Thrall - Christie Golden [52]
Krasus glanced at Thrall as he spoke, and frowned. The orc looked very unsettled and was making a visible effort to calm himself. “Thrall, what is it?”
Thrall didn’t answer him. He turned instead toward Taretha, putting a huge hand gently on her shoulder. “Tari … you said that Blackmoore defeated Orgrim Doomhammer in single combat.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Did he … take the Doomhammer? Or Orgrim’s armor?”
“The hammer was shattered in combat, or so everyone says,” Taretha said. “And the armor was too big for him.”
Thrall relaxed slightly. He seemed relieved. “Of course it would be. He couldn’t possibly wear it.”
Taretha nodded. “That’s why he only took a few symbolic plates of it. He had them be part of a new set of armor designed especially for him.”
The orc’s hand fell from Taretha’s shoulder, and he stared at her.
“Thrall?” she asked, worried. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
The orc slowly turned his head to regard the spinning miniature Azeroth. For a long moment he didn’t speak.
Finally, he said in a heavy voice, “I know what happened to Blackmoore.”
Taretha and Krasus exchanged glances and waited for Thrall to continue.
“He’s not here because he’s not in this timeway anymore. He escaped. He’s free of it. He doesn’t have to obey its laws any longer. And he’s got a purpose. One thing that’s driving him.”
He turned to face them. “And that one purpose is to kill me.”
ELEVEN
It makes sense,” Krasus mused. “You are able to traverse the timeways. Though you must be very careful. It is easy to be trapped by illusions.”
“I can indeed traverse the timeways,” Thrall agreed. “But I’m not out of my timeway completely. I know because I’ve visited it at various points. Blackmoore is out of his own timeway completely. And that’s because he’s had help. It’s got to be the infinite dragonflight behind this; that’s the only explanation that makes any sense. That’s why the ancients were so troubled. Why their knowledge is flawed now.”
Krasus rubbed his temples. Thrall watched him keenly, only now fully aware of how much he wanted this red dragon mage to give him a solution.
“What would happen if he killed you, Thrall?” Taretha asked, directing the question to both of them.
“My best guess? Disaster,” said Krasus bluntly. “I find it impossible to believe that, in the true timeway, Thrall was meant to die at the hands of a Blackmoore from a completely different timeway. Thrall is a critical component of his timeway’s future. To eliminate him means far too much would unravel. Not only would our timeway fall apart, I believe that all timeways would.”
“And the other way around?” Taretha queried.
“Considering that this timeway is, frankly, something that should never have been—an illusion, as it were—it could potentially restore the balance.” Krasus lifted a hand. “I am not a bronze dragon; I urge you to remember that. I only speak of what sounds logical, based on the little I know.”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Thrall growled. His hands clenched and unclenched. “I’ve got to find Nozdormu and stop this. But I don’t know how.”
He sat back down and put his head in his hands. He was utterly and completely at a loss. He was failing the dragonflights and Ysera, failing Aggra and the Earthen Ring, failing his world. When a small hand dropped on his shoulder and squeezed gently, he covered it with his own. He was failing Taretha, too: dear, ill-treated Taretha, who should not even be alive.
He thought of the glitter of scales, seducing him into trying another timeway, taking another chance. He had found an answer, at least; he knew who was hunting him. And that knowledge had shaken him more badly than he wanted to admit.
“Ysera’s worldview is … different from most,” Krasus said quietly. “Yet it has a truth to it deeper than waking knowledge has. I do not think she would have felt you so vital