Chapter 21 - Minions
"Come on Farlsworth, we don't have all night."
Brogan, now known to the coven as Farlsworth, cursed silently as he worked. He hated that name more and more with each passing day. If Gakin the Darkbinder even remembered Brogan's real name, he never used it. The elder warlock saw how uncomfortable it made him and smiled. Brogan learned quickly that the man drew genuine pleasure from making other people suffer. This probably had something to do with his chosen direction in life.
Gritting his teeth, Brogan pulled on the rigid iron wire in his hands. For days he had worked on the metal and gem incrusted bracers. He had smelted and hammered the material himself, as was required for the ritual. Working the material had been difficult, and Brogan had not liked it at all. Gakin had instructed him every step of the way, and had beaten him when he felt that the boy was moving too slowly. But Gakin was an excellent teacher. Before meeting him most of the spells Brogan had cast had been from instinct, or by blindly repeating words Balba'yorn had whispered to him. Gakin actually taught him what the demonic words meant. He had shown Brogan how to tap more of his body's mystical energy and, how to grasp more shadowy energy and cast it at his enemies. But most importantly Gakin had been teaching Brogan about demons. How to find them, how to fight them, and how to banish them.
And now, how to use them.
"No, you idiot. The sapphire has to be near the wrist. The emerald has to go there." Gakin raised his staff menacingly. Brogan flinched and hastily made the correction.
"Come now Gakin, you're being much too hard on the boy." A new voice emanated from the far side of the room. Brogan saw his instructor repress a shudder as Necrodamus entered from the doorway. Mallet's brother had a smooth deep voice that carried great confidence. He was accompanied by a beautiful young woman not much older than Myrista, with long black hair and cold eyes.
Brogan quickly turned back to his work. In the week that he had stayed underground at the coven, he had managed to avoid the leader of the warlocks. He had never met Myrista's father before, but the rumors surrounding his disappearance for Northshire nearly two years ago had given him a preliminary mental image. Those stories spoke of a haunted, hollow-cheeked man who drank constantly and was always muttering to himself. This man who was now approaching shared none of those characteristics. Necrodamus was tall, handsome, and certainly seemed to be in complete control of himself. The young woman at his side showed every sign of absolutely adoring him.
"Master, this is an unexpected honor." Brogan's instructor said to the coven's leader.
"You know that's not true, Gakin. This visit is long overdue." Necrodamus's voice carried a sinister undertone that Brogan did not like. "I have been busy of late dealing with events upon the surface. It seems that an old acquaintance of ours has recently come to Stormwind. He tells me that someone has placed a bounty on your new apprentice."
"On no..." Gakin muttered. "Not more bloody elven demon hunters?"
Necrodamus chuckled in amusement. "Thankfully no, however I must admit that keeping that infernal Night Elf from finding our sanctum is proving to be more difficult each day. I am afraid we will have to deal with both him and the city guard very soon. No, my friend confided in me that Farlsworth here is sought for something he did back in Northshire."
"Is that so?" the Darkbinder turned to Brogan. "Farlsworth, you didn't do something stupid like kill anyone before coming to the city did you?"
Brogan gulped loudly. "I.. I don't think so."
Necrodamus laughed loudly at that. "Oh no? They say you burned down two houses, and are responsible for a dozen murders, including a witch in the service of the Twilight Hammer."
"Oh, that." Brogan shuddered. He recalled how, when he first met Mallet, he had been afraid of what would happen if the paladin learned he was a warlock. Now he felt an eerily similar feeling about what would happen if Mallet's brother knew how much Brogan knew about his former identity. Would he order Brogan's death, or perhaps sacrifice him to a demon?
"Well?" Gakin roared. "Speak up boy! The leader asked you a question."
Necrodamus sighed. "Gakin, my dear friend, why don't you let me handle this?"
"Sire, please." Gakin raised his staff again. "This one is willful and in dire need of some discipline. I can loosen his tongue..."
"Gakin." Necrodamus barked the name and the Darkbinder's breath seemed to catch in his throat. The coven's leader turned to the black haired woman. "Surena, be a dear and escort Gakin here to the parlor. Bring him up to speed on the activities of the demon hunter. Thank you."
The young woman slipped aside and gestured for Brogan's instructor. Gakin fumed and slipped past them and out the door. The woman glanced to Necrodamus, who gave an almost imperceptible nod, before she walked out the door, closing it behind her.
"Women..." Necrodamus mused. He moved around so that he could examine Brogan's work. "They are amazing creatures, wouldn't you agree?"
"I.. um" Brogan felt himself being pressed by the dark wizard's piercing blue eyes. "I wouldn't know sir."
