Thrall - Christie Golden [48]
It was impaled upon the very spire of Wyrmrest Temple as the swollen red and orange sun set sullenly behind it.
Ysera sank down to the earth, trembling, wanting to tear her eyes away and unable to.
“Deathwing,” she whispered.
She jolted herself back to reality, her mind clearing even as her body still trembled from the vision. She shook her head, whispering, “No, no, no …”
It was a vision, but one she somehow knew was not yet set in stone. One that might yet be changed … but only if one orc changed it.
Thrall, I know not what role you have to play, but I beg of you … please, please, do not fail.
Do not let this world become so very, very silent.
The question was … how did they make the timeway right?
“Tell me everything that happened, starting from when I died,” Thrall said.
“That’s … a lot, but all right,” Taretha replied. “Like I said, Blackmoore threw himself into his goal. He trained and honed his men, and then mercenaries. After the Battle of Blackrock Spire, he didn’t dismantle his own personal military. As soon as the orcs surrendered, he made a secret deal with them—a deal that left the rest of the Alliance horrified. Join with Blackmoore’s private army, turn on King Terenas and the others, slaughter them—and they got to live. Guess what they did?”
Thrall nodded. “Of course they would. All they were doing was still fighting the enemy. And so Terenas fell.”
Taretha nodded. “So did Uther the Lightbringer and Anduin Lothar.”
In Thrall’s timeway, Lothar died fighting Doomhammer at the Battle of Blackrock Spire. “What of Prince Varian?”
“Both Varian and Arthas, Terenas’s son, were too young to fight. They fled to safety and both survived.”
Arthas. The fallen paladin … the Lich King.
“Have there been any strange illnesses in the land? Poisoned grain, plagues?”
Taretha shook her fair head. “No, nothing like that.”
The impact struck Thrall like a blow. This was a world in which Blackmoore lived; that much was true and to be despised. But Taretha lived, too … and so did untold numbers of innocents who would become neither Scourge nor Forsaken.
“Do you know the name Kel’Thuzad?” he asked. Kel’Thuzad, a former member of the ruling council of Dalaran, had sought power in Thrall’s timeline. That lust for power had taken him down dark paths. Paths that had had him experimenting with the lines between life and death. After such a flirtation, it was grimly fitting that Arthas had raised Kel’Thuzad’s body as a lich.
“Oh, yes,” Taretha said, grimacing. “Blackmoore’s chief advisor.”
So Kel’Thuzad had succumbed to the lure of power in this timeway too. Except here it was mortal, political power, not an ancient evil, that had seduced him.
“Antonidas and Dalaran have severed all ties with him,” Taretha continued. “They like to appear impartial, but rumor has it that their allegiance is more with Stormwind than Lordaeron, even though they are physically so close to us.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how accurate that is. I just hear things now and then when I venture into Southshore.”
Dalaran was still here, too, then, with Antonidas still at the head of the magi. The city had not fallen; it had not been relocated to Northrend.
“Where are Arthas and Varian?”
“Varian rules Stormwind. Arthas is with him. They are as close as brothers. Varian was best man at his wedding.”
“To Jaina Proudmoore,” Thrall said quietly.
Taretha nodded. “They have a child, a little boy. Prince Uther.”
There was no plague, no Lich King. Not yet, anyway. Arthas was a married man, and a father. Lordaeron had not been transformed into the Undercity, populated by the undead, but instead was ruled by Blackmoore sitting in a good man’s throne.
“To think of him having so tight a grasp on this world,” he muttered.
“Which makes it all that more peculiar that he has suddenly disappeared,” Taretha said.
“Disappeared?”
“Yes. His advisors have tried to cover it up, of course. They said he’s gone on some mission or other, to roust out more orcs, or kill some dragons, or sign a peace treaty, depending