears burning.
Renarion spoke up. "But Shan'do," he said. "Would you not agree that this place is dead?"
Ero'then turned to regard him. "Explain your meaning of death," he said.
"Absence of vitality," Renarion said. "The land has been drained of all life. Nothing grows here. There are no nutrients in the earth. No water. No life as far as we can see. When the orc warlocks lost control of their magic, the loose, demonic energy they wielded tore this world apart."
"None of what you have said is wrong, Thero'shan," the elder druid said. "But did the warlocks destroy all life on this world?"
Renarion hesitated. "No…" he said slowly. "There is the marsh. And the pockets in the mountains—"
"And Terokkar," Xallon was quick to add. Sel'uen resisted the urge to trip him.
"…and Terokkar." Renarion shot a malevolent look at the younger student. "And the open plains to the west of there. There are signs of life in some places, but they are all broken or tainted in some way from the warlocks' magic."
"Then why is this place different from the others?" the Shan'do asked.
Renarion shrugged. "Perhaps it is like the Peninsula," he offered. "Just as the Portal has drained the energy of that land, perhaps there is a tainting or draining agent here that is sucking it dry."
"Possible," Ero'then said. Drex glanced backwards then, as they passed another cropping of rocks. The druid neatly avoided them. Sel'uen realized the goblin was purposely taking paths that were thick with debris to try and trip up the elder night elf. "Other explanations?" he asked.
Behind them, Yeshaila called, "Maybe it got a whiff a Brim's cookin'. Decided to off itself."
Brim growled. Ero'then might have had them all beaten by height, by Brim made the elder look like a twig next to a tree trunk. "Or maybe it was a region under Yesh's watch," he mumbled. "And suffered greatly at her "guardianship.""
There was open laughter. Sel'uen glanced back to see Yeshaila's olive skin darkening. Once in the mountains, she'd scouted ahead and led them straight into an ogre village's "dumping grounds".
There was no forgiveness.
"Or perhaps it endured a lesson of antiquity from the Shan'do," Renarion added coolly. "And died of boredom."
"All excellent theories." Their teacher couldn't hide a bit of a smile himself as his students laughed. Sel'uen joined in. It felt good, and even better to have their moody Shan'do's permission to laugh. "But this is not a difficult question," he chided. "Use your sense."
The chuckles died away. Someone started talking. After a moment, Sel'uen realized that it was Drex. He was muttering loudly, loud enough so they could hear him.
"A whole console panel lands there," he was saying. It sounded like he was talking to himself. "Fragments of the engine rain down over here. So what? There's a place with grass and trees and rivers and all sorts of shit over here. There's a place that looks uglier than your momma's own kisser over there…" He glared back at the elves. She couldn't tell if he was angry at them for driving him to his death or at their apparent stupidity.
"Demolitions 101 birdbrains!" he yelled back at them. "Stuff don't all break the same!"
Ero'then looked more amused by the goblin's outburst than his students' jokes. "My thanks, Master Drex," he said, turning to regard the goblin. "Your wisdom outwits even my own Thero'shan."
The goblin looked unsure of what to do with the compliment. "Yeah, well, we're gettin' close," he warned. "Few more minutes and we'll be in the thick of it."
Sel'uen looked ahead and saw that the goblin was right. The wind had picked up to an even more intense degree. Without realizing it, they had begun to raise their voices to be heard over the howling. She blew her nose into her hands and felt the grit that had begun to accumulate there. She tried glimpsing ahead. The storm didn't look like it had gotten any closer, but it did look taller and meaner. Like it was ready to gobble them up.
"You ready to reconsider yet?" the goblin yelled. Sel'uen felt like she was.
But Ero'then ignored him, turning instead back to his students. "My point is this," he said. He had to shout now. "As our guide has so humbly explained, this world has broken apart in an uneven fashion. Total oblivion has not claimed it. Even here, in these wastes, all things are not lost." He gave them a meaningful look. He had given them a hint.
It hit Sel'uen so suddenly she had no time to second-guess herself. "The storm!" she shouted. She felt some grit slip into her mouth, but it didn't deter her. "The wind! The weather still functions here!"
The storm was growing so thick that the world was starting to take on a darker, more violet taint. Still, Sel'uen saw Ero'then glance at her. She was overwhelmed by a crushing certainty that she was wrong, that she had misstepped once again.
Then she saw him smile, though she thought it looked grudging. "Very good, Sel'uen," he said. "These storms are tainted by the Nether, but they are also byproducts of what once had been the natural behavior of the world of Draenor. Thank Elune for it! We shall use it to our advantage. Now comes your lesson!"
The wind had risen to a screaming. They could see one another and hardly any further. The detritus in the air was starting to tear at Sel'uen's skin. She held herself, staring in astonishment as she saw that a bit of blood had been drawn from her arm.
They were upon the storm. Or - perhaps more appropriately - it was upon them.
"I'm done!" Drex was shrieking to be heard. "No farther! You can't make me! You'll have to kill me to take me with you!"
No one was paying him any attention. Ero'then was gesturing for his students to gather around him.
"Come!" he called, and they did. They crowded together into a tight huddle. Sel'uen felt the wind tearing at her back. She looked at the other students. They looked as scared as she felt.
