Thrall - Christie Golden [54]
And then his body fell with a gentle thump onto the cradling embrace of soft sand, and he realized he was once again in the Caverns of Time. He opened his eyes and gazed upon the Timeless One.
But not only upon a single being, however magnificent. On each of those scales, those glittering things that had taken him on so amazing a journey, Thrall saw moments.
His moments.
All the great deeds of Thrall’s life were playing out on the scales of the Timeless One. There, he donned the armor of Orgrim Doomhammer. Here, he fought alongside Cairne Bloodhoof, protecting that great tauren’s village. Over there, he called the elements for the first time; over there, he stood alongside Grom Hellscream. Countless moments, moments that had made a hero, a legend. Moments that had truly changed his world.
“Do you sssee?”
The voice was a deep rumble, deeper than any Thrall had heard from a dragon before. It thrummed along his blood, sang in his soul.
“I—see,” he whispered.
“What … do you sssee?”
“The most important moments of my life,” Thrall said, his eyes darting from one to another. So much, he could hardly take it in. But the moment could hold it, and it did.
“The deedsss that changed the course of hissstory,” agreed Nozdormu. “I hold them all. All the great deedsss, of all beingsss who have lived. But that is not all there is.”
Thrall was enraptured by the scenes, dancing and beautiful, and felt himself yearning to be swept up in them. Gently, with compassion for his yearning, he nonetheless rooted himself on the sand, Thrall-in-the-now, regarding Nozdormu-in-the-now.
He turned his head to regard the dragon’s face. The wisdom in the gleaming, sun-colored eyes was almost unimaginably ancient, and yet oddly youthful. Powerful, beyond Thrall’s comprehension. Beautiful.
“There is more to a life than the great moments, the ones the world sssees,” Nozdormu continued. “You must sssee those for yourself.”
And Thrall did. The discovery of Taretha’s first enthusiastic note, and the glimpse of her waving to him when she was just a girl. The quiet evenings in camps after battles, drinking and laughing and telling stories around a fire. Running as a ghost wolf, working with the elements.
“This strong hand in mine,” he murmured, the memory of Aggra’s brown fingers clasping his.
“It is there that we are receptive, and learn. Where we take in. Glory, battle, great momentsss, are where we give to the world. But we cannot give without receiving. We cannot share what we do not have inside. It is this quiet, the pause between breathsss, that makes us what we truly are. Gives us ssstrength for all our journeys.”
Aggra.
The moments shimmered, ceased, and Thrall was looking at nothing more—or less—than the beautiful golden scales of the minder of time. He realized, too, that he and Nozdormu were not alone in the Caverns. They were surrounded by several silent but happy members of the bronze flight who had come to sit quietly beside them.
Nozdormu looked at each of them, including his son Anachronos, then back to Thrall. “I owe you a debt I do not think I can repay,” Nozdormu said. “You brought me back. I wasss everywhere, and nowhere at once. I had forgotten the Firssst Lessson. I, the Timelesss One.” He made a rumbling noise, part self-deprecating amusement, part annoyance. “One would think that, surrounded by the grainsss of the sssands of time, I would remember the small thingsss more.”
This strong hand in yours.
“I know why you have come,” Nozdormu continued. Thrall suddenly felt sheepish. “Or rather … all the reasons you have come, some of which are not necessarily ssso. Speak, my friend.”
Thrall did, starting with the visit from Ysera, and all that had occurred since then. Nozdormu’s nostrils flared and his great eyes narrowed at the description of the ancients.
“They, too, are keepersss of time, in their own way,” he said, but would not elaborate further.
Thrall continued, speaking of the mysterious assassin