Thrall - Christie Golden [30]
Thrall stared at him. “What?”
“If you had never escaped from Durnholde, the world would not be as it is today. You would never have rebuilt the Horde or freed your people from the internment camps. And so you would not have been able to bring aid against the Burning Legion when the demons came. Azeroth could have been destroyed.”
Desharin looked at Thrall with a new respect. “Well, no wonder the Aspect thought you important,” he said.
Thrall was shaking his head. “Such knowledge might make me think more of myself, but instead … I feel humbled. Please … thank those who fought to preserve that timeway. To help me. And …” His voice trailed off. “If they see Taretha, tell them to be gentle to her.”
“If they see Taretha, and all goes well, you will get to part with her as you once did,” said Chronalis.
They went deeper into the mountain. Thrall felt as if he had imbibed a draft intending to send him on a vision quest, yet his mind was clear. To one side, a house looked as if it had materialized partway inside the stone of the cavern. Another house loomed at an awkward angle, the sky above it—sky? In a mountain?—purple and magenta and ribboned with strange energy. Columns jutted upward, supporting nothing; trees flourished in a place with no water or sunlight. They passed a graveyard on one side. Thrall wondered, but did not ask, who was buried there. On another side, he could see strange chunks of floating rocks, varied in shape. Here was a tower of orcish make; over there was a ship.
Too, there were beings that he realized were most likely bronze dragons. There were several children and adults of nearly all races, six-limbed golden-scaled dragonspawn patrolling against possible intruders, and of course, bronze dragons in their natural form flapping silently above them.
At one point Thrall looked over his shoulder and realized that after a few moments the dragons’ pawprints had vanished.
“This is no ordinary sand,” said Chronalis. “Your presence here does not leave a trace. Look there.”
And Thrall’s eyes widened.
It hovered in the air before him, a contraption worthy of a goblin or gnomish mind. It was an hourglass, but like none he had ever seen before. Three containers poured sand endlessly down.
And three containers poured sand endlessly up.
Wrapped about all six and their bases was a twining, twisting frame that embraced without touching. Slowly it turned, and the sands of time—for such Thrall now understood them to be—poured up and down.
“This is all so …” He groped for words, could not find them, and simply shook his head in amazement.
Desharin came to a stop, and Thrall took this as a cue to slip to the ground. Once he had done so, the green dragon assumed his elven form and placed a gentle hand on Thrall’s shoulder.
“It is difficult for those who are not dragons to grasp,” he said, adding with a grin, “It is difficult even for dragons other than bronzes to grasp. Do not worry. Your task is not to understand the vagaries of the timeways.”
“No,” Thrall said, letting a slight sarcasm creep into his voice. “I just have to find the Timeless One, who does understand the vagaries of the timeways, whom no one else can seem to locate.”
Desharin clapped Thrall on the back. “Exactly,” he said, laughing. Their eyes met and Thrall grinned. He decided he liked this green dragon. After Ysera’s eccentric behavior and the clinical detachment of Chronalis, Desharin seemed very down-to-earth.
“I do not know how you wish to proceed,” Chronalis said.
Thrall looked at Desharin. “I think perhaps some time to settle our minds before we begin would help,” the green dragon said. “Clarity is often found in stillness, and Thrall is likely and rather understandably overwhelmed by all he has just beheld.”
Chronalis dipped his golden head. “As you wish. You may roam wherever you like, but please—the timeways are nothing to enter carelessly. To do so may doom you. Under no circumstances should you enter