"Open yourself!" their Shan'do shouted. He was still smiling. "Just as you've done with the forests! Reach out to me!" And he closed his eyes.
Terrified that she was going to be picked up and sucked into the maelstrom at any moment, Sel'uen screwed her eyes shut. She concentrated, bringing herself into meditation. It was much more difficult than usual.
But it happened. The sound of the screeching wind in her ears died. Replacing it was a simple, fresh breeze.
She was back in Teldrassil. She was high up in a tree, her back to the solid, weathered trunk. She could see Dolanaar below her, her friends and fellow druids playing and testing their abilities against one another in contests. She was far enough away so that she couldn't hear the sounds of town.
She felt the ancient life of the tree beneath her. Slowly, steadily stretching; searching both for nutrients in the earth and the embrace of the sky. She felt the creatures that made the tree their home. The family of squirrels halfway down, scurrying up and down with a grace she would never achieve, never fully understand. A hive of ants, near the base, building their tiny kingdom. Making strange love with their queen. She giggled.
She was younger here. Curiosity had driven her parents to bring her to the druids. She thought that they were going to teach her how to control the world around her, to change shape as she'd seen the adults do. To walk the woods as a huge, silent saber cat…
But her teachers had had other plans. They'd sent her alone out into the forest. "Find a place that is yours," they had said. "Go alone. Do not return until you have found it."
It had been a mystery and she'd run off to discover it. At first she'd been excited to be alone, to be on an adventure. Then frustration set in as she wondered what her teachers had meant. Finally, she'd started to notice how everything in the forest seemed to have a place. Everything except her.
She'd found her spot here, up in the trees. It was high enough to see Dolanaar. It had not been easy, finding a place where she did not bother anything else in the woods. But she'd found it, and when the teachers sent her back out again to learn meditation, she returned to her place and began to wander…
As if in a dream.
It was like sleeping but better. Instead of her own mind conjuring up all sorts of dreams to entertain her, it was one Dream, one world so like her own. She learned more of the squirrels building their family. Of the ants constructing their empire.
She touched all these things—as a mate touches the familiar curves and blemishes of her lover. She herself knew very little of that, but it was that analogy which Shan'do Ero'then used to teach them. He always stressed to her and the others the importance of intimacy. Of knowing your world so well it was like a bed-companion. She had come to be familiar with many things this way, meditating on her branch in sight of Dolanaar.
Now she reached out to touch a new thing, something she had never thought to touch before. The gentle, soft kiss of the breeze. She stroked it, then cradled it.
Dread seeped into the dream. It was the wind. She recoiled, feeling violated. It was screaming. It was not—
It needs you.
Ero'then's voice. Then there were other voices. Five more. Renarion, more familiar. Xallon. Brim. Yeshaila. Kel. They each entered her dream and she also felt them at her side in the corporeal world.
Renarion led the effort. Ero'then was there, too, but she sensed he was holding back, letting his students do the work. In the storm, Sel'uen gritted her teeth and threw herself into the effort.
It was like trying to calm a child in a tantrum. At first they tried to be gentle with it, but Ero'then told them strength was needed. The air was sick.
So they worked. They cornered it. They wrestled it. They pinned it. They always tried to soothe it, but it would not be calmed by urgings alone. Force was used.
It took time. She did not know how much time. But they eventually wrestled the tortured wind into submission. They forced it to relax. The exertion was drawing Sel'uen into the corporeal world, but she resisted the urge to rest. She felt the other students having similar struggles.
Finally, they bent the storm to their will. It calmed.
Well done. Ero'then took the burden from them.
Sel'uen woke with a gasp and fell back. The violet maelstrom still raged above her.
But not around her. With an effort, she raised her head. They were in something like a bubble, a house-sized haven in the storm. Sel'uen raised her arm. There was a breeze—soft and quiet.
A couple of the others moaned as they got to their feet. Renarion was the first one standing. Ero'then watched them all work their way to their feet.
It took them several moments to process what they had done. Slowly, Sel'uen became aware of a dull sort of pressure. She reached out to it, and realized that the spell - if it could be called that - required constant attention, though not much from her alone. The Shan'do was shouldering the burden, though he didn't look strained. Doubtless it was easier for him than for them. Still, they were all contributing, at least in bits. Thus the pressure.
"Is this a wide enough area for you, Master Drex?" Ero'then asked. The howling of the storm around them was still present, but it was greatly deadened like they'd muffled it with a gag. "Can you guide us in it? I can widen it, if you wish."
The goblin was sitting down. His arms were limp at his side and his eyes were wide open. Ero'then called to him again.
"Huh?" he blinked and glanced. "Oh, yeah. That's good. It's plenty." He looked equal parts humbled, shaken and grateful. Sel'uen had never thought to see that combination in a goblin.
"Good," Ero'then said. "We'll rest here a moment, then we'll be on our way again. Well done, my students." He sent a nod in Renarion's direction. The Thero'shan looked jaded, but grateful for the acknowledgement. They didn't grudge him it. He had led the effort. "You're better in practice than theory."
"Thanks," Brim said. Nervous chuckles.