"Oh come now, don't be shy. Bashfulness does not become a man who's chosen a destiny as an evil, demon-summoning warlock."
Brogan unconsciously clenched his fists, twisting one of the bracer's thin silver bands. Luckily he checked himself before the damage was too severe. "It was never my intention to be a warlock."
"Of course not! No one sets out in life saying that he plans to kill and burn and barter the souls of others for power. But as we travel, life teaches us many lessons. And the first and most prominent one is that life is not fair." The warlock leader emphasized his point by poking the table with each word.
"Lets take you for example." Necrodamus continued. "Your parents were taken from you at an early age. They died defending a city from the forces of darkness. And was their valiant sacrifice rewarded? No. Dalaron fell and the corpses of your parents probably march with the lich-king's army even as we speak."
Brogan swallowed. He had always hoped his parents had somehow survived the destruction of Dalaron, and had never considered that they might have been reanimated to become Arthas's undead slaves.
The elder warlock went on. "And you. You are obviously of noble birth, and well educated. Did your classmates or instructors give you the respect that you deserved? Were you allowed to sit with the other noble born children? No. And weren't the girls of your school attracted to stronger, less intelligent, less worthy men? Was that fair? Of course not."
Brogan removed his hands from the bracer and placed them in his lap, lest he cause more damage. The dream had come again last night. A dream of Myrista lavishing him with praise and worship. He was convinced that it was the demon's subtle manipulation, but that didn't make it any less real.
"And then there was the voice. Her voice. It started as a quite whispering in the night. She promised you power, and glory, and riches. You knew she was evil, but you listened to her anyway. But why did she pick you? Why not someone else? Why did it have to be you who was forced to choose between death and taking the Pact. Like it's even really a choice."
"How... how do you know all this?"
"Because I was very much like you once. I too lived in Northshire. I had a wife, whom I loved more than all the world. When she was taken from me, I felt as though my beating heart was wrenched from my chest and cast into a cast abyss, never again to see the light of day. The emptiness and pain stretched on and on for years, and it would never end. Not while I was alive. That's when I heard her voice. The voice of Balba'yorn." Necrodamus looked down at Brogan then, and the boy felt the tiny amount of hope he had slip away.
"But you already know this story don't you, Brogan Maguskhaer?"
The boy swallowed hard. "Sir... My lord... I don't know what you're..."
"Stop." There was no magical enchantment in the command, just the raw force of his voice. But Brogan stopped speaking instantly.
"There are many secrets in the Coven young man, but none in this room. None between you and I. I know who you are just as you know who I am. It would seem to the untrained eye that fate's cruel barb has twisted again in both our lives. But this is not true. You and I have been brought together, not by chance, but by design."
Brogan's mind was reeling in confusion. "It was the demon. She had planned for us to meet?"
"Correct. Do you know why the warlock sanctum is located here, under the mage district of Stormwind? There is a conjunction of ley lines above us which allows the wizards of the Kirin Tor maintain their teleportation portals. A side effect of this is that mystic energies are too raw and unpredictable to allow most scrying magics. Demons cannot read our minds or penetrate our hearts here. In this place, one's dreams are one's own."
Internally Brogan let out a sigh of relief in regards to how his previous night's vision had been of natural creation, not artificial.
"For nearly two years, I have lived in this place." Necrodamus looked at the walls with undisguised hatred. "I have been trapped. A self-imposed prisoner. Waiting for her to give up. Waiting, and planning how to beat her. I needed her to move on. To find some other poor fool to seduce with her lies. And I was right. She found you. Someone she could empower. Someone who could go where she could not. And so she sent you here. To find me."
"Balba'yorn wanted me to kill you?" Brogan asked.
"Don't be foolish. You have nowhere near my power, and she knows that. You were merely supposed to flush me out into the open. She gave you my birth name, and cause to fear me. Then she sent you here so that you could give my name to the other warlocks. Men like Gakin, who would stop at nothing to kill me and seize control of the Coven. Rest assured if he had learned we were both from Northshire, he would have set your soul on fire to learn my name. Pray that you give him no reason to suspect you know it."
"Why does she want you dead?"
"Because I know her secret. Her real secret. Her one true weakness. I know Balba'yorn's true name."
"By the Light." Brogan muttered. With that you could..."
"Summon her? Control her? Yes. I may even be able to banish her from Azeroth permanently. But then she would be free to return to the Burning Legion. No, that is not what she's afraid of. She fears one thing, and one thing only."
"And what is that?"
Necrodamus smiled and reached beneath his cloak. He pulled out a large satchel made of black mooncloth, and encrusted with silver sigils and runes. He chanted counterspells to disable the wards before opening it. Then he reached inside and removed it's contents.
"Lothar's blood!" Brogan gasped.
Necrodamas held in his hand the book. Mog No'ku gi Maguna, the book of worlds. Balba'yorn's prison.
"That's impossible!" Brogan blinked in disbelief. "How did you... I thought they elves had it."
"And they were more than happy to be rid of it. Especially to a kind human wizard who was studying how to destroy such things. But don't be afraid. Here, beneath the lay lines, the demoness has no power. Now it is but a simple matter to repair the bindings and seal her away forever. And then we will be free of her Brogan. Forever."
"It sounds so easy."
"Nothing worth doing is ever easy." Crownguard muttered. Before Brogan could stop him Necrodamus removed the clasps and threw open the cover. Brogan yelled and almost grabbed the wizard's arm, but it was too late. To his surprise however, nothing happened. The boy lay open on the table, very normal and ordinary.
"I told you she was powerless here. But as you can see, we have a problem."
The book was open to the center where maybe a dozen pages were missing. They had been torn out."
"Do you know what happened here?" Necrodamus asked.
"It was just after I took the pact. I was enraged, and I started burning the pages when they turned to ash, they formed an arm. A woman's arm."
"This explains much. Where did this happen?"
"At the Defias hideout, in eastern Northshire." Brogan answered. "But the building was destroyed, burned to the ground."
"Fire cannot harm her. She is most likely buried in the rubble." Necrodamus's eyes narrowed and he scratched his narrow goatee. He mused like that for several seconds and then began to smile. His grin grew until it split his face and the warlock leader began to chuckle. "Oh yes. Oh yes indeed, this will work quite nicely. I will send Surena to retrieve the arm. That should set events in motion nicely."
"Surena? That girl who was here earlier? Isn't she a little young?"
Necrodamus cast Brogan a sidelong glance. "You don't trust her?"
"I don't know her. But Gakin said never trust any warlock, himself included."
"You should have listened to him." Necrodamus said as he reached across and picked up the bracers Brogan had been working on. Something in his voice chilled the young warlock's blood and set all of his senses on edge. "Surena, like most warlocks, desires power. She is also short-sighted, and prone to take the first path presented to her without thinking. Even now she is almost certainly seducing Gakin, and attempting to convince him that the two of them should conspire together to overthrow me."
Brogan started at Necrodamus in disbelief. "You know they're going to betray you? So you're going to stop it? You're going to do something... to kill them perhaps."
"On the contrary." Necrodamus closed the book and returned it to the bag. "I am counting on their betrayal. It is critical to my plan, just as you revealing the location of the missing pages was." The warlock leader placed the satchel back beneath his cloak and started moving towards the door.
"Wait! What plan?" Brogan's cold feeling grew stronger. "You said you were going to trap Balba'yorn forever."
"And you were warned never to trust a warlock. Why would I seal away such obvious power?"
"What are you going to do?"
Necrodamus laughed as he reached the door. With a start, Brogan remembered that it was the only doorway out of the room. "Honestly Brogan, do you think I am a petty villain from a Dwarven fireside fable? Besides, if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise."
Brogan held out his hands. Instantly fire began burning in his palms.
"I would conserve my strength if I were you." Necrodamus casually threw the bracers into the open area at the center of the room. As they landed, they started glowing and a faint hissing could be heard. The room's torches began to flicker wildly, and the light danced and flowed across all of the surfaces. The shadows around the room began to stretch and crawl, twisting like a fog and pooling around the bracers. The darkness deepened into an impenetrable mass, and from it's core two yellow points of light appeared. The bracers rose, the shadows themselves forming wicked claws attached to a shifting, indistinct body.
"Your voidwalker is hungry, Brogan. I don't suppose you have any souls to feed it..." Necrodamus stepped out of the doorway and turned to face the young warlock. The two men gazed at each other for a moment, and then Necrodamus slammed the door shut.
The man once known as Nicholas Crownguard stood outside the door for a moment, listening to the sounds of combat erupting. He turned and walked away without looking back and without caring about the outcome. His mind was already working forward, measuring possible scenarios against one another. Several seconds later he encountered Gakin and Surena running towards the door. They both stopped and stared at Necrodamus in clear confusion.
"Farlsworth is fighting the voidwalker? But he needs more training? He wasn't even close to ready."
"I am afraid I found him unsuitable to join the coven Gakin. The boy is strong, but unpredictable. He's not interested in power, or glory, or riches. But he might still prove useful. If he survives, make sure he escapes to find the city guard. That should lead the demon hunter directly to us, just as I had planned. Surena, come with me. I need you to go to Northshire, and bring the last of the pieces to my chessboard